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JFC Invites Just Six Agencies to Testify on Budget
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | March 25, 2019
From WisPolitics.com:
The Joint Finance Committee has asked the heads of six agencies to testify April 3-4 on the guv’s budget, a significant reduction from the number of cabinet secretaries who typically brief members on the proposal.
In a letter to committee members, Co-chairs Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, and John Nygren, R-Marinette, said they’ve asked to hear from the departments of Public Instruction, Transportation, Health Services, Workforce Development, Corrections and Natural Resources.
The co-chairs are also encouraging the Legislature’s standing committees to invite the other agencies to appear before them for budget briefings.
The six department heads being called before the committee is a departure from past practice. According to information compiled by the co-chairs’ offices, the number of agency heads who have testified on the last seven budgets range from 16 in 2005-07 and 2015-17 to 21 for the 2017-19 budget.
GOP leaders have expressed concern about the $83.4 billion in spending Gov. Tony Evers has proposed and discussed ignoring his proposal and instead building their own budget off current law.
Dem Sen. Jon Erpenbach, a member of JFC, said he worried only calling six secretaries before the committee was a sign Republicans plan to swiftly push aside Evers’ proposal. He said that would set a difficult tone for negotiations to reach a compromise.
“It’s a situation where the governor put a proposal out there, Finance has to look at it line-by-line and every agency matters,” Erpenbach said. “Every agency should be before Finance.”
According to the letter, the co-chairs have asked cabinet secretaries to limit their testimony to 15 minutes. They then plan to grant members up to 10 minutes each for questions, including the time it takes agency representatives to respond.
Rep. Chris Taylor, another Dem JFC member, questioned why the UW System, for example, wasn’t on the list considering its nearly $12.8 billion budget proposal when counting state money, federal aid and other revenue. She called the decision to have standing committees take testimony on some pieces of the budget “strange,” saying Republicans didn’t make such a move while Gov. Scott Walker was in office.
“If they’re important enough to go to standing committees, they should be before the Joint Finance Committee, which handles the budget,” said Taylor, D-Madison.
Read the letter here.
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