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The budget bill cleared the Republican-controlled Assembly on Wednesday, the day after it passed the Democratic-led Senate.
Doyle is expected to issue his vetoes within days. He’s already said he’s unhappy with major parts of the plan, including a $125 million delay in school aid payments and a $209 million refinancing of tobacco bonds.
The plan that passed the Legislature also takes back $22 million set aside to comply with a federal law to make driver’s licenses more secure, taps $97 from reserves, and imposes $15 million more in taxes on some businesses.
Doyle has said he would prefer to take more money from the state’s transportation fund, to be replaced with additional borrowing, to help balance the budget. He also proposed $111 million in cuts to state spending while the plan that passed had just $69 million.
The Assembly passed the budget 51-46, with just one vote more than the 50 needed. A roll call vote was not immediately available due to a technical glitch resulting in the vote not being recorded properly. Legislative leaders and staff of the clerk’s office were examining an image taken from the WisconsinEye television broadcast of the vote board to recreate the tally and record it in a roll call format.
In the Senate, the vote ran along party lines except for one Democrat who joined Republicans opposed to it.
The budget plan was attacked by lawmakers on both sides in the Assembly.
“We need to start over,” said Rep. Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa. “We need to get serious and we need to address our fiscal problems right now.”
Vukmir said she hoped Doyle would veto the entire bill.
Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, also took issue with the proposal, especially a plan to refinance and sell tobacco bonds to get $209 million. All the deal does is push off the state’s financial problems into the future, he said.
Even those who put the deal together said it had problems, but they defended it as the best agreement they could reach.
“Frankly, if any of these were good ideas, we wold have done them already,” said Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem. “All of us would prefer changes.”
Lawmakers missed opportunities to make the deal better by imposing a new tax on hospitals to generate more federal money or paying for a new commuter rail line connecting Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee, said Minority Leader Jim Kreuser, D-Kenosha.
The budget shortfall is blamed primarily on a faltering economy. Even with the changes being made under the bill, state government is projected to be $1.7 billion short of meeting its expenses by July 1, 2011.
That problem will have to be fixed in the next budget that Doyle releases in February.
