Budget update - it's mostly dumb and petty. But occasionally interesting

Here are a few catchups from recent budget events and other Capitol shenanigans.

First, file this one under "I told you so."

The memo was requested by @JonErpenbach, a Democrat on the budget committee:

“Unless Republicans properly fund our schools, all 421 school districts in Wisconsin will lose out on a combined $2.3 billion. No more excuses, no more games."

— Scott Bauer (@sbauerAP) June 9, 2021

That's because the failure of WisGOPs on Joint Finance to adequately fund K-12 education last week not only endangers the stimulus funds from President Biden's American Rescue Plan, but it also is needed from December's mini-stimulus that was signed by President Trump. Which is what I was telling you 3 weeks ago.

Of course, we didn't know that we had $5.9 billion in state funds to play with at the time, so I would think the WisGOPs could find another $450 million or so to get the $2.3 billion in stimulus funds. You know, if they actually care about taking advantage of a once-in-a-generation chance to repair the damage done by a decade of defunding public education, and possibly even allow for a funding reform where property taxes don't have to pay for so much of our public schools. We'll see if WisGOP actually wants this state to get better, or if they've gone all in for this "strategy" for 2022.

Moving onto transportation, the WisGOPs used some of those extra funds to help fix our roads, and may have inadvertently come up with a new method of funding WisDOT. Take a look at this item from the mega-part transportation bill that passed Finance on Tuesday.

2.One-Time General Fund Transfer (GPR Transfer) (LFB Summary, Page 563 Item #2). Increase the GPR transfer to the transportation fund from 0.25% of general fund tax collections to 1% of general fund tax collections in 2021-22 on a one-time basis. Increase the estimated 2021-22 GPR transfer by $147,079,500 GPR Transfer, from $49,026,500 (SEG-REV) to $196,106,000 (SEG-REV).

3. Ongoing General Fund Transfer (GPR Transfer) (LFB Summary, Page 563 Item #2). Increase the GPR transfer to the transportation fund from 0.25% of general fund tax collections to 0.5% of general fund tax collections starting in 2022-23 on an ongoing basis. Increase the estimated 2022-23 GPR transfer by $51,207,000 in 2022-23, from $51,207,000 (SEG-REV) to $102,414,000 (SEG-REV).

That's on top of an additional $7.44 million that already was going to be sent over under the current 0.25% total, after the huge jump in projected revenues that the Legislative Fiscal Bureau revealed earlier this week.

Put it together, and the total transfer is $205.7 million, which might give a blueprint as a way to reform how we pay for transportation in the state. The down side is that if we're using $200 mil of regular tax dollars to pay for WisDOT items, that's $200 mil that's not going for health care or schools or other needs. Which might be a long-term plan, even if the Republicans didn't intend it that way.

The WisGOPs also used the transferred revenue to reduce the level of borrowing for highway rehab that Governor Evers had in the budget that was sent in back in February - a time when we thought there would be a lot fewer dollars available than we have today. There also was slightly more money put in for rehab in year 1 of the budget, but slightly less for year 2.

The Major projects are basically the same as the Evers budget (both in SE Wisconsin and in the rest of the state), with the JFC motion using around $20.8 million of existing borrowing instead of new bonds. The local aids for roads also seems to be in line with what Evers wants, except JFC added a $100 million grant program for next year where WisDOT would give out funds for various projects (not surprisingly, rural towns and counties get a disproportionate amount of this money).

But the WisGOP move that drew fire from Dems and others was made on another WisDOT function that targeted the two largest cities in the state.

Republicans said halving state funding for transit in Milwaukee & Madison was in order because they are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid because of the pandemic.

They did not cut transit programs in other cities that are receiving additional federal aid.

— Patrick Marley (@patrickdmarley) June 9, 2021

Thosse cuts are for Calendar Year 2022, with $32.7 million being taken from the Milwaukee County Transit System, and $8.6 million being taken from Madison Metro. Although to be fair, Madison and Milwaukee are slated to get a lot more stimulus aid for their systems that all other Wisconsin systems.

(Side note, there is also $1.66 million that will go to transit systems in communities that aren't in any of these urbanized areas).

But it's also worth remembering that the transit funds are intended to make up for all of the losses of revenue from riders that these systems had to take on in 2020 and beyond, as the COVID World lessened the need for people to use buses to commute to work or school. And as others note, those other urbanized areas can keep their $25 million+ from the feds, and they don't have to take on any loss of state aid.

The DOT moves show yet again that WisGOPs aren't against more government spending when it helps communities they like. They only become "frugal" when it comes to funding the blue-votiong communities that they don't. And we will likely see more of these types of spending shuffles as the budget deliberations wrap up in Finance over the next 2-3 weeks.