(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s governor says he will be disappointed if there isn’t an agreement on a new state budget by the end of the week, but he has not yet said what it will take to get to that agreement.
Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday told reporters that Senate Republicans are not yet on-board with a new state spending plan.
“It is important for everybody to be involved,” Evers said.” Compromise is what happens when you have similar numbers of Democrats and Republicans.”
The governor said he’s not going to “point fingers” at who is to blame for last week’s budget negotiation breakdown.
Both Evers and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos last week said Senate Republicans need to come back to the table and hammer out an agreement. But the Senate Majority Leader, Devin LeMahieu, said Assembly Republicans need to focus on a responsible state budget.
Evers said he is ready to “get this done,” but he also said he will not sign a budget that doesn’t fully fund his Child Care Counts program.
“It’s necessary for people to understand, Republicans especially, how
important this is for the state of Wisconsin,” Evers said. “Its going to hurt not only kids, but our economy.”
Evers used COVID relief money to pump $630 million into Wisconsin’s child care system during and after the pandemic. But that extra money ran out, and many child care providers said they were having trouble staying open.
The governor asked for another $480 million for Child Care Counts in the new state budget. But Republicans have said they’d rather use state money to help parents afford child care, as opposed to paying child care providers.
Lawmakers are supposed to have a new spending plan to the governor by Monday. If they don’t, Wisconsin’s current state budget will simply rollover until they do.
