Wisconsin finally has a new state budget
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
(AP) - Wisconsin finally has a new state budget, nearly four months late.
Gov. Jim Doyle signed the two-year, $57.2 billion budget Friday morning in Madison, ending the year's last state budget impasse in the nation.
Wisconsin's budget was due July 1, and 118 days later Wisconsin remained the only state without a new spending plan. Current tax and funding levels remained in place during the impasse.
Doyle loosened property tax limits on local governments from 2 percent this year to 3.86 percent, largely because the budget passed so late and governments were already close to completing their budgets.
Support Local News
When breaking news happens, MPR News provides the context you need. Help us meet the significant demands of these newsgathering efforts.
A 2 percent cap in place the past two years expired in January. In 2008, the limit will be 2 percent.
The budget includes a $1 per pack increase in the cigarette tax, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2008. It also includes higher fees for registering and titling a car and obtaining a driver's license.
Doyle vetoed a provision that would have allowed free shots of liquor to be distributed at local grocery stores.
A provision slipped into the budget at the last minute would have allowed up to one and a half ounces of liquor to be handed out for free. Doyle said in his veto message that he strongly objects to that. Free wine and beer samples continue to be legal.
The governor also vetoed a new three-tiered distribution system for wine sold in the state.
Doyle says the new system would have stifled the state's small wineries, perhaps forcing them out of business.
Doyle allowed the state Department of Natural Resources to ask the Legislature for more money to fight chronic wasting disease, which has been discovered in the state's whitetail deer population.
The budget state lawmakers passed cut $2.1 million from the agency's CWD funding, and limited how much money from the state's conservation fund could be used to combat the disease.
The governor says the budget will require state government to become more efficient, but layoffs won't be required.
Doyle said last week there may have to be a partial government shutdown, and layoffs of state workers, if a deal wasn't reached soon.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
