Area Lawmakers Say Walker's Budget a Much-Needed Step in Right Direction

State lawmakers who represent Menomonee Falls and Sussex on Tuesday praised Gov. Scott Walker's state budget plan and said it would be a major step toward getting Wisconsin out of financial trouble.

However, they also said the passage of Walker's budget repair bill is more important than ever, and they urged Senate Democrats to return to Madison to cast their votes on that bill.

“We have a budget plan, which includes the repair bill. We can put Wisconsin’s economic future on the path to prosperity and fiscal sanity,” said Republican state Rep. Dan Knodl.

The budget repair bill, which is in limbo because Senate Democrats are staying away from the Capitol to block on vote on the measure, would take away most collective bargaining rights for public employees and would require them to pay more for pension and insurance costs.

However, school districts that already have teacher contracts in place that don't include those concessions could be in trouble because Walker's budget calls for more than $800 million in cuts in state aid to schools over the next two years.

“The only way they can absorb that is to do layoffs because they are limited in the way they can control expenses,” Knodl said.

Knodl said officials in those districts must do everything in their power to reopen those negotations and cut health care costs to avoid layoffs.

State Rep. Don Pridemore said when Democrats controlled the Assembly he could do little but watch at the state's fiscal situation detoriated.

“I’ve been biting my tongue for the past eight years because I realized we were driving the state further into debt,” he said. 

Pridemore said an 8-year-old child recently thanked him for standing behind Walker's budget and budget repair bill.

“I told her, ‘I did it for you because your generation will have pay for it if we don’t get this done soon,’ ” Pridemore said.

State Rep. Paul Farrow said he was glad that Walker avoided budget gimmicks that have been used in the past.

“We needed to reduce spending at the state level, we needed to quit raiding segregated funds and we needed to get our structural deficit in order,” he said. “It’s a difficult decision that had to be made.”

Farrow said moving some of the transportation funding items around into the general revenue is similar to how other states handle transportation funding.

“I think the governor took a good step forward looking at alternative ways to fund transportation, which is going to be one of the biggest keys we have for infrastructure growth," Farrow said.

State Sen. Rich Zipperer said Walker is addressing "our state’s problems today, instead of once again pushing them off to the future.”

"Walker put forward his budget proposal which will balance the state’s books without raising taxes or fees, and without raiding segregated funds," he said in a statement. "The families and job creators in the fourth most taxed state in the nation simply cannot afford to expand the size of government.”

Legislators also said it was time for the Senate Democrats to get back to work.

“We absolutely need those Senate Democrats to do their job, take care of their responsibility,” Knodl said. “This budget repair bill will pass. We will pass it and we need to put that into law to complement the budget that was turned out today.”