(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s new state budget is not going to spend anywhere near what state agencies are hoping for, according to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.
Vos was a guest on UpFront on Milwaukee TV on Sunday, and he said Republican lawmakers will likely say no to the yet-to-be-written budget.
“We’re not going to give $1 billion to the university. I can tell you that’s probably not going to happen,” Vos said. “I think it’s unlikely that we’re going to give Superintendent [Jill] Underly’s [her] request for this massive increase in education spending.”
Vos added that the legislature “just gave the largest increase in a generation like 18 months ago.”
He called Underly’s series of budget requests for everything from millions-more for classroom funding to free lunches for all students “nothing but a political document from her.”
State agencies have spent the past few weeks submitting their budget proposals. And almost all one of them asks for more than the previous budget.
Vos didn’t say he is looking to spend less in the next state budget. But he did, once again, say he is not looking to spend Wisconsin’s nearly $4 billion budget surplus.
“We’re not going to spend that money on growing the size of government,” Vos added.
Last year’s state budget included a new shared revenue agreement that has sent millions of more dollars to local governments across the state.
“We already gave pretty large increases to make sure we kept up with inflation in the last budget,” Vos said.
While Vos is not offering specifics about spending, he is offering specifics about state administration.
“We still have far too many [state] employees that are working from home,” Vos said. “We had that audit that came out over the summer…some employees hadn’t been in the office in months and months. That’s really an embarrassment. So, number one, we need to make sure people are actually doing their job.”
Vos said he expects to see legislation to get state workers back to their state offices.
“I would love to be able to say people have to be back in the office at least three or four days a week,” Vos said. “I think we need to look at how state government functions. And one of the reasons that we have not had the services we want to deliver is because a lot of employees aren’t working or they’re working only from home and not doing it very well with little supervision.”
The new legislature returns to Madison in early January. The Republican-controlled Senate and Assembly will need to have a budget to the governor by July.
