Wisconsin will likely have more spending money over the next three years, which could allow Gov. Scott Walker and state legislators to increase funding for education and other state initiatives, according to new estimates released from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau Thursday.
The LFB’s new estimates come after the agency received national tax data from April 2013. The agency predicts the state will collect an additional $215 million in taxes in the 2012-’13 fiscal year and an additional $180 million in the two years after that. They also said the higher predictions resulted mostly from an increased estimate of income tax collection nationwide.
State Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, who also co-chairs the Joint Finance Committee, which is charged with detailing expenditures and funding allocations in the state budget, recommended the money be used for increased education. Nygren and the other JFC members held four official hearings on Walker’s most recent biennial budget over recent months to gauge the public’s opinion on state funding in the budget.
A lack of funding for K-12 education was one of the main concerns for people speaking at the hearings.
“[Representatives on the JFC] would like to increase funding by $100 per pupil,” Nygren said in a statement. “We have listened to the citizens that spoke out during public hearings throughout Wisconsin and to our colleagues.”
Walker agreed in part with Nygren, but he also said in a statement he would look to other potential funding areas in the state.
“The surplus and increased revenue projections should be invested in aid for our schools, lowering income taxes for middle-class families, holding the line on property taxes, and building our rainy day fund,” Walker said in the statement.
Other legislators, such as state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, used the LFB’s release as an opportunity to praise the work Republican legislators have been doing in the state legislature.
“These latest projections from the LFB, especially the income tax collection numbers, are proof our reforms are working and people are going back to work in Wisconsin,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “We’ve kept our promise to not raise taxes and cut spending and now we are reaping the benefits.”
However, state Republicans’ history of cutting spending has sometimes drawn criticism from Democratic legislators who feel some of the funding, such as that to higher education during the last budget cycle, would have been better off left alone.
Both minority leaders in the legislature, state Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, and state Rep. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said in statements the revenue surplus would allow Republican legislators to reverse the “damage” they had done with cuts to education in the past budget cycle.
“Today’s revenue estimate increase must be used to restore a portion of the $1.6 billion cut from our neighborhood, public schools in the last budget. While the additional $500 million only covers a portion of the largest cut to our public schools in Wisconsin’s history, it’s a significant improvement over the $0 increase per student that Governor Walker’s budget proposed,” Larson said in a statement.
