Doyle tells agencies to cut budget requests
11:24 PM 1/07/03
Phil Brinkman State government reporter

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle asked his newly appointed cabinet members to take pencil and eraser - mostly eraser - to budget requests submitted by their Republican predecessors.

The resulting budget should spend less overall in general tax revenue than the state spends now, Doyle said.

"The budget requests we have seen so far have been unacceptable," Doyle said at a news conference on his first full day as governor.

Doyle is asking each department to re-submit budgets amounting to about $1 billion less in the first year of the two-year budget than their predecessors sought under former Republican Gov. Scott McCallum. Those budget requests totaled about $12.3 billion next year alone.

"That means not only we will freeze the overall level of last year's spending, but we will go even lower," Doyle said. "The culture of ever-increasing spending must stop."

It was unclear what impact the smaller budgets might have, although Doyle did not rule out combining some departments. Republicans, who control the Legislature, were generally supportive but withholding judgment until they see details.

Marty Beil, executive director of the 28,000-member Wisconsin State Employees Union, said he wanted to see whether Doyle's mandate allows for substituting other sources of money, including federal funding, for cuts in general purpose revenue.

"There's not a billion dollars of fat in those agencies," Beil said. "They're running pretty slim and trim."

Departments have not been asked to cut a specific percentage or dollar amount, but every department must revise its budget request, Doyle said.

The proposed cuts are aimed at erasing a budget deficit projected at $2.6 billion over the two-year period beginning July 1. Doyle insists the deficit could be as high as $4.3 billion, although that figure assumes zero economic growth over two years while granting state agencies all they've asked to spend.

Some departments likely will be asked to cut more than others, Doyle said. But he said no department should be considered immune, including the University of Wisconsin System, which took a $44 million cut in the last budget.

"We don't have money even to do the things we should do," Doyle said. "We're going to have to be very careful, and the university system certainly is going to be part of this process."

He also pledged the governor's office would "lead the way" by hiring fewer people than the prior administration.

Doyle did not give a deadline for departments to meet his request, although they must be finished well before Feb. 18, when he plans to present his budget to the Legislature.