Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is projecting a $2.2 billion deficit heading into the 2015-17 budget cycle.
That’s a sizable hole for Walker, who is contemplating a 2016 presidential run, to climb out of as he crafts his budget proposal due out early next year. Achieving a balanced budget will require scaling back program requests, especially if he wants to cut taxes further.
“We will continue to protect Wisconsin taxpayers, provide a good value to those taxpayers, and live within our means,” Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said. “Gov. Walker will introduce a balanced budget early next year focused on growing the economy and moving people from government dependence to true independence.”
The deficit reflects how much departmental budget requests exceed projected revenues. It is included in a summary of biennial budget requests provided by the Department of Administration to Walker as he prepares an executive biennial budget for release in early 2015.
State agencies have asked to spend $37.2 billion in 2015-16, or 6.1 percent more than the current year, and $38.4 billion in 2016-17, or a 3.3 percent increase over the first year of the biennium.
“The numbers put out today show what it would cost to fund everyone’s wish list,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said. “The reality is that’s not going to happen. We will continue to manage the state’s finances by making prudent decisions and doing what’s best for Wisconsin and its taxpayers.”
The deficit amount is nearly 13 times higher than the $171.4 million deficit that was projected for the 2013-15 budget in November 2012. The same report in 2010 prepared by Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration projected a $2.2 billion deficit for the 2011-13 budget, including $1.5 billion in spending that exceeded revenues, about $528 million in lost federal Medicaid funding and a $200 million repayment to a patient compensation fund.
Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, said state families should be concerned about the budget figures.
“The slash-and-burn approach to budgeting over the past four years clearly hasn’t worked,” Shilling said. “Rather than digging a deeper budget hole, we need to invest in education, worker training and economic infrastructure to create jobs and build toward a brighter future.”
Part of the reason for the large deficit in the next biennium is that spending in the current fiscal year is expected to exceed revenues by about $650 million.
The state began this year with a positive general fund balance of $516.9 million but is now projected to end with a negative balance of $132.1 million, not counting a statutorily required $65 million fund balance. That projection assumes a 5 percent increase in revenues for the current fiscal year, though through the first quarter the state is 2.3 percent below projections.
“The challenges of fiscal year 2014-15 are largely a result of adverse federal tax law changes commonly referred to as the federal fiscal cliff, which impacted many states,” Huebsch wrote. “However, through continued prudent management of agency resources, the shortfall noted above will be addressed and the current biennium will end in balance.”
Jon Peacock, director of the Wisconsin Budget Project, said the $2 billion in tax cuts enacted in recent years also share the blame .
“If lawmakers insist on making additional tax cuts, that will require even deeper cuts in the traditional sources of Wisconsin’s strength, such as our public schools and universities,” Peacock said.
The 2015-17 deficit projection is in many ways artificial, said Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. It includes hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending requested by departments that won’t be approved. Requests include nearly $600 million for transportation , nearly $700 million for K-12 schools and more than $760 million to maintain Medicaid service levels.
The figure relies on revenue projections that will change as more economic data becomes available over the coming months. The projection assumes a 2.68 percent increase in revenues in 2016 and a 4.11 percent increase in 2017.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the nonpartisan state budget scorekeeper, won’t release its budget projections until January, Director Bob Lang said.
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"“The slash-and-burn approach to budgeting over the past four years clearly hasn’t worked,” Shilling said. “Rather than digging a deeper budget hole, we need to invest in education, worker training and economic infrastructure to create jobs and build toward a brighter future.”"
Yes,... eliminating the debt hasn't worked at all.
The solution to future forecast of a debt,,,,,, is to spend more?
HAHAHAAHAHAH
Still digging out from the Doyle recession I see. No choice but to cut state employees pay. That's what we do in business. If I don't make a profit, my employees have to tighten their belts.
We are unintimidated by you three time losers.
Just a simple numbers trick. When looking at numebers both sides (dem/rep) can position the numbers in the budget to say whatever they want them to say.
Sorry, Tony!
Walker said he fixed that. Must've lied. Or maybe he was confused about what state he was in. He's been spending most of his time schmoozing out-of-state potential presidential campaign donors.
Tax cuts to Walker's campaign donors produced zero jobs (as evidenced by the fact we are lagging the country and the rest of the Midwest in job creation), but they sure did put us in a budget hole.
Funny thing is, I bet we'll still have plenty of cash for more corporate welfare schemes.
In today's Wisconsin, as long as you pay at the GOP campaign donation window, you can belly up and take your fill at the trough.
Walker, turning Wisconsin into a huge dumpster fire! Thanks for voting him back in sheep!!
Don't worry -Scooter sees a big pot of gold in the state retiree pension fund that will wipe out any deficit, allow for a tax cut, and give him a huge campaign fund contribution. Scheming Scooter has a plan to "borrow" about 1 billion from the fund- watch for it.
I could see that. He took the overwhelming majority of the foreclosure settlement meant for homeowners who were foreclosed on here in Wisconsin (screw those people,..oh wait, they were already screwed once,..what's another time) to help shore up the holes in the budget for the tax giveaways to the well-to-do. Don't forget he also gutted the Earned Income Tax credit from the poor and countless other things that have to be made up with local increases in taxes.
He's simply coming for everyone's money to keep the rich, rich with his irresponsible budgeting.
http://www.jsonline.com/business/walker-van-hollen-chunk-of-mortgage-relief-going-to-state-budget-uj45185-139070349.html
http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/walker-s-budget-slashes-tax-credits-that-aid-poor/article_e25ede58-b707-5876-9735-ecf0aa178e6d.html
I realize it sounds cynical, but I think Gorman is on to something.
What better sound bite to have than to be able to claim to have headed off a ' $2.2 Billion deficit' in Wisconsin. Imagine what I can do for the country !
Remember ; Figures don't lie, but Liars figure.
A. This reflects out of control agency budgets...
B. The fix is to curtail agency budget request...
C. In my time as a state agency head we were instructed to prepare a flat budget request and a 10% reduced budget request...
DPI is +613,000,000 more - all by itself.
Seems an easy fix.
How can this be? Scott Walker just told us 2 weeks ago that the state was running a surplus and that Mary Burke was a liar for saying that Wisconsin was running a deficit. Maybe it is a result of bumping his head on the kitchen cabinet again.
Anyone actually think Walker is going to take personal responsibility or be held accountable for the results of his policies? Do Republicans actually care about what Walker is doing to Wisconsin's economy, or are they so bloated on red meat and zombie economics that they'll keep denying reality just to serve the ego and ambitions of a career politician?
Scooter, I thought busting the public worker unions was supposed solve this. Ya mean it didn't work? Or you were and are....lying? No. Not possible.
I don't know what is more amusing. This anti Walker propaganda piece, or the morons who believe it. There is no deficit until a budget is passed. And there has been no budget proposed, much less passed. But don't let me rain on your parade. Have fun. LOL
Yet this is the same set of numbers (albeit from a different year) used for the $3.6 billion deficit which was spun by Republicans as a crisis.
Exactly! But in Walker's case, he's borrowing money at record levels to balance the books and put our future finances at great harm. Ugh!
Right! Walker's borrowing at 4.88% to 5.26% of revenue, higher than any previous Wisconsin Governor ever has. Typically, they've borrowed at around 3%, and never over 4% of revenue.
Wisconsin's debt has gone up every year under Walker. He's using a shell game of borrowing and deferring Debt obligations off the to the future to hide his increased spending and fiscal irresponsibility. Google "Smoke and Mirrors: Wisconsin's Actual Debt and the fabricated surplus" at the wcmcoop . com website for a better explanation of what he's doing
But they're always in crisis mode. The era of fear marketing. They're coming to take away your guns, your freedoms, your jobs, your security, your religion, public sector taking the food out of the private sector's mouth. Big bad union thugs. And their corner eats it up. But that's to be expected. That's how it's designed.
And there never was a $3.6 billion "deficit" when Walker submitted his first budget. The $3.6 Billion was a figure of monetary requests from every department that they "wanted" to have, and never get, with the additional problem that it was fabricated by Walker's own appointees, so it was inflated to about double of what it actually was.
Here is what Scott Walker had to say about the same projected 2.2 billion dollar structural deficit Wisconsin faced in the 2011-13 biennium:
"We had two years ago the largest structural deficit ever in Wisconsin...and in this budget we wiped that out and put in place structural changes." -Scott Walker, June 21, 2011
Are you suggesting that Scott Walker is a moron for saying that previous projections of a 2.2 billion dollar structural deficit equalled the "largest structural deficit ever in Wisconsin." Are you suggesting that Walker's supporters are morons for believing that his agenda was actually to do something about "wip[ing] that out and put[ting] in structural changes"?
I'm sorry if these facts rain on your partisan parade. Have fun. LOL?
You are all mixed up. A "structual deficit" and a "projected deficit"" are not the same thing. Structual deficit is bills for the current year put off to be paid the following year. This "projected deficit" is the difference between revenues and requests and assumes every request will be funded, but probably won't be.. Taxpayers are on the hook for a "structual defict" (unpaid bills), but not necessariy for a "projected deficit.
The structural deficit can be a result or a projection. It's basically the deficit using GAAP accounting methods whether as a result or a projection. But Walker's been using "Cash Accounting," which is only the money on the bank the day you look at it and doesn't take into account any of Wisconsin's future debt obligation,s not even the over $3 billion in deferred debt payments and new loans Walker took out. he borrowed his way to a surplus that never existed. Google "Smoke and Mirrors: Wisconsin's actual debt and fabricated surplus" at the wcmcoop . com website for a better explanation of what he's doing. .
Lets see cut taxes for the 1% and let every working man and women and their kids suffer....thats it in a nut shell from the 1 % backed lackeys
Wish I could say "unbelievable". The real shame is that less than 1/2 of the state knew this before the election. More than likely there will be worse coming soon to a state near you! The Walker/Republican twist on this will be great comedy though. Yup, it is all Doyle and Obama's fault !
“Rather than digging a deeper budget hole, we need to invest in education, worker training and economic infrastructure to create jobs and build toward a brighter future.”
Anyone want to translate that for me?
Yea! Don't elect people who are only interested in taking care of their donors!
Sure. "Invest in education".
You are welcome.
"State agencies have asked to spend $37.2 billion in 2015-16, or 6.1 percent more than the current year, and $38.4 billion in 2016-17, or a 3.3 percent increase over the first year of the biennium."
Is there politics in play here? If departments know that they are asking for bigger increases than the growth of revenue, why do that? Does this give Scooter the ability to be "the adult in the room" and therefor the only one who can make "the hard choices" when it comes to the budget? Won't that look good on his presidential resume? Or will we just borrow another two billion 'cause heck, Scooter won't be around in two years?
Gorman......................spot on The governor who controls all of the agencies with his non civil service appointments except for DPI tells all agency heads to inflate their budget numbers and then he rides in on his white budget cutting horse and slashes all budgets down to the size they had been and even moves some agency heads out into other cushy state jobs and replaces them with hard nosed rhetoric sounding budget geeks and BINGO the media touts WALKER as a budget cutting fiscal conservative hero and he will be in demand at Tea part functions across the country to expound on the Wisconsin way. Mean while Wisconsin continues its economic free fall with only a low wage economy and ever growing debt via borrowing especially now that our bond rating has gone positive!
Don't worry folks. Fear not, the budget will be balanced. BECAUSE WISCONSIN LAW SAYS IT MUST BE BALANCED EVERY CYCLE. Why don't people get that fact. Do you know why Kansas is in dire straights? Their law say's no deficit spending/borrowing. Walker fixed Wisconsin didn't he. He just used the governorship to climb the ladder to his "calling". You were misled Republican's. How does it feel to be used white males. Go have a beer tonight to celebrate.
Sad, but true.
True that Wisconsin law requires every Governor to "balance the budget," but it allows them to do it by using cash accounting, which is only the balance in the bank the moment you look at it and doesn't take into account any of Wisconsin's future debt obligations. So you can "balance" the budget by deferring the state's current obligations, which Walker did with at least $1.2 billion, or you can "balance" the budget by borrowing, which Walker is doing in the current budget with $2.05 in new loans approved by the GOP legislature. But apparently Scot makes Republicans "feel good," so the corporate media decided not to hurt their feelings by being honest about the actual figures.
wisocnsin deserves what it is getting from these corrupt, mean-spirited,ignorami for voting in walker and his ilk x 3. very unfortunate for those of us with more progressive vision. all that's left for the next 4 yrs is "i told you so". way to go red staters.
It is interesting that the Walker administration says not to be concerned about a budget shortfall in that the agency requests are merely a wish list. Yet typically the governor asks the agencies to submit amounts only for just maintaining existing programs. In 2010 Walker inherited a $1.5 billion deficit but expanded it to $3.6 billion by adding in agency requests. But now he says the agency requests shouldn't be considered by the public as they are only wishes and don't represent the costs of existing services. Budget deficits have been handed to incoming governors since Thompsons 1st term and have become a fact of life unfortunately in Wisconsin government. Doyle was left with a deficit much larger than Walker inherited but during Walker's 1st term and into the most recent election every economic ill was blamed on the Doyle deficit. It would appear that based on budget logic being used presently that Walker did not really inherit a $3.6 billion deficit nor did his policies wipe out such a large budget hole. We are left to contemplate how WALKER EXPENDED $3.6 BILLION IN STATE REVENUE AND CLAIMED A BUDGET SURPLUS BUT NOW BY MOST REPORTS THE STATE IS FACING A $2.2 BILLION DEFICIT. In just a matter of months we have gone from a claimed $563 million surplus before the election to a huge budget hole 3 weeks after the election. It is even more troublesome to learn that the actual Doyle deficit was $1.5 billion not $3.6 billion as claimed by Walker and that deficits had befallen every governor over at least the last decade! This impending deficit is all the more troubling when one considers that Walker borrowed upwards of $2 billion and even failed to pay off existing debt as it came due but instead chose to refinance it.
Walker deferred over $1.2 billion in state debt obligations past the fiscal years in his 2011/13 budget to create the illusion of a surplus then, and is borrowing $2.05 billion in the current 2013/15 budget to cover up the shortfall for the increased debt payments. He effectively shifted over $ 3billion of his debt off to the future for future Governors in the next 30 years to deal with.
How long before they blame this on Doyle?
“Rather than digging a deeper budget hole, we need to invest in education, worker training and economic infrastructure to create jobs and build toward a brighter future.”
-Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling
At least one of our leaders gets it. Unfortunately Walker and friends will do none of it.
Just think. If elected President he could for the country what he has done for Wisconsin.
Perish the thought!!
You look over your home budget and find you will not make ends meet. Boss Walker's solution? Quit your full time job and get a part time job. "When you are not making ends meet - cut revenue."
Well put. Hope the Repubs enjoyed their revenue slashing tax break from Walker. I'm sure Walker will make that back and then some from the working class. I heard something about a sales tax. Smoke and mirrors.
Thanks Gov Walker
Scott Walker's Wisconsin- where Republicans allow guns and cars to kill people and kids get third-world resources for education.
cimment
OK!
Sorry for being out of touch, Just Us, but what does 'cimment' mean?
It was a test print because a spam error was mot allowing comments at Madison.com
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