State Senators passed an amended version of the Assembly budget plan Friday, in which they returned all shared-revenue cuts for this year, removed a large portion of the cuts to UW System funding and added a campaign finance reform provision to the bill.
The budget controversy has gone on for the better part of two months, with the Assembly, the Senate and Gov. Scott McCallum all proposing solutions to the state's $1.1 billion budget deficit.
The Republicans have favored cutting UW System funds and shared revenue, the money that the state gives to cities but the Democrats have preferred to use revenues from Wisconsin's tobacco settlement and cuts in Milwaukee's school choice program to balance the budget. Both sides have refused to increase taxes.
The Democrat-sponsored bill, which passed 17-16, will next return to the Assembly, where it is expected to be revised again by the majority-holding Republicans before going to a conference committee between the Assembly and Senate to hash out the differences before sending the bill to the governor for final approval.
Senate President Fred Risser, D-Madison, said the Assembly will review the bill and either concur with, amend or disagree with the Senate version. If the Assembly decides to non-concur, something Risser said he sees as a likely occurence, the bill will go to the conference committee.
\It's not until such time as there is an impasse between the two houses that the conference committee is set up,"" he said. ""I think it's premature to come up with a prediction as to what the conference committee's going to decide.""
Risser added that he thought the Senate version of the bill was superior to the Assembly version.
""The Republicans have already come up with their ideas,"" Risser said. ""They did nothing on campaign finance, they cut the university excessively and they cut shared revenue.""
Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, R-Waukesha, said he disagrees with many points of the Senate plan.
""The Senate decided to keep all of the spending in the budget, not to raise taxes this year and thereby force a massive deficit next year,"" he said. ""They essentially paid for the budget by putting it on the state's credit card, which they maxed out, and then they put the rest on layaway. The Senate Democrats' budget is a guaranteed tax increase next year'after the election.""
He added the Assembly had also sent its own separate campaign-finance reform bill to the Senate, which was not acted on before the end of the normal legislative session.
According to Jensen, the Assembly will spend this week reviewing the changes made to the bill and bring it to conference committee next week.
Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, said that the Democratic changes are worth fighting to keep.
""The university is key to our future as a state, both because it provides opportunity to individuals and also because it will provide the jobs of the future,"" he said. ""The Republicans' draconian cuts to the university were both vindictive and short-sighted.\
