With the state’s budget deficit growing and the time to resolve it running down, lawmakers will attempt their own Ironman triathlon next week.

The budget committee is aiming to vote on most of the toughest questions posed by Gov. Jim Doyle’s more than $60 billion budget proposal by the end of May so the full Legislature can take action by its June 30 deadline. That would mean taking on state aid to schools and local governments, Medicaid health care for the poor, road funding, the University of Wisconsin System and a good deal more in just three days.

“That’s the plan,” said committee co-chairman Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison. “We will get done (with the entire budget) by the end of May.”

Work on the budget slowed in recent days as the Legislative Fiscal Bureau said falling tax revenues meant Doyle and lawmakers had $1.65 billion less to use to balance the two-year state budget.

To make up the widening shortfall, Pocan said Friday Doyle could seek cuts in school aid of up to 5 percent and aid to local governments of up to 10 percent.

“That’s where the governor has kind of been putting some warnings out,” Pocan said, who favors smaller cuts. “I think those are a little too extreme.”

At a news conference Friday, Doyle said, “We would certainly like to hold it at five or keep it under 5 percent for schools.”
Mike Birkely, legislative director of Wisconsin Property Taxpayers, called on lawmakers Friday to make sure schools couldn’t increase property taxes to make up for any cuts in state aid. To do that, the state would need to tighten the per pupil revenue caps placed on schools that govern how much they can collect in property taxes and state aid.

Pocan and Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, said the state should consider turning to another source to help make up the shortfall — federally subsidized borrowing.

The stimulus bill, they said, provides that the federal government will cover 35 percent of the interest costs on so-called “Build America” bonds for projects such as road building. That might allow the state to use more bonding and fewer tax dollars for construction and other projects, in turn freeing up that money to plug the deficit.

Doyle called the bonding “a new tool that’s been given to us” and said his administration was looking closely at how such loans could be used.

Rep. Robin Vos, R-Caledonia, said he would support using the bonds to get lower interest rates for existing state loans but not to expand state borrowing, saying that would undermine the state’s long-term financial health.

Vos said jamming so many weighty budget issues into one week would make it difficult for the committee’s Republicans and the public to scrutinize the actions taken by the Democrats.

“If you want something done on time I’m in total agreement, but only if we’re doing it right,” he said.