Zac Schultz:
Republicans in control of the legislature took their first action on the state budget this week, and they voted to strip out more than 600 items from Governor Tony Evers proposed budget, essentially taking the budget back to square one. Deliberations over the next two months will determine the state budget for the next two years. “Here & Now” reporter Steven Potter sat down with Joint Finance co-chair and State Representative Mark Born to talk about how Republicans plan to approach this process.

Steven Potter:
What are the Republican priorities for the next two-year state budget?

Mark Born:
I think that they will be similar to what you’ve seen in the last couple of budgets, and that means that there needs to be tax reform, and there needs to be investment in key priorities. And those key priorities are things that we hear about in our districts every day. And I don’t think most of them are a surprise to folks. It’s investing in the future in education. It’s healthcare. It’s roads, especially local roads. Things like that. And but — key to part of that too is the tax reform package. It has to work together. It’s not just about spending on things. It’s about creating the proper environment in Wisconsin for families and businesses to succeed. And some of that’s investment in key things like education and some of that’s things like tax reform to make sure that we’re competitive in the Midwest and in a global economy with being able to support your family and run a business here in Wisconsin.

Steven Potter:
Of course there are competing priorities between Democratic Governor Tony Evers and Republican leadership. But where might be the compromise in this state budget?

Mark Born:
You look at historically, we’ve done some great compromises in education in the last budget for both public education and vouchers to have options for parents and students. We made great strides in shared revenue, investing in local communities, especially in public safety in the last budget. We were able to keep the Milwaukee Brewers in Wisconsin for a long time with a good compromise there. So I’m hopeful that there will be opportunities for that in this budget. I think that the Corrections is an area that really needs some work. I think that’s one thing in the governor’s budget that can maybe be ripe for compromise. But, you know, we’re starting discussions here a few weeks ago with the governor on tax reform. I’m hopeful we can find some common ground there because, like I said, it’s an important part of an overall budget.

Steven Potter:
You’ve been traveling the state with your other committee members, listening to Wisconsin residents about what they feel is important to have in the state budget. What did you learn at those sessions?

Mark Born:
Yeah, I think we heard some of those common themes that I mentioned some of them earlier: education, infrastructure like roads, health care. This time we had a little bit more of discussion of federal issues because that was kind of top of mind for folks with changes in Washington, D.C. so that was maybe a little bit of a different flavor that we’ve had in past public hearings. There’s always a few regional things, but most of it’s the steady themes and it’s issues that aren’t really a surprise to folks. It’s the stuff that everyone’s talking about.

Steven Potter:
We’ve seen federal cuts impact a number of state organizations, and there’s also cuts to research and threats to cut programs like Head Start and Medicaid, among other programs. Does the state have an obligation to backfill those programs where the federal government has cut or reduced or eliminated programs?

Mark Born:
I think there are some things that can be discussed if there are priorities for Wisconsin that used to be paid for in other ways, you know, should Wisconsin prioritize that? But one of the things I think that’s most important is, unlike the feds, we don’t print money. We have to have a balanced budget. And so there’s no way that the state government could ever fill every federal cut that could be made. The budgets are just not comparable. Instead, we will look at everything case by case. And if there are things that the state needs to prioritize differently because of adjustments in the federal government, we’ll do that. We’ve always done that. We did that over a year ago now when under the previous administration, changes were made to VOCA funding for victims of crime. And on our last day of session, we put some more money into that program to help make sure that domestic violence shelters and things like that could get through to the next budget cycle, and we could talk more about that. And so it’s not unusual for us to have to look at changes at the federal level. We’ll do the same, but there should be no expectation that the state will just fill voids. That’s not realistic. That’s not how the math could possibly work for a state budget.

Steven Potter:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently affirmed Governor Evers’ partial veto when it comes to school levy increases. Does the state intend to fund those increases, or will it leave it up to the school boards and the local municipalities to fund those increases?

Mark Born:
And that’s going to be part of the budget discussion. But I certainly think this is a good example of, you know, the unintended consequences, maybe, of the governor being cute with his line-item veto, and now he’s forced funding and tax increases on communities in Wisconsin for 400 years. And it’s muddied the waters in education discussions and makes that part of the budget a little more difficult. But I certainly don’t think it’s our job to try to fix his mistakes. I think that in some ways, he’s going to have to live with that.

Steven Potter:
There’s also the state surplus which stands at more than $4 billion now. How does that surplus affect how you write the budget this year?

Mark Born:
It certainly plays a role but the important part of that is, is that’s more like your savings account, right? That’s one time money. It’s not something that we want to build a budget that spends into the future on because at some point that savings account would be empty then and we’d run out of money, and it wouldn’t be a smart way to budget. But it is a great way to do one-time investments like infrastructure things. So we should be able to do some capital budget things, some road things, maybe even fill some voids in the federal funding to see what the future looks like and balance that with some good tax reform so we can have a good budget for the whole state of Wisconsin.