Gov. Scott Walker signed Wisconsin’s new, two-year $66 billion budget into law on Sunday after using his veto pen on 50 items. He mostly left intact the budget passed earlier this month, which closely resembled his original plan that dealt with a $3 billion deficit primarily with cuts.
“Our balanced budget makes tough choices while providing a path to recovery and prosperity for our state and our people,” the Republican governor said.
The budget, approved along party lines with GOP backing, represents a 1.8% increase over current spending levels.
The spending plan does not include any general tax increases and it cuts deeply into education, local government, and health care spending. It also strictly limits local property-tax hikes to keep governments from passing along the state cuts.
Democrats countered that local governments and school districts, which will bear the brunt of the cuts, were unfairly targeted in the budget in order to aid businesses.
The budget authorizes $1.36 billion of new general obligation debt and another $695 million of new revenue-backed bonding, including $342 million for transportation and $353 for clean-water projects.
Though the cuts will dramatically bring down the structural deficit to $250 million from $2.5 billion, the plan does rely on one significant one-shot, with the restructuring of $337 million of GO and commercial paper debt service due in fiscal 2012.
The plan projects the state will end the next biennium with a $300 million fund balance.
