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• Republicans offer to pass Democrat K-12 funding proposal

By Brady Bautch, RiverTown Staff

In a major concession to Senate Democrats, Assembly Speaker Rep. Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, told the Senate budget negotiating team that GOP will go along with K-12 and shared revenue funding proposals proposed by Gov. Jim Doyle and the Senate.

Huebsch said they were making the move to prevent state property taxpayers with being hit with a $589 million property tax hike which is approximately $200 per property owner.

During Thursday morning's negations, Huebsch told the Democrats that the Assembly will take up the K-12 and shared revenue funding as separate legislation from the budget on Tuesday and pass it onto the Senate.

Huebsch asked Sen. Judy Robson, D-Beloit, Senate majority leader, to act quickly on the funding and pass the plan onto the governor as soon as possible.

"Senator Robson we are passing the budget you sent us," Huebsch said. "Simply pass your budget."

Huebsch argued that a separate K-12 and shared revenue funding package needed to be passed because on Sept. 28 property taxes will increase unless the K-12 funding is approved.

However, Robson, called the proposal a stunt and said that the budget had to be worked out at the conference committee.

"We have to stay at this table and negotiate shared revenue," said Robson.

Hudson Republican Rep. Kitty Rhoades, who co-chairs the Joint Finance Committee, said it would not be realistic to think that the two sides would be able to come together on every aspect of the budget by Sept. 28.

"I'm not going to go home and tell my property tax payers that your tax bill went up because we couldn't agree to the $18 billion in new taxes you (Democrats) guys want," said Rhoades.

Sen. Bob Jauch, D-Poplar, disagreed and said it could be accomplished.

"There's no reason we can't come to agreement on this budget by the 28th," said Jauch.

Huebsch noted that the move to pass separate funding measures instead of a complete budget is not unprecedented.

Bob Lang, director of the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, said that in 1995 the state's budget was passed in two parts. The general budget was passed in June and the transportation budget in November.

According to a spokesman for Rhoades, the Assembly will pass $6 billion in school funding in 2007-08 and $6.3 billion in 2008-09.

This represents an overall increase of approximately $544 million, which is being paid for by revenue generated by economic growth.

They also agreed to pass the shared revenue increases for Superior, Racine, Beloit, and Milwaukee the Senate had previously passed, but were cut in the previous Assembly budget.

However, the GOP did not agree to end the qualified economic offer. The school choice expansion the GOP wants for Racine would still have to be negotiated later.

Earlier in the week Doyle told Associated Press reporters that he would veto a separate K-12 funding bill.

Brady Bautch is the Internet Publisher for the RiverTown Newspaper Group. He can be contacted at internet@rivertowns.net.