Assembly passes the budget on a 60-38 vote 

After a more than 24-hour delay and 13 plus hours of debate, the Wisconsin State Assembly passed the State Budget on a 60-38 vote at just after 3:00 this morning.  All Republicans and Independent Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer (I-Manitowoc) voted for it, and all Democrats voted against the budget.  

• Link to final roll call vote  

 The $66 billion budget closes a $3 billion shortfall without relying on tax increases.  The plan does raise spending of state and federal money by $1.1 billion, or 1.8% over two years, but leaves the state with an estimated $300 million surplus in its main account two years at the end of the two-year budget.  

• Ethic Statements:  Under current law, people can have the ethics forms of more than 2,000 public officials emailed to them after requesting them and paying for them. The JFC amendment would require the forms to be picked up at the Government Accountability Board in Madison.  The GOP budget amendment amendment requires returns to current to law, but raises the threshold of business customers who need to be disclosed by public officials from $1,000 a year in sales to $10,000.
• WiscNet: Under the amendment the GOP adopted last night the state will keep up to $40 million in federal money and WiscNet will continue to run for at least two years in the same way it has in the past. Any expansions to the network would have to be approved by the committee.  Plans for expansion are expected to be submitted to the Committee in July.  The state could no longer be involved with WiscNet after July 1, 2013, unless the Joint Finance Committee approved a plan for the network before then.
•  School Choice in Green Bay:  This provision that was added in the Joint Committee on Finance budget, was removed in the Assembly amendment of the budget for lack of support.  Republican lawmakers suggested this be drafted as separate legislation and re-introduced.

A memo from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau outlining all of the changes in the GOP amendment can be found here:  http://wispolitics.com/1006/110615LFBmemo.pdf 

What was not in the budget bill, because of the ruling of the Wisconsin State Supreme Court earlier this week, are the provisions related to collective bargaining from 2011 Wisconsin Act 10.  Those provisions will become law effective when the Act is published by the Secretary of State.  The Secretary of State Doug La Follette said his office will likely "follow our normal procedure" in publishing the collective bargaining changes following the Supreme Court decision.  He said that process wouldn't be finalized until the end of the 10-day statutory limit for doing so. He said his staff will contact the Legislative Reference Bureau and the Wisconsin State Journal about finalizing publication of the law.

Specific to the provisions related to public employee contributions, Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch released the following statement regarding how the Administration will start handling contributions:   

"The Department is moving forward with plans to implement Act 10. In the coming days, I will be working with my staff to set a timeline and develop a plan for increasing state employee pension and health insurance premium contributions.

Based on initial discussions, the soonest that the change could appear on state employee paychecks is late August.

"With regard to local government employees, I will also be setting a timeline for pension contributions. However, the timing of changes to the health insurance premium contributions of local government employees will depend on when existing contracts expire and the status of any current contract negotiations.

"We will not be applying the provisions of Act 10 retroactively."

The budget now goes to the State Senate which is scheduled to begin debate at 10:00 a.m. today.