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It sure looks that way. On Monday, Senate Bill 516, which allows UW-L to spend a total of $664,800 for financial aid, passed the Senate Agriculture and Higher Education Committee.
If the Legislature passes this bill, it won’t be spending one more penny of state money. It will just be reallocating money already approved to help UW-L add students, faculty and staff.
But instead of scheduling the bill for a vote on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Russell Decker, D-Weston, sent the bill to the Joint Finance Committee, which may or may not meet to discuss individual bills.
Even there, politics could be getting in the way. The Senate chairman of Joint Finance,
Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, wants the committee to meet on several bills, including the UW-L bill. But the Assembly co-chairwoman, Rep. Kitty Rhoades, R-Hudson, has been resisting the idea of meeting before the session ends.
Unless Joint Finance acts on the bill or Decker pulls it from the committee and schedules it for a floor vote, the bill will die.
Carrie Lynch, a spokeswoman for Decker, said Tuesday that the bill had a fiscal note, and Decker was required by law to refer it to Joint Finance.
But Bob Lang, director of the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that, “The bill does not have a fiscal note. The law does not require the bill to be referred to the finance committee. What the law requires is that if the bill makes an appropriation, affects revenue or relates to taxation, it must be referred to the finance committee. This bill does not do any of those things.”
So, if referring this bill to Joint Finance, where it could die by the end of this legislative session March 13, was a discretionary act by Decker, why did he do it?
On Wednesday, Lynch said she answered the question Tuesday without being familiar with the bill. Now, she says the reason for referral to Joint Finance is because the bill seeks to use the money in a different way than originally proposed, and “we would typically look at that.”
Other legislators and one legislative staff member offered two other theories:
Lynch called both theories “preposterous.”
But will there be enough time to add another committee to the mix? And why refer this to Joint Finance rather than simply allow for a vote in both houses? If the concern is that legislators approved this one way and now there is a suggested change, why not just let it go to the floor in each house and give everyone a chance to vote?
If Joint Finance doesn’t meet, the additional student financial aid will not be available at UW-L. Then Decker’s staff will blame the whole debacle on Rhoades for not wanting to hold any more meetings.
Meanwhile, Kapanke, Rep. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, and Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma — who actually care about the financial aid issue — are worried about the bill’s status.
Quick action — either by Joint Finance or by Decker — could resolve this. But first we’d have to overcome a lot of politics and inertia.
