A state grant program that helps start four-year-old kindergarten programs was partially renewed under the two-year budget signed Monday by Gov. Jim Doyle.
The possibility of extra funding could benefit the Baraboo School District, where officials recently estimated they might be facing a $687,000 revenue shortfall next year because of changes made as the budget passed through the legislature. The Baraboo School Board has approved a 4K program, but the district’s plan does not incorporate the expectation of receiving grant money.
Assembly and Senate versions of the budget had separate plans for 4K funding, with the Assembly’s version only leaving a small amount for Madison schools.
But the version hammered out by a conference committee that was signed into law Monday morning includes $3 million in 4K grants for 2009-10 and $1.5 million in 2010-11.
It remains unclear how the final version of the budget might affect the district as a whole because of complex last minute changes to school funding formulas, said District Administrator Crystal Ritzenthaler.
"We’re hoping to get some clarification," she said.
The Department of Public Instruction is slated to provide the district with a state aid snapshot the first week in July, Ritzenthaler said.
Doyle left most of the $62 billion state budget alone before signing it into law Monday.
The Democratic governor cut about $10 million in spending with his 81 vetoes, which touch on some of the more contentious parts of the two-year spending plan. But given that Democrats control the Legislature and worked out the deal in consultation with Doyle’s office, most of the vetoes were relatively minor.
The dollar amount vetoed was just 0.017 percent of the total budget. Democratic lawmakers and Doyle said they did not expect any override votes.
Doyle pushed lawmakers to act quickly so the cuts and tax increases could start soon to address Wisconsin’s projected $6.6 billion budget shortfall, the highest in state history.
Wisconsin also faced losing about $89 million in federal money if the budget wasn’t enacted by Wednesday, the start of the new budget year. Monday’s signing marked the first time since 1977 that a state budget was enacted on time.
Doyle, at a signing ceremony outside his residence along Lake Mendota, touted that the budget contained no general sales, income or payroll tax increases.
He said priorities he laid out when he introduced the budget in February were met, including protecting the middle class and making deeps cuts along with targeted tax and fee increases while protecting education, local services and health care access.
Republicans have assailed the budget for its $2.1 billion in tax and fee increases, calling it an irresponsible plan that will hurt businesses and other taxpayers. They called for deeper cuts to balance the budget but were powerless to stop Democrats who hold majorities in both the state Senate and Assembly.
Assembly Minority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, on Monday called it "a terrible budget riddled with pork projects, job-killing special interest policy items and billions in new spending."
Fitzgerald issued a press release criticizing local Rep. Fred Clark, D-Baraboo, for his yes vote on the budget, saying it will hurt working families by raising taxes and fees by $2.1 billion dollars.
He also said a provision was added to the budget during secret negotiations that made it unlawful for auto insurers to consider where a customer lives when setting rates. The change will cause premiums in low risk areas to skyrocket in order to subsidize drivers in high-risk urban areas, Fitzgerald said.
Clark said Monday he disagrees with Fitzgerald’s conclusion. A provision that requires every driver in the state to be insured will ultimately cause rates to decrease, he said.
Clark also said had the budget not been passed on time, spending would have continued at current levels, which would have driven the state into an even larger fiscal hole. He said a timely passage was important for other reasons as well.
"At the end of the day, as tough as this budget was, we needed to pass this early so that counties and other local governments had time to make decisions," Clark said. "The cost of not passing this budget on time would have been much greater and the impact would have been much worse."
Untouched by Doyle’s vetoes were a new 75-cent tax on cigarettes and a 75-cent monthly fee on all phone users. Other Doyle initiatives, including a higher income tax bracket for households earning more than $300,000 a year and lowered capital gains exemptions from 60 percent to 30 percent, also remained in tact.
Doyle made some changes with his veto power, including:
— Removing a proposed Milwaukee Transit Authority that could have levied up to a 0.65 cent sales tax increase to pay for transportation improvements and other county expenses.
— Lowering the money available each year under a revamped film tax credit program from $1.5 million to $500,000.
— Eliminating money for a new, fourth staff position in the lieutenant governor’s office.
— Doing away with proposed higher increases in how much liability insurance car owners must carry. The minimums would rise next year, but additional hikes in 2011 and 2012 would not occur.
The spending plan includes 6 percent cuts to most state agencies. It will result in all state employees being furloughed for 16 days over the next two years, force about 1,400 to be laid off and rescind 2 percent pay increases.
It does not include a new tax on oil companies that Doyle had proposed, which was removed by the Legislature. Doyle said he still supported the idea, despite questions over how it could be constitutionally implemented.
