The Joint Finance Committee met Wednesday to begin talking about legislation regarding the state’s $1.1 billion budget deficit.

Despite strong support for a legislative pay freeze, the committee voted to not freeze the salary of state employees.

Committee members said they thought the freeze would hit the lowest-paid workers hardest and that it could hurt morale of state employees. Salary decision should be in the hands of each state agency, members accorded.

In addition to barring a pay freeze, committee members approved freezing $10 million in state money that would have been used to increase salaries for state workers making the most money.

Although state agencies can still approve wages for high-paid workers, it would have to come from the budget of the state agency and not state funding.

The committee cut a total of $115.5 million from the governor’s budget bill, including $23.4 million in additional state agency cuts.

The committee began by voting on the governor’s proposed budget changes by endorsing an additional 1 percent cut for the state agencies this year and an additional 1 percent cut in the next fiscal year. The committee also rejected a salary freeze for state employees.

Although all agencies are being asked to make cuts, the state’s public defenders will not be asked to make additional cuts because the office has claimed it is facing serious financial problems.

Gov. Scott McCallum had proposed cutting state agencies’ spending by more than 3 percent for this fiscal year and by 5 percent for the next fiscal year.

The governor’s plan to repair the state’s $1.1 billion deficit would phase out $1 billion in state aid to local governments — shared revenue — by 2004. The plan also seeks to cut $127 million in funding to state agencies.

Rep. John Gard, R-Peshtigo, said the state should prove its commitment to balancing the budget by starting with state spending first.

In his opening comments to the committee, Gard said lawmakers were facing the toughest challenges of their tenure in Legislature.

“Local governments, public schools, people who receive taxpayer funded medical care, [and] university students are all affected by what we do,” Gard said. “Taxpayers across the State of Wisconsin have great expectations that we are going to solve this problem without putting our hands in their pockets any deeper.”

The committee did not approve Gard’s proposal to freeze salaries of state employees next year. The plan would have saved the state $54.6 million in taxpayer’s money, but instead opted for a more limited freeze.

“Trying to find a billion dollars when the economy has slowed and everybody wants to cut someone else is not easy,” Gard to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “State employees have to help with part of the solution. Local governments have to help with part of the solution.”

Members of the Joint Finance Committee also approved temporarily halting $72 million in payments to a state fund that reimburses retired state employees who had leftover sick days. Fund payments would resume after the fiscal year ends, on June 30, 2003.

The committee also approved cutting $5.2 million in cash bonuses to state employees based on the number of years they have worked for the state.