The Wisconsin budget, by the numbers so far

Before the gerrymandered GOP Legislature gets to vote on the budget, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau released their summary of what the budget looks like now, after it has passed the Joint Finance Committee.

What we have isn’t all that much different than what we had when the budget began, except that more money is projected to be carried over (due to the one-time effects of moving money around due to the GOP Tax Scam) and some proposed spending has been cut and/or transferred. In fact, the deficit built into year 2 isn’t much different at all.

2019-21 budget
2019 carryover $691.5 million
2019-20 Ending balance $937.9 million
2020-21 Ending balance $105.3 million

JFC budget
2019 carryover $947.7 million
2019-20 Ending balance $829.5 million
2020-21 Ending balance $122.6 million

The structural picture is a similar story – slightly better than where we were. But not by much.

Evers Budget
2021 carryover $105 million
2021-22 Structural balance -$847 million
2022-23 Structural balance -$1,113 million

JFC budget
2021 carryover $123 million
2021-22 Structural balance -$670 million
2022-23 Structural balance -$737 million

The JFC did cut a decent amount of overall spending in their deliberations, but a lot of that was giving back what the Feds would have covered woth Medicaid expansion. General Purpose Revenue (State tax dollars) didn't end up going down by much at all, especially once you account for a $900 million reduction in state aid to K-12 public education.

Evers Budget
$83.76 billion total
$38.39 billion General Purpose Revenue

JFC budget
$81.67 billion total
$37.70 billion General Purpose Revenue

And in the Transportation Fund, the amounts aren't that different, although how you get there is (Evers wanted to increase the gas tax, GOPs on JFC chose to significantly increase title fees and some registration fees instead).

Evers Budget
2019 carryover $87.06 million
2019-20 State Revenues $2.033 billion
2019-20 State Expenses $2.004 billion

2020-21 State Revenues $2.131 billion
2020-21 State Expenses $2.217 billion

2019-21 Borrowing $338.25 million
2021 Ending Balance $30.64 million


JFC budget
2019 carryover $97.06 million
2019-20 State Revenues $1.994 billion
2019-20 State Expenses $2.035 billion

2020-21 State Revenues $2.059 billion
2020-21 State Expenses $2.062 billion

2019-21 Borrowing $326.25 million
2021 Ending Balance $53.04 million

However, Robbin' Vos is making noise about changing some of these items in the final package when the Assembly votes on the full budget next week, so stay tuned. But those are the numbers as they stand today.