First off, there was a discussion in JFC over how much money the state should pay for its tourism efforts. Not surprisingly, Governor Evers didn't get everything that he wanted from the GOP-controlled Committee, but there might be a bit of a boost in tourism funding at a later point in the upcoming biennium.
The centerpiece of Evers’ plan was a call to put $5 million for the agency’s marketing appropriation while putting in another $186,700 for a new marketing position. He also wanted to add $200,000 over the budget for Tourism’s Native American Tourism budget, which is funded by tribal gaming.I'm kind of on the Republicans' side here, but they're not going to like the reason why.
Instead, Republicans approved placing nearly $1.6 million in general purpose revenue in the committee’s supplemental appropriation that Tourism could come back to seek later.
Republicans said they were hesitant to approve the proposed increase without additional information on how it would be spent. The agency plans to complete in July a new strategic plan to guide its future marketing strategy and didn’t have a defined role for the proposed new position.
The state now spends $12.5 million on tourism promotion, including just more than $1.8 million in GPR. The bulk of the effort is funded by tribal gaming revenues, and it hasn’t increased significantly since hitting $12.3 million in 2011-12.
First of all, Wisconsin tourism rose to a $21.6 billion impact to the state's economy in 2018, led by Milwaukee County ($3.73 billion) and Dane County ($2.24 billion). If things are going in the right direction on tourism anyway, how much extra would we get from a bigger investment into tourism marketing? Especially given that the state will be on full display in 2020 with the Ryder Cup and the Democratic National Convention...and maybe the NBA Finals in a week??
This is the Milwaukee that America needs to see.
Second of all, you know what's a better way to boost tourism? Investing in clean water, conserving natural beauty, and other quality of life improvements. And stopping the "divide and conquer" mentality that has turned a previously fun and kind state into something that doesn't attract outsiders. That's NOT what the Republicans want, and what they won't invest in, but I think using the state's natural beauty and not letting our roads deteriorate more will go a lot further than a couple of million in ads and pamphlets.
The other main topics today were Corrections, and it connected to the discussion of state employee pay in general. Republicans on the JFC ended up adding more even more money than Evers wanted in order to try to attract more workers to the understaffed prisons, and they raised the starting pay above $19 an hour for prison guards.
The move also would push up the corrections guards pay increase to Jan. 1 rather than April 2020. But it wouldn’t apply in 2020-21 to those prison guards who are now receiving the $5-an-hour boost to work at some of the state’s maximum security prisons that are facing staffing shortages.Huh, funny how it took a Democrat to be Governor for the Republicans to actually put up money to deal with the staffing shortages and excessive OT at the prisons. Almost like being attached to Scott Walker's "pose over policy" method of governance made them choose poorly, and makes the costs to make up for the incompetence that much more later on.
The GOP motion also would create one-time bonuses that would be: $250 after 10 years of service; $500 after 15 years; $750 after 20 years; and $1,000 for completing 25 years and every five years after that.
Overall, it would mean $13.1 million more into correction guards salaries than Evers had proposed.
The flip side is that apparently the money for those Corrections raises was taken away from the $64.7 million a year that Evers designated for overtime, a figure that was based on last year's totals. The hope is that the extra staff and extra base pay will reduce the need for all that OT, but if the GOPs are wrong, that's more money that'll have to be found somewhere in the next 2 years.
Other types of state employees will get 2% increases for each of the next 2 years - not exactly lucrative in a time when average hourly wages are rising by 3% right now, but that number might not seem so bad in 2 years, given what I fear the economy will look like. However, another Evers proposal to put in $15 minimum wage for a number of state jobs was shot down, as was his desire to set aside more money to allow other state employee wages to be more responsive to market forces.
Evers has also called for setting a new minimum wage of $15 an hour for executive branch employees other than at the UW System. The move would require an estimated $93,300 in GPR to cover the costs. The committee didn’t approve the provision, but the Legislative Fiscal Bureau said the Evers administration could still take the move if it wanted. It would just have to find money to cover the cost with existing funds.Free market Republicans seem to always draw the line when it comes to paying market rate at the UW and other state jobs. So it goes.
Evers also had called for $12.1 million to fund market wage and parity adjustments. Those were created to address recruitment and retention problems with some state positions because salaries are below market levels. The committee instead kept funding at the current level of $4 million for the two-year period.
I didn't see what they decided to do with the new proposed prison buildings, now that we are apparently going over every building project in JFC after the GOP teabagged Evers' capital budget in the State Building Commission. But it's again interesting to see Republicans meeting Evers halfway (and then some) on prison pay, employee raises and tourism, much like we saw with Workforce Development last week.
I'm not counting on it to continue much longer during this budget debate but it sure tells you that GOPs are feeling the heat to do something beyond what we got in the Walker era.
Without changes to human resources rules at DOA that restrict the ability of current employees to get raises by transferring and with ridiculously limited ways to get re-classified at a higher rate of pay, expect high turnover in hard to fill state agency jobs. Currently the only way for state employees to get a higher rate of pay is to quit and then apply for a job in a higher classification. What is happening is that internal transfers have stopped, reclassifications have stopped, and people leave after 3-5 years - as soon as they are trained.
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