In its second week of deliberations, the state’s joint legislative conference committee reconvened Tuesday but made no compromises on the two proposed budget bills.
The bipartisan committee will meet again today to hash out the differences in the budget-repair bills signed by the two houses.
Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, said legislators engaged in much debate but reached no decision about how to deal with the state’s $1.1 billion budget deficit. He said the debate is largely divided along party lines, especially regarding higher-education fund cuts.
“We offered to come a little closer to [the Senate’s] concessions,” Black said. “We offered to compromise to a $25 million cut in funds to the UW System, but [Republicans] weren’t willing to do that. There is only so much that can be cut from UW before it affects the quality of education.”
Steve Baas, spokesman for Rep. Scott Jensen, R-Waukesha, said the committee did not spend much time discussing cuts in funding to UW System. Baas said the majority of the talk was centered around UW System.
“Most of the discussion was about long-term budget reform and corrections,” Baas said.
Although no compromises have been made, Republicans will push for the policy items to be removed from the budget-repair bill.
“There are more than 100 non-fiscal items in the budget bill, and we would like to see them removed,” Baas said. “This is a budget-repair bill.”
According to a report by Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the Senate and Assembly budget bills protect nearly $500 million in funding for special interest items.
Nearly $50 million in funding for extra items sought by special-interest groups have been added to Gov. Scott McCallum’s budget-deficit plan.
Items that were not changed from the current budget include $292 million in new road projects that were added to the list of new highway construction over the next 10 years; $45 million for a tax credit program for high-tech companies and $6 million in state aid for renovations to the Milwaukee Boston Store.
The conference committee will meet again today to continue talks about the budget repair, but lawmakers say they do not know what will be discussed until the committee meets.
