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Budget Voting Begins Monday
After six public hearings and hours of testimony, the Joint Committee on Finance will start to vote on the governor's proposed budget starting Monday. For the next few months, we will go piece-by-piece through the governor's budget and look for ways to improve it to be more efficient and save money.
It's a long and detailed process and it should be.
Our job is to make sure the hard-earned tax money you send to the state is used wisely. Here's how it will work.
The non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) reviews the governor's plan and prepares detailed papers on every topic. We review these papers and either vote to keep the governor's version, make changes, or eliminate the item entirely.
On Monday, we will be voting on the Judicial Commission, Judicial Council, Circuit Courts, Court of Appeals, Supreme Court, Employment Relations Commission, Division of Gaming, Insurance, Board for People with Developmental Disabilities, Board on Aging and Long-Term Care, and the Environmental Improvement Fund. You can read and review the papers prepared for Monday's meeting by the LFB here.
It is my hope that the Joint Committee on Finance will be done with their work sometime in June. After we are done, the whole plan must pass both the full State Assembly and full State Senate. I expect both houses will also make some changes to the plan.
Once both houses agree to the same budget, it will go to Governor Walker who may veto all of it or parts of it. The Legislature can then override vetoes or try to pass a vetoed item as a bill. Both houses need two-thirds of the members present to override. It's a rare occurrence, but it's an important option to have for checks and balances in government.
Like I said, it's a long and detailed process to pass a budget - and it should be. Please feel free to contact me throughout this process if you have ideas on how to improve our budget.
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