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MADISON - A special committee of
legislative leaders won't convene to work out a state budget deal to
plug a $6.6 billion shortfall until at least Tuesday.
And it may not meet at all.
Delaying the creation of a conference
committee clears the way for Democratic leaders in both the Senate and
Assembly to meet in secret before Tuesday to reach a deal. Lawmakers
are allowed to do so because without the committee being created,
there is no obligation to comply with open meetings law.
Leaders could talk among themselves,
and possibly reach a deal, without ever calling a meeting or allowing
Republicans, who are in the minority, to participate.
The Senate recessed Thursday without
voting to create a conference committee to reach a deal, though the
chamber is scheduled to meet again Tuesday. Senate President Fred
Risser said he expects leaders from the Assembly and Senate to talk
informally between now and then to see whether a conference committee
will be needed.
Any negotiations on reaching a budget
deal now should be done in the open in a conference committee, said
Jay Heck, executive director of government watchdog group Common Cause
in Wisconsin.
"The less public it is, the less
confidence citizens have in the end result," he said. "When
citizens are left in the dark, they think the worst about the
process."
Gov. Jim Doyle's spokesman Lee
Sensenbrenner wouldn't say directly whether the governor's staff would
be meeting with legislative leaders on a budget deal before a
conference committee is called.
"There's always a lot of behind
the scenes preparatory work that goes into things like this,"
Sensenbrenner said.
The $62.2 billion two-year spending
plan passed each house in dramatically different forms. An identical
budget must pass each house before it can go to Doyle, also a
Democrat, for his consideration.
There are major differences between the
two budgets.
The Assembly's version includes a tax
on oil companies that could be passed along to drivers by hiking gas
prices up another 4.4 cents a gallon. The Senate removed the tax.
Doyle wanted to tax oil companies, but only if the companies were
banned from passing along their added costs to customers at the pump.
The Senate increased taxes on capital
gains, removing all exemptions. The Assembly lowered the allowable
exemption from 60 percent to 40 percent, as Doyle wanted.
Dozens of other differences also were
expected to be worked out by the expected conference committee.
Waiting until at least Tuesday to
create the committee wastes time and puts the budget in jeopardy of
not passing before the new fiscal year begins July 1, said Rep. Pedro
Colon, D-Milwaukee.
"I think everybody on this side
wants to get truckin'," he said.
Doyle and legislative leaders have
pushed to pass the budget by July 1 to avoid losing millions of
dollars in federal money and to enact spending cuts and tax and fee
increases that plug the record-high $6.6 billion budget hole.
Even if that committee doesn't meet
until next week, the budget can still be passed on time, said Phil
Walzak, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan, D-Janesville.
Walzak said he didn't know if leaders planned informal talks before
Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for Senate Majority
Leader Russ Decker, D-Weston, did not immediately return a message
seeking comment.
Much of the work on the budget has
already occurred in secret. Assembly Democrats met behind closed doors
for five days to work out changes eventually approved by the full
Assembly during a 12-hour session that ended at 5:30 a.m. Saturday.
Members of the budget-writing Joint
Finance Committee also secretly worked out deals before voting in
public, often late at night. The committee passed the budget around 6
a.m. after an all-night meeting.
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