2023-25 State Budget

Update: Assembly Passes Shared Revenue Bill

Read more: Assembly Republicans Release Shared Revenue Proposal and Finance Committee Begins Voting on 2023-25 Budget Motions, Removing Hundreds of Gov. Evers’ Proposals

On May 2, the Joint Committee on Finance started voting on motions to reshape the 2023-25 state budget as originally proposed by Gov. Evers. This process, expected to conclude by mid-June, will result in the final budget bill that will be voted on by the full Legislature. The committee began by approving a motion to remove hundreds of spending proposals and non-fiscal policy items from the budget, effectively resetting spending levels to the 2021-23 baseline (the current budget). The motion, approved by a party-line vote, removed many significant changes to state law proposed by Gov. Evers. The finance committee took similar steps to remove most of Gov. Evers’ proposals from the 2019-21 and 2021-23 budgets.

The previous week, Assembly Republican legislators outlined their proposal for “shared revenue,” state tax revenue that is divided among local governments to support various programs and services. The proposal shares some similarities with Gov. Evers’ executive budget, in particular dedicating one-fifth of the state’s sales tax revenue to fund additional shared revenue payments. However, legislation to implement the shared revenue plan was not well received by Gov. Evers, who promised to veto the bill in its initial form. Legislative leaders have indicated that negotiations are ongoing.

Read more: Fiscal Bureau Issues Budget Analysis; Finance Committee Schedules Agency and Public Hearings

In mid-March, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau released its plain-language summary of Gov. Evers’ executive budget proposal for the 2023-25 fiscal biennium. The document explains, in plain narrative terms along with simple financial tables, how state agencies, programs, and policies currently work and how the budget would affect them. Legislators rely on this document and will typically wait to begin altering or replacing the executive budget until it is released.

Following the release of the analysis, the co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Finance released a joint statement:

The non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s analysis of the Governor’s budget confirms what we have been saying all along. The Governor’s ideas increase spending significantly and dig us into a hole that would make future budgeting difficult. As the legislature writes the state budget, we will start from the current base budget and spend within our means for the next biennium and beyond. Our budget will invest in our state now and for the future, for the good of our whole state.

At the end of March, the Joint Committee on Finance held two days of agency briefings to hear testimony from and ask questions to four of Gov. Evers’ cabinet secretaries:

• March 28: Secs. Craig Thompson (Transportation) and Kevin Carr (Corrections)
• March 30: Secs. Blumenfeld (Administration) and Hereth (Safety and Professional Services)

The committee scheduled four hearings across the state in April for members of the public to address the committee on any budget-related issue:

• April 5: Waukesha County Expo Center
• April 11: UW-Eau Claire, Davies Student Center
• April 12: Wilderness Resort, Glacier Canyon Conference Center
• April 26: Lakeland Union High School

Read more: Capital Budget 2023-25 and “Vision 2030” Highlights and State Building Commission Deadlocks on Gov. Evers’ Capital Budget

Gov. Evers released his 2023-25 capital budget recommendations on February 28. The capital budget includes plans for purchasing, constructing, maintaining, and disposing of state-owned buildings, facilities, and other properties. Gov. Evers proposed spending $3.8 billion on capital projects over the biennium, including nearly $1.8 billion for University of Wisconsin System projects. For comparison, state capital budgets since 2011 have enumerated between $850 million and $1.7 billion worth of capital projects.

The State Building Commission met March 23 (agenda) to review the proposals. At the beginning of the meeting, Republican members moved to forward the governor’s capital budget to the Joint Committee on Finance without any recommendations; this motion failed on a 4-4 vote. The commission then voted on Gov. Evers’ recommendations on an agency-by-agency basis. The commission failed to recommend any of the governor’s proposals, voting 4-4 each time.

This is very similar to what happened during the 2019-21 and 2021-23 capital budget processes. As with the last two budget cycles, Republican legislative leadership and the Joint Committee on Finance will adjust and set the 2023-25 capital budget as they see fit. The commission’s failure to recommend any of the governor’s proposals does not mean that these items have been removed from the capital budget or excluded from the process. Previous capital budgets during Gov. Evers’ tenure ultimately funded many of his requests.