MADISON, Wis. (WSAU) — The state budget is a long process, and it doesn’t usually look the same at the end of the process as it did in the beginning. That’s according to State Senator Jerry Petrowski.
The Republican from Marathon says it starts with the Governor’s proposal, and then it changes again in the Legislature, often more than once. That’s because budgets are built and adjusted using projections of anticipated revenue and spending. “Budgets are set up by projected numbers. It’s not only the projections on revenue coming in, but it’s also projected on the expenses going out, and so this gives us some time to try to blend all of that together and if you have more dollars coming in, I think whether you want to focus on reducing property taxes or whatever, a lot of good things could happen.”
Petrowski says the initial budget given by Governor Scott Walker has big cuts and changes based on the projections he knew then. Since that budget was announced, he and other legislators have been hearing many concerns about several specific issues, such as Senior Care, Family Care, transportation, and the UW System cuts. Petrowski says he hopes the new revenue projections next month help the overall budget picture. “I’m hopeful that we can reduce the cuts that the Governor proposed. It’s still going to be dependent on exactly how good the numbers are coming in the first week in May, and I think the changes to the university budget probably will be taken up as one of the later things that we discuss in the budget.”
Petrowski says the bigger and more controversial things often get dealt with later in the budget process. That’s why he doesn’t see the University of Wisconsin budget cuts getting immediate attention. He is concerned about what that UW budget is going to do to the smaller, two-year campuses like those in Marshfield and Wausau. “When you get to a lot of the two-year schools, there’s not a lot of places that they can cut other than personnel, you know, like when you’re dealing with Madison of course, you have a lot of the research coming in, a lot of those dollars coming in through research, and other activities, and like in UW Marathon County, there’s not that option there.”
The legislature’s Joint Finance Committee is continuing to debate and vote on specific budget items, but Petrowski says people should continue to contact him and other legislators with their concerns, because the budget is far from done.
(Listen to our interview with Jerry Petrowski on our website, here.)
