Notes from the West Wing

By State Representative Garey Bies

Tax Freeze, Senior Care and Sage

            Well, the state legislature is currently in the midst of budget deliberations.  For this edition of Notes from the West Wing, I’d like to clarify a couple of subjects that have been receiving a fair amount of attention by the media.  

First is the notion that the republicans have cut $400 million from public education.  This is some great spin but it’s not right.  The republicans have included in their version of the budget, a freeze on local property taxes.  This change was made because Governor Doyle crafted his budget to force an increase of local property taxes in the amount of $400 million.  The increase was an estimated average of 10% to your property tax bill.  As soon as that news got out, people were calling me saying enough is enough!  Republicans refused to transfer the burden of the state budget deficit to local taxpayers and accomplished this by including the property tax freeze in their version of the budget.  

Next, it was claimed that this tax freeze was a cut to education funding.  A blatant falsehood.  Governor Doyle and others are now parading around the state actually lobbying for a $400 million property tax increase!  Republicans and the democrats both pledged to craft a budget without any tax increases, strange how some change their tune. 

Another topic I want to briefly cover is the state Senior Care program.  The republicans on the Joint Finance Committee (JFC) made the Senior Care program a priority.  To this end, the JFC allocated an increase in General Purpose Revenue funding for the program from $49.9 million to $51.8 million for 2003-2004 and to $72.3 million for 2004-2005.  Total funding for the program will be $114.9 million in 2003-2004 and $158.4 million in 2004-2005.  The program will provide direct assistance to the 86,700 individuals currently participating.  This level of funding fulfills the republicans’ commitment to our senior citizens and makes Wisconsin’s Senior Care program the envy of the nation. 

Also, just a note about SAGE funding.  The republicans did not cut SAGE funding.  Available SAGE funding is at the same level as in the previous budget.  What is different is that we removed the requirement that school districts keep participants in SAGE through the third grade in order to receive reimbursement.  Now, school districts can have participants involved for 1 year, or 2 years and still receive reimbursement.  The republicans maintained the funding for SAGE while making the program more flexible for school districts.  This seems a good thing to me. 

Lastly, I am writing this column on Friday, June 20, 2003.  The Assembly passed the budget at 4:20am this morning on a vote of 58-37. 

As always, if you have questions or comments on this column or any other topic you might see or read in the news, I can be reached by e-mail at Rep.Bies@legis.state.wi.us or by telephone, toll-free at 1-888-482-0001.