Evers vetoes took pork away from GOPs, and evened up the playing field

I wanted to briefly go over Governor Evers' vetoes from the budget. Many of them were previewed in this post, so I won't necessarily repeat those. Instead, I wanted to touch on some themes of the vetoes and where it leaves us.

You can click on Evers' veto message and pick out your favorites. Here are some of mine.

Assistant District Attorney Position Distribution
Section 9210 (1f)
This section provides funding and position authority to increase the authorized FTE assistant district attorney positions by 34.85 FTE GPR positions beginning on October 1, 2019. The section also allocates the positions to 32 different counties.

I am partially vetoing this section because I object to earmarking the positions to certain counties instead of assigning them to where they are most needed. I am directing the Department of Administration to work with the State Prosecutors Office to allocate the positions to counties in a manner that considers need holistically, including staffing needs based on creation or expansion of treatment alternatives and diversion programs, meeting with victims prior to charging, addressing backlogs, and utilizing available workload analyses. I have heard from public safety professionals that an allocation that considers these factors will help reduce the incarceration of nonviolent offenders and enable the district attorneys to take a thoughtful approach to cases, including utilizing diversion programs and other alternatives to incarceration, while maintaining public safety.

This happened in a lot of Evers' vetoes. The GOP would put in some kind of requirements on how to spend money and/or allocate positions, and Evers would say "We'll leave that up to the departments to decide, thanks." In this case, the WisGOPs gave all but 0.15 of the 34.95 positions to areas outside of Milwaukee and Dane counties, and earmarked the extra DAs to GOP-leaning areas.

Evers also vetoed pork projects for GOP areas such as a bridge in Kaukauna in the district of Assembly GOP No. 2 Jim Steineke, he turned down an order to force the DNR to fix the flood damage to state recreational trails in the district of GOP Sen. Howard Marklein, and in directing extra money to Northcentral Technical College to train individuals to work in county jails. In these cases, Evers said that it was better that the money and projects be decided statewide vs tying the hands of agencies into giving extra help to those specific districts.

Pork is bad for you, too.

There were a couple of similar provisions in the budget that were intended to shield rural K-12 school districts represented by GOP legislators from the constraints that still exist, due to the WisGOPs' reduction of Evers' planned boost in funding.

This provision creates a grant program that provides $2,800,000 in fiscal year 2019-20 and $2,500,000 in fiscal year 2020-21 for supplemental per pupil aid. Districts would be eligible for this aid if the district's net per pupil payment from the general school aids appropriation is less than the difference between $1,000 and the per pupil categorical aid payment amount for that year ($679 per pupil in the 2019-20 school year and $704 per pupil in the 2020-21 school year). The payment for an eligible district would be equal to $1,000 less the per pupil categorical aid payment amount for that year less the district's net per pupil payment from the general school aids appropriation, multiplied by the enrollment used to calculate the district's per pupil aid in that year.

I am partially vetoing this provision to expand eligibility for supplemental per pupil aid. I object to creating an appropriation that will have a disequalizing impact on our school finance system by benefitting only a small number of districts. Expanding the eligibility allows all districts to be eligible for aid. I believe that state support should be available to as many districts as possible. Given that the Legislature failed to provide sufficient funding for all school districts, these additional dollars should be allocated to help every student in the state. I am requesting the Department of Public Instruction to distribute this funding to all school districts.....

These sections provide $250,000 in fiscal year 2019-20 in a newly-created biennial appropriation for grants to the Lakeland STAR School and the Lakeland STAR Academy. Specifically, they require the Department of Public Instruction to provide a grant of $83,000 during the biennium to the Minocqua J1 School District for the Lakeland STAR School and a grant of $167,000 during the biennium to the Lakeland UHS School District for the Lakeland STAR Academy. No payments could be made from this appropriation after June 30, 2021. The schools must demonstrate matching funds from private donors prior to receiving the funds and the school districts must provide a report to the Legislature and the State Superintendent.

I am vetoing these sections in their entirety to eliminate the grant program for Lakeland STAR Schools. I object to providing state grants to specific schools when the Legislature has continued to drastically underfund Wisconsin's public school system as a whole. I believe that every kid in Wisconsin should be able to get a great education in a public school regardless of what district they live in, and that state funding decisions should not pick winners and losers among our children. Further, I believe that the federal grant the schools were recently awarded should effectively support students attending Lakeland STAR Schools.

Translation - sorry Sen. Tom Tiffany, but your constituents will deal with the consequences of your actions, too.

The last one I want to bring up involves the DOT. In addition to rejecting a fee cut for 4-5 ton dump trucks and construction vehicles (which gives an extra $7 million to be used on other road needs), there were these vetoes of GOP changes to the budget.

This section requires the Department of Transportation to spend not more than $2,500,000 to study tolling and mileage-based fees. It further requires the department to submit a report on its findings and include its recommendations in the department's next biennial budget request.

I am vetoing this section because I object to the financing of another study that will show, yet again, that the motor fuel tax is the most effective way to approximate a user fee of roadway use and the most cost-effective way to collect revenue. The Legislature has had more than enough evidence and enough time to study the issue. It is time for the Legislature to stop stalling and act to secure a long-term transportation funding solution....

I am partially vetoing section 126 [as it relates to s. 20.395 (2) (fc)] by lining out the amount under s. 20.395 (2) (fc) in fiscal year 2019-20 and writing in a smaller amount that reduces the appropriation by $15,000,000 GPR because I object to the magnitude of general fund dollars being utilized for transportation purposes in this budget. The result of this action is to reduce the amount appropriated in fiscal year 2019-20 under this appropriation from $90,000,000 to $75,000,000. I am also requesting the Department of Administration secretary not to allot these funds. While additional investment in our local transportation needs is welcome, this provision creates yet another one-time subsidy to the transportation fund and illustrates the missed opportunity to provide a sustainable funding solution that would allow this program to be an ongoing investment in local communities without using the general fund to pay for transportation projects.

I am also partially vetoing these sections to remove the limitations placed on the use of the general fund monies because I object to the restrictions that these constraints place on the department to fund grants to the most needed projects throughout the state. Law enforcement and firefighters across Wisconsin have called on the Legislature to address poor road conditions that are putting Wisconsinites' safety at risk. The effect of this partial veto will be to allow the department to prioritize the most critical transit and transportation needs.

All Scottholes should be treated the same.

That last move not only made the extra road funding more equitable, it also added another $15 million in cushion in this budget that helped to pay for the extra money for all K-12 public schools.

This is why I found myself smiling as I read through Evers' veto messages. He was subtly calling out the GOP for what they chose to do while cutting off their pork projects and other one-sided funding to make more areas of the state recognize the gaps and damage that continue. And it opens the door to whack the GOP for their choices for the next 16 months, hopefully get more of them out of office in 2020 (or at least scare them into doing the right thing), and then take a more positive step with the next budget.

If you're Governor Evers, you take the wins when you can in the rigged system that we have in Wisconsin's government, and use the power of the office to turn the public your way. While I think he could have asked for more (such as more funding flexibility for big-city local governments and more changes to the criminal code to lessen the prison population) I think he did a pretty good job of it with this budget. The vetoes improved the document, and the ground work is laid to turn this state back toward progressivism in the future.