How Doyle's vetoes affect the state budget
11:15 PM 7/24/03

Taxes and fees
The budget includes no increase in sales, income or corporate taxes. Most hunting and fishing fees go up by varying amounts. Motor vehicle registration fees go up from $45 a year to $55.

But Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed a Republican plan to severely limit how much local school districts, counties and municipalities could increase their property tax levies.

That plan would have prohibited local governments from raising taxes over the next three years beyond what they collect today. The only exception would be to accommodate growth or development that expands a municipality's tax base, or if residents authorize a larger increase.

The plan also would have tightened existing revenue caps on school districts and limited the increase in technical college property tax levies to 2.6 percent this year.

Doyle said such decisions should be made at the local level and urged local officials to restrain their spending.

Public instruction

The budget maintains existing revenue caps on school districts, but Doyle's veto of the GOP property tax limits means districts won't have to face an additional $400 million cut in spending authority.

The budget increases the state's share of school funding by $189 million over the next two years. Despite the increase, the budget means the state will begin spending less than the two-thirds of school costs it committed to in 1996, dropping to about 63 percent by 2005.

Doyle also vetoed cuts in funding for 4-year-old kindergarten, restoring about $46 million, and changes to the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) class-size reduction initiative.

The GOP budget would have let school districts participating in SAGE choose whether to accept the grants for grades K-3 or limit them to just kindergarten and first grade. Any savings in the program would have been devoted to special education programs.

Doyle said the GOP plan pitted poor students, who would benefit the most under SAGE, against children with disabilities.

The governor also eliminated a proposed expansion of Milwaukee's public school choice program and an increase in teacher licensing fees from $100 to $150.

Higher education

The Legislature agreed to Doyle's original proposal to slash funding for the University of Wisconsin System by $250 million over two years and eliminate 650 positions.

Doyle did veto a few minor changes made by the Legislature, however, including axing a $378,300 grant for UW-Platteville to provide engineering instruction at UW-Rock County. The program was to be a collaboration between the campus and area businesses.

The governor said he objected to having the Legislature direct funding for specific programs at the university, saying such decisions should be up to the Board of Regents.

Shared revenue

The governor accepted the Legislature's proposal to cut shared revenue - the state's billion-dollar-a-year aid program to local governments - by $50 million instead of the $70 million he sought initially.

But he vetoed a proposed change in the formula for distributing the aid aimed at rewarding communities that spend close to the state per-person average for police and fire services. Doyle said the change would have punished high-crime communities.

His veto reduces shared revenue payments at a simple rate of $13 per person. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the cuts will translate into an average reduction in shared revenue payments from this year of 20.3 percent for towns, 10.4 percent for villages and 6.2 percent for cities.

Health care

Doyle vetoed the Legislature's plan to reduce by about $6 million annually the cigarette tax refunds the state pays to American Indian tribes.

Anti-smoking activists supported lowering the refunds, arguing that the state was essentially subsidizing the sale of cheap cigarettes on reservations. But the tribes threatened to start selling cigarettes without charging any taxes if the refund money were cut.

The budget signed by Doyle also increases spending on state-subsidized health insurance programs for the poor to reflect growing enrollments and cost increases.

But many participants in programs such as Medical Assistance, BadgerCare and SeniorCare will have to contribute more in higher deductibles or co-payments.

Environment

Doyle used his veto pen to maintain up to $60 million a year in state borrowing to buy and preserve natural areas for wildlife and recreation. Doyle vetoed the Republican Legislature's attempt to cut the figure to $15 million in the first year and $10 million in the second year of the budget.

Doyle also vetoed language requiring the Department of Natural Resources to sell off up to $20 million of land each year of the budget.

Another Doyle veto maintains state law requiring deer hunters to wear tags on their backs. The tags make it easier for landowners and law enforcement officers to identify deer hunters in the field if they're trespassing or violating other regulations.

Doyle vetoed budget language requiring the DNR to pay for the "Into the Outdoors" public television program

.Transportation

Doyle vetoed $100 million in higher spending on road projects, but none of the cuts should affect south-central Wisconsin including Dane County, administration officials said. The reconstruction of a portion of Highway 151 from Madison to Sun Prairie that had been targeted for delay should now proceed within the next two years, officials said.

Doyle also protected money to start rebuilding the massive Marquette Interchange in Milwaukee, although other projects in southeastern Wisconsin could be put off.

Despite the vetoes, the budget still spends $77 million more on road building than the previous two-year budget.

Prisons

The $1 billion-a-year Corrections budget allows vacant new prisons in New Lisbon and Chippewa Falls to open in April 2004, helping return to Wisconsin about half of the 2,290 prisoners now being held out of state.

The new prisons will add room for 1,400 inmates and create 510 jobs. Doyle aides said prison administrators will decide the fate of 82 prison unit supervisors Republicans had cut from the budget.

Other projects approved to reduce demand for prison space or provide alternatives to incarceration include: