In his proposed budget, Governor Walker recommends setting aside a portion of education funding to distribute to schools based on their performance. While this proposal might sound attractive on the surface, it will result in significant funding increases for schools with few low-income students, disabled students, or English language learners. Schools with larger percentages of those [...]

Will Lawmakers Use the Increased Revenue in Ways that Reduce the Structural Deficit or Exacerbate It? State legislators working on the 2013-15 budget got some very good news today. A new paper from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates that tax collections in the current fiscal year (which ends on June 30) will be $215 million more than [...]

Budget reserves have been in the news recently, with the legislature sharply rebuking the University of Wisconsin System for maintaining a sizable reserve. The irony is that the state itself has a fiscal cushion that is far too small, according to a new analysis from the Wisconsin Budget Project . In general, budget reserves are a good thing, [...]

For more, go to http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org. It’s clear that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation faces challenges in properly administering the state’s economic development programs. What’s less clear is what, if anything, state policymakers are going to do about that. Numerous problems at WEDC came to light this week, with the publication of a scathing new audit of WEDC. The WEDC is a [...]

Several important aspects of the budget bill’s funding for public assistance programs have received little or no attention: The bill siphons off funding intended for low-income families and uses it for other purposes, such as tax cuts. The proposed budget eliminates the current $84 million balance in federal funds from the block grant known as Temporary Assistance [...]

Legislative Proposals Squeeze Local Governments from Many Directions For more, go to http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org. In Wisconsin and across the country, most government bodies finance the cost of post-retirement health benefits for their former employees on a pay-as-you-go basis. A number of Republicans in the legislature want to change that and begin requiring local governments, including school districts, to [...]

Senate Expected to Level Playing Field for Main Street Businesses Legislation that would allow states to compel internet retailers to collect sales taxes is expected to pass the U.S. Senate in the next couple days . Passage of the Marketplace Fairness Act would be a first step towards leveling the playing field between internet retailers and bricks-and-mortar businesses. [...]

Should We Wear Blue or Sing the Blues to Support Abused and Neglected Children? Governor Walker recently declared April to be Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness Month , and he encouraged all Wisconsin citizens to “Wear Blue to Work” on April 18 to promote awareness of child abuse prevention. I have nothing against this kind of symbolic gesture; [...]

An April 15 memo from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau explains the direct and indirect ways that the Governor’s proposal to expand school vouchers to at least nine new school districts would affect school financing across the state. It includes district–by-district examples of how various scenarios would directly reduce aid for the nine districts, would increase property [...]

Two federal tax credits are responsible for lifting tens of thousands of Wisconsin children out of poverty. Together, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit lift 136,000 Wisconsinites out of poverty, including 71,000 children, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities . The new CBPP report underscores how important [...]

The budget passed by the U.S. House of Representatives includes deep cuts in federal support for important services that state and local governments in Wisconsin provide. Under the proposed budget — sometimes referred to as the “Ryan budget,” after its author Rep. Paul Ryan — state and local governments in Wisconsin would have difficulty maintaining [...]

For more information, go to http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org. The income tax cut proposed for Wisconsin is more likely to hurt, rather than help the state economy, if past history in other states continues to hold true. Critics of the income tax cut have raised a number of concerns about the proposal, including: Half of the benefit of the tax [...]

For more, go to http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org The income tax cut proposed by Governor Walker would cut taxes for many Wisconsinites, but more than three-quarters of a million Wisconsinites would not receive any benefit from the tax cut. Nearly all the people who would not receive a tax cut make less than $30,000. The proposed income tax cut [...]

For more, go to http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.com A smarter approach to criminal justice could reduce Wisconsin’s alarmingly large prison population and save the state millions of dollars. That’s the message brought to the state Capitol today by 11×15 Coalition for Justice , an alliance of faith-based groups. The group takes its name from its goal of reducing the state’s prison [...]

Small Disagreement Suggests Deep Dispute over Role of Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council The Wisconsin State Assembly passed a bill Wednesday to approve a bipartisan idea, but in the process rekindled debate about respect for collective bargaining.  What made the debate interesting and significant is that it could have been avoided by simply passing the version of [...]

For more, go to http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org. The state’s structural deficit is projected to re-open in coming years, thanks largely to the income tax cut proposed by Governor Walker and other recent tax cuts. In 2013, the state’s General Fund is projected to have a structural balance of $146 million , which means that revenues were greater than state spending [...]

For more information, go to http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org. Mining Bill Reduces Resources for Local Governments to Address Impact of Mine Local governments affected by a proposed mine in northern Wisconsin might not have sufficient resources to offset the increased public costs associated with the mine. That’s because the proposed mining bill, which has passed the Joint Finance Committee and [...]

Governor Walker has proposed an income tax cut that would benefit the highest earners the most, and would result in insignificant tax cuts for low-income Wisconsinites. The Governor has been talking about his plans for an income tax cut for several weeks now, but the details of his proposal were revealed just last night, when Walker [...]

For more, go to http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org. Our state is expected to finish the current fiscal year with a balance of about $420 million. There have been scads of ideas for what to do with that money – most of which don’t seem to take into account that a balance isn’t an ongoing revenue stream. Let’s take a [...]

States that follow the economic policy agenda promoted by ALEC risk weakening state economies and harming middle class families. That’s the message of a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities , which outlines American Legislative Exchange Council’s policy recommendations and their negative effects. ALEC is a network of conservative state legislators and lobbyists that [...]