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$1 Billion, $2 Billion, $3 Billion Hole
Don’t look for Wisconsin’s next state budget to spend less.
Gov. Tony Evers is set to deliver his budget proposal Tuesday night, and while he is promising $2 billion in tax cuts, the governor is also proposing more than $1 billion in spending increases.
“Doing the right thing for Wisconsin begins by doing what’s best for our kids. So, my pro-kid budget makes the largest investment in Wisconsin’s kids in any budget by any governor in state history,” Evers said in an excerpt from his speech.
The governor has already said he supports the $855 million request from the UW System, and on Friday he also announced a $500 million prison overhaul plan. The governor also wants to spend over $100 million on PFAS clean-up.
Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, sits on the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee. He’s not sure just how much of Evers’ proposals will make it into the final spending plan, but even he said the next state budget will likely be bigger than the current one.
“I think it’s going to be very similar [to the current budget],” Kurtz said Tuesday morning on News Talk 1130 WISN. “We are growing, but one of our biggest goals…we want to give more money back.”
Kurtz said legislative leaders have been clear that they want to return Wisconsin’s $4.3 billion surplus to the taxpayers.
“It’s [the taxpayers’] money. And they spend it the way they should spend it, and not let the governor spend it,” Kurtz said.
The current state budget spends more than $50 billion in the final year of the two-year state budget.
Kurtz said the Joint Committee on Finance will start with that budget, and “we’ll build from that.”
At $50 billion-plus per-year, that puts Wisconsin’s state budget close to Illinois’ state budget. Even though Illinois has twice as many people.
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