 And I'd like to welcome you all today. I ask you to join me in thanking our sponsor, Prevea, for this wonderful event, the Elks Club, Elks Club for the spine meal and their facility, and then our business advocacy team for the programming that you're about to have today. At this time, could I have all our business advocacy team members raise your hands? If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, feel free to write them on the cards you'll find at your table or reach out to any of those people who raise their hands. And they are the individuals that are on our advocacy team. Today, we are here to learn about the 2015 Wisconsin State Budget. Our speaker is Representative John Nigrant. He is married with three children. He has worked for 18 years in the restaurant industry as a manager, district manager, and director of operations before becoming a co-owner of a restaurant. In 1998, he began his career in financial services and continues his work with the Great Lakes Financial Management Group. Along his way, commitment to community can be mapped by his dedication to the JCs, the Kiwanis, Marionette County Republican Party, the Marionette Recreation Board, and the Marionette Elks Club. Are you feeling really welcomed here with the giant elk on the back wall, right? Good job. Representative Nigrant is currently serving as the people of the North Wisconsin for the fourth term in the State Assembly. Please welcome Representative John Nigrant. I have my staff update that I'm getting older around, I'm actually in my fifth term in the state legislature. Time flies when you're having fun. Thank you, first of all, for the opportunity to be here. Appreciate the invitation. Being in the state legislature, I mean, it was mentioned in my work in JCs, and the mayor and I were talking, commiserating about old JC times, that I was actually the state president, national president of the organization. And especially when I was a state president back in the 90s, loved traveling in the states. And you'd get to towns, oftentimes much littler towns than Sheboygan, that for no other reason would you get there, and then to visit and meet with people or do some great things. But learn how special this state really is. And actually, Sheboygan was one of our regular stops. And it's always good to be back with you. The just a little bit of update where we're at in the process of the budget, which is my main role in the assembly as co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee. We deal with pretty much everything from taxes and revenues to how we're going to spend our dollars in the state. This is my second budget doing that. But the one thing I learned is how few people actually understand the process that we actually go through, which is pretty unique. Joint Finance Committee in Wisconsin is considered one of the most powerful committees in the country from a state legislative process, because we have the ability to make pretty big decisions on behalf of you. I think most people look at the governor's proposal as it being the end all be all. We're just going to rubber stamp what of the cover the governor says, whether he or she is of our party or not. And that simply is not the way the process works. And that's not what will end up happening in this case either. So the governor proposed the budget this week. This year he did it about two weeks early. He proposed it in the beginning of February and introduces it in a speech to the Joint Convention of the Both Assembly and the Senate. And at that point in time it is in statute language. And for a couple weeks, the fiscal year who is a non-partisan agency that works on behalf of the legislature delves into it and provides a lot of research and more common language for legislators to be able to learn a little bit more about what's in the proposal. And then after that is done, then we begin to have agency briefings where we bring all the different agencies before the Joint Finance Committee and begin to ask questions that are obviously important to our constituents and important to us as legislators. So that process already takes place as well. And then that is followed up by public hearings. We had four of them throughout the state where once again, this is kind of unique in Wisconsin. We go on the road and we listen to the public and get an opportunity to hear what you have to say about the governor's proposed budget. So the four different locations that we use this year were brilliant, not too far away. Milwaukee, Rice Lake, and Reedsburg tried to do some geographical variation from budget to budget to be able to get a true understanding of the different concerns of the whole state, not just maybe Madison or Milwaukee. It's important to have input from everyone. So during those four sessions, we heard from over 1,200 people that came and testified. They each get two minutes to testify in front of the body. And it's a legislative hearing just outside of Madison. Those have now concluded. In addition to those public hearings, the assembly Republicans that I can speak for, we additionally had over 100 listening sessions dealing with the governorate budget ourselves. I had three of them in my area which have been included. So really the public input and potential for input on the budget is pretty significant. In addition to that, of course, I do have opportunities like this all the time to hear what people have to say. So the process now is we will be going into executive session beginning next week, tax day, April 15th. We'll be our first executive session where we'll begin to vote on the specific line items in the governor's budget. So after we go through that process I should wrap up by the end of May and with opportunity for action by both the assembly and the Senate in early June. And the governor should be able to sign a new budget by the end of June. It's required statutorily that we have a new budget effective July 1st. There's been times. I think my first session in the legislature, we did not have a new budget until October. And for those of you who might wonder what happens, unlike the federal government, who might shut down, we actually continue on current appropriations, current law, if that actually does happen. Don't anticipate that happening this time around. Some of the initiatives that the governor has in his budget, which I mean, you've probably been hearing a lot of back and forth on, and you've heard legislators agree, disagree with different provisions. There will be significant changes. It always happens. We agree on a lot with Governor Walker, but we might have variants of opinion on other issues. And oftentimes, it's a local variation, local things back home that might impact us and motivate us. Colleague Terry Katzmuss here, perhaps issues in his area that are significant to him. He brings them to us. And then we work towards making changes. That's actually an important process, especially for new legislators. Terry, this is his first bud, and he's going through. There are 16 members on the Joint Finance Committee. And the Democrats have four members. The Republicans being in the majority in both houses have 12 members. But in addition to that, our members of the legislature who aren't on the committee, it's important for them to be engaged in the process, listening out in the public. And have an opportunity to make change. So we have a process we call the budget buddies. Terry's actually one of mine. So fortunate to be able to have him work. We actually have weekly meetings and gives them an opportunity to let us know what they're hearing back home, an opportunity for me to brief him on what might be happening in our discussions with the governor's office and the Senate as well. So it's a very important part of our process to make sure that all our members are engaged in what is taking place. So some of the initiatives that you might have heard about. Let's just talk about workforce development initiatives initially. Currently, unemployment was just announced in the last couple of weeks. That Wisconsin's unemployment rate is down to 4.8%, which is great. And it was at high back in 2010, around 10%. My own area, I'm from the Marinette area. We were actually, Marinette County was as high as 13% in the midst of the recession. So things are definitely headed in the right direction, but we all realize that we still have a lot of work to do. National average in perspective is at 5.8%. I'm sorry, 5.5%. So workforce development initiatives are definitely an important part. Some of the things that the governor has proposed include a tech school freeze on tuition in high need occupations. He has proposed changing the funding for tech schools to a, we currently have 30% of the overall funding is in performance based. He's actually proposed to change it to 100%. Financial aid, we maintain the current funding for our financial aid in the budget. And there's also a program which is called Transform Milwaukee, which was begun in the last session where we are investing an additional $5 million in preparing people specifically in Milwaukee, but other areas as well. These are called transitional jobs. People that are oftentimes, could be out of prison, could be on our welfare programs where they are subsidized jobs working through employers initially subsidized to get them to the point where they can later the subsidy goes away and allow for them to have some employment skills that will actually help them pay things such as child support, not rely on our welfare system for themselves and their family. And that is a program that was begun last session and will be continued to be funded this session. Fast forward grants being from the Marinette area I can tell you the shortage that we have in our state and most states have as far as high tech vocational programs, not always necessarily high tech, but just high demand skilled trades, things welders, pipe fitters, electricians. We definitely have a shortage nationally and there's opportunity for grants for those type of trainings in the Wisconsin fast forward program. Continue, we also continue to work with the career planning to assure that children are getting the opportunity to identify opportunities for them. I think it's especially important with the UW system and to be able to, and I've had conversations with the chancellor on this issue, when kids come into our UW system, of course we don't want to tell them what they have to, fields they have to go into, but I think it's important for them to understand the amount of debt that's possibly could be taken place by them getting a certain degree, but also the job skills that it might be needed for a certain type of career and also what the job opportunities are from that particular career so that they have a true picture of what that choice might look like. Wisconsin Works program, which is focused on reducing the time people are spending on our welfare programs and the governor's budget is proposed to be reduced from 60 months to 48 months and this goes back to once again, helping people get to a point of reliance on work and preparing for work rather than reliance on government programs. Other things that might go along with that that you probably heard about, it might be the proposal dealing with drug testing for welfare programs. This is something the public, I can tell you it's one of the things I hear about a lot, is typically, of course not universally, but typically supportive of because most companies have to drug test, so it's something that the public says people that are getting assistance should be as well. The idea that the governor proposing is to give people an opportunity to actually be prepared for work because we're hearing from employers that one of the biggest obstacles to work is actually getting people that can actually pass that drug test. So this is really about preparing them for a world of work. Those that might know my history know I've actually done quite a bit of work on drug related issues. I was talking with the mayor and the county folks earlier about that. I do believe it is important. I actually am supportive of this program and some people might be surprised by that but the key piece for me was when we had a conversation with the governor was that this wasn't just about a punitive approach, this needed to be an opportunity for people to change their life and become employable and part of that process would be treatment rather than just the punitive side of cutting off benefits. So it is funded to provide some additional treatment options for people when they do test positive on these programs that we can work with them to, as I said, become an asset and paying into the system rather than draining the system. So that's I think something that you'll probably hear a lot about. Number of states have, I think there's 12 states nationally have taken similar approaches. K-12 education, the governor's budget for the most part in the first year. And I think it's also important when we were talking about K-12 public education to talk about how in the last budget when the governor initially proposed his budget there was no increase for public K-12 education but at the time that the budget was passed by both the assembly and the Senate that we had committed an additional $300 million to public education in Wisconsin. The governor's first year of the budget we had put a $75 per people categorical aid and the educational folks will know what that means. A lot of other people probably won't but our concern was oftentimes the way the funding formula works in our state the dollars don't necessarily get to where they need to get because of the way the values work statewide. But with this categorical aid went every single pupil in the state of Wisconsin to ensure that they were getting the appropriate levels of funding. So $75 the first year, $75 the second year so it would have been $150 in the base year of this budget in the first year the governor took that out and in the second year he put it back in. So that is as I was talking at our table that's probably our biggest priority in the assembly Republican caucus to restore I believe it's about $119 million the estimates are now to the first year of the budget to at least leave public schools flat over the two years. I believe that at the end of the day there will actually will be an increase in K-12 funding but there's some hurdles we have to pass before we get to that point. And then also speaking about education the governor has a proposal dealing with UW system where he proposed a public authority which basically would spin the UW system off give them the opportunity to be autonomous from the state legislature. This is actually an idea that former chancellor of UW Madison proposed I believe it was four years ago. I don't think that's very likely. I don't think that there has been the conversations have not been necessarily positive either from within the UW system or from the public regarding the or my colleagues in the legislature about giving the UW system that type level of authority. The idea behind the authority was at the same time we were gonna be making some budget reductions that's $300 million is what's proposed and that's a big number and it's got a lot of attention but I think something needs to be talked about also this is not a discussion that's unique to Wisconsin. Actually if you look nationally over the last eight years during the recession and since the commitment for public universities at the state level has gone down dramatically. Actually Wisconsin is in about the lower third of the 50 states as far as the amount of reductions that we've seen in investment in public universities. Obviously a $300 million reduction would make a significant dent in that. The Board of Regents is actually wrestling with this issue right now. They put out a proposal yesterday dealing with out of state tuition. The concept of raising out of state tuition I think some background needs to be discussed there. So Wisconsin actually when you compare us UW Madison for example is 11th in the Big Ten as far as our tuition and our state tuition is equally low and our comprehensive universities as compared to our neighbors, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan the comprehensive universities are relatively low as well. If in a time when budgets are tight if we're going to be looking for reductions or possibly new revenues I think it's our goal to keep tuition for in-state residents low. And so by maybe raising the bar a little bit or what we expect from people who are sending their kids from out of state into our UW system I think that's actually a reasonable discussion that we should have. Because first and foremost it has to be about our kids getting a affordable quality education in our UW system. So it actually with reciprocity for Minnesota for example it's actually cheaper for somebody from Minnesota to send their child to a UW school than it is for them to educate them in Minnesota. That's not fair to our taxpayers so we need to try and level that field out a little bit. So I mean I think you're gonna be hearing a little bit above that over the next few weeks. In addition to the UW there's also a two-year tuition freeze proposed in the governor's budget for Wisconsin for our Wisconsin schools and our Wisconsin students. Also to keep in part of the discussion is the install all not even. I'm actually a product of a two-year UW college in Marinette we have one in my hometown. All is not even but when you look perhaps maybe back two years ago there was a lot of discussion about reserves at the UW system. I was talking to one of our CPAs earlier. I have a group of colleagues we call them the CPA caucus who discovered that there was about $1.3 billion in reserves in the UW system. And that was during a period of time where there was a lot of focus on their finances or there were a few cries about not having enough money where they had built up this $1.3 billion of reserves. Even though we froze tuition two years ago and also required them to invest in certain initiatives rather than in state filling it with GPA, filling those, funding those initiatives with GPR, those reserves actually continued to either stay the same or grow. And, but as I was saying, all is not equal. You've got a UW-Chevroleton County I believe in this area. UW-Marinette, there's campuses throughout the whole state. The UW colleges are a very affordable way to educate our kids, especially as an entry point. Something I'll be looking at in the next couple years with a high school junior. But so all is not equal and I think it's our interest to try and at least work with the Board of Regents and the leaders of the UW system to try and help those that don't have the resources be able to weather any type of reductions in funding that might take place. Another initiative that has gotten a lot of attention is the Iris and Family Care proposal. The proposal, actually the proposal in the Governor's budget does not have a lot of detail to it and because of that I don't think it can be proposed or be passed as is. But one of the challenges we do face and as I've talked to a lot of disabled and elderly folks over the last few weeks, one of the challenges we face as a state and as a nation quite honestly is that the baby boomers are retiring. The number of people on our retirement programs over the next 10 to 20 years is gonna explode. It's gonna explode and the question is how do we pay for that when there's fewer, it can be fewer people working. So I think it's our responsibility as fiscal leaders of the state of Wisconsin to at least look for potential opportunities to reform and to save money to assure that those programs are there when people actually need them in the future, not just today. So I think while there's not enough meat on the bone today as far as the IRS and family care proposals, I do think it's quite likely that we'll tell the Department of Health Services to sit down with the stakeholder groups and have a conversation about what these programs could look like, get their input, go to the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services which is required to make any changes and come back to us with a proposal that we actually all understand, not just us as legislators but the public understands too so that we can at least have a dialogue that comes from a standpoint of being informed rather than trust us on this proposal. I don't think any of us are elected based on trust us. So I think we're going to have that discussion for over the next few months. In addition to that, transportation, I'm gonna just go back here, senior care has also gotten a lot of attention. Senior care is a prescription drug program in Wisconsin. We are the only state in the nation that actually has a state based prescription drug program. It's pretty, as I said, pretty unique but under the governor's proposal, he proposes using it as a backfill for the prescription D, Medicare Part D program and the legislature has been discussed over the last few weeks. My colleagues included have stepped up and said, you know what, this is unique. Perhaps maybe we could look at reforms that can reduce the costs for Wisconsin residents but let's not just throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let's look at ways to improve it but try and maintain it. So I think that's probably going to happen as well. Transportation, I know is a big issue here. We were talking earlier about Highway LS. It was one of our best memories of the last budget and if you want to know about it, I'll tell you later. Ask me later, I can tell you a little private joke there but the funding as proposed in the governor's budget for transportation is, while it is laudable that the amount of bonding in this budget is actually probably about a 20 year low for the overall bonding, the governor relies on 1.3 billion of bonding in the transportation fund. We do have a challenge here and this is the more we talk about this, I think the better it's going to be for the public to understand. We do have a challenge here with cars becoming more fuel efficient. We basically fund our transportation through registration fees and gas tax. As cars become more fuel efficient, the amount of money coming into the system is going down. Well, we know that the costs are not going down, the costs are going up. So we have about a $600 million hole that we need to come up with a solution on how to pay for that. The governor's solution was rather than any new taxes or any new fees was to use bonding, which bonding is low right now, it's cheap. But I guess a lot of our colleagues, Terry included, is it may not be cheap two years from now. So let's at least begin to have a conversation about how we're going to deal with this problem moving forward. We're going to put some proposals out there on how to deal with it. We'll see where they go, but at least I think it's important for the public to know what's going on and so that you can actually begin to weigh in as well about what makes sense for the future infrastructure of the state of Wisconsin. It is our goal and for the county folks out there and those concerned about Highway 23, which is on the docket, it is our goal to not cut projects, but it's early in the discussions right now. It's our goal not to cut projects, but to do that, we either need to rely on the $1.3 billion of the bonding that Governor's proposed or find alternatives to fund the shortfall that we have in the transportation system. So with that, I actually think I took longer than I said I would, but I think the important part of this dialogue is to be able to answer any questions that you might have about the proposed state budget. So I'll open it up to questions. They told me a half hour, I said I can't talk for that long and I probably ended up talking for over 20, didn't I? Yeah. That's good. Yes, sir. As we all do, really. I mean, as any part of the UW system, they're most closely aligned with our counties. We have great partnerships here at Chihuahua County, probably the county and business interests have combined to build it. The faculty staff are paid lower than any comparable to the UW system, let alone school districts and technical colleges. None of which have been corrected by the board of regents. And you have, and it's the closest thing to the local community, the best instructor student ratio in all of secondary education, higher education. So given that, is there any consideration to saying we're exempting the UW colleges as an extension from any cuts? Those cuts have to come in the other areas where they have more ability to cushion that. Plus they have third party income sources that aren't available at the UW colleges. That conversation's taking place. I will say I've got proposals from some of my members to do that very same thing. And as I said, I mean, first of all, I said, I think we all have vested interests in whether it be the colleges or the UW system, just education as a whole. But I mean, I'm a product. I have one at the campus in Marinette as well. And I agree with you. I think, I don't think there's a lot of fat there. My concern, I don't know that it's beneficial for any of us as legislators for the body as a whole to begin saying to UW, don't cut here, cut here. Because what it ends up being is it ends up being, I'm from Marinette, I'll protect my own, right? I think that might be potentially dangerous. But as I said earlier, I think the conversation needs to take place with the Board of Regents and with the President Cross on what makes sense. And this just can't be an across, if there's gonna be reductions. By the way, the proposal to raise out of state tuition, they have a number in the Board of Regents that is like, I believe 63 million dollars it could raise over the two year biennium in Fiscal Bureau, who works, as I said, works for us. They're the legislative Fiscal Bureau, and are widely respected for what they do. Their estimate is 91 million dollars over the biennium. So if we go down that road, there's a potential to reduce that cut by almost a third with what I would consider potentially a very reasonable step. As I said earlier, it shouldn't be cheaper for kids from Minnesota to send their kids here than it is to educate them in their own state. I share your concern. And as I said, that proposal's out there. I question, if we get to that point, whether it's gonna come down to political arm wrestling rather than doing what's right for the overall system. Yes, sir. Just a general question. I think I know the answer, but I'm not sure. The process begins with the governor making a proposal. Our, is the legislature only allowed to react to his? Recommendations, or can you? We could propose our own budget. We could propose our own budget. Yeah, I thought that was the answer. Yeah, I don't think that will happen. I mean, because the governor of the state of Wisconsin has a very powerful veto pen. And I mean, as a basic, I mean, there's things we disagree with, you know? There's things we disagree with. But I think 90% of it, you know, is probably gonna remain as is. You know, I mean, you were talking about probably the top eight, 10 things, you know, that gets a lot of attention. There's thousands of, it's a 1700 page document. There's thousands of other things that will be passed, you know, pretty much unanimously. So we have that potential, but to basically start over, I don't think is realistic. But there is one important thing that I think, I haven't mentioned, but it's important for people to know. So based on the fact that we're, you know, we're not necessarily putting new dollars into the K-12 in the first year, UW cuts, those things along those lines, people would think, well, your revenues are low. Our revenues have never been higher in the state of Wisconsin, never been higher. And that's after we did reduce taxes by about $2 billion last budget. But in my view, when it's, when we have an abundance of cash, you have one or two things that you could do. You can either, you can either fund other things, create new programs that are, you're gonna have to fund in the next budget or you can give it back to the people because it's their money to begin with. My principle is, it's your money, it should go back to you if we might need additional dollars in the future that discussion should take place. But there's one single thing that people need to understand that goes back to kind of that discussion about Irish family care that we had earlier is over the last three budgets that I've been a part of, we've put nearly, I think it's $2.7 billion of new money into Medicaid programs because of the growth and the expense in dealing with our Medicaid programs. Now, some might say, well, you should take the federal money that the federal government has promised to fund that. The reason we had to put $2.7 billion of new money into it is because the federal government has stepped away from their commitments in a lot of those cases. When I first began, Medicaid is a state and federal partnership where the, when I first started, they were funding about 70 cents on a dollar. It's now down to 58 cents on a dollar that the federal government is funding. We will have a balanced budget when this budget becomes law. We know what's happened with the federal government. The reliance on those dollars, folks, is not secure. And if we cannot put our taxpayers at risk by relying on those dollars. And because of that, moving forward, we're gonna make the tough decisions, but I just wanna be clear, it's not because we have a lack of revenue. We have a lot of revenue. Transportation, what's your take on what will ultimately happen to raise funds for the transportation department? It really, we're gonna put together a menu of opportunity for people to look at. So on a per mile, I was just reading these, the statistics yesterday on a per mile. If you look at it as a per mile, what does it cost somebody in Wisconsin to drive per mile? We have the highest gas tax, I believe, in the Midwest, one of the highest in the nation. I think it's in the top 13 or so in the nation. So you would think that because of that, we are probably high nationally as far, or at least in the Midwest, as far as how much we're already paying for from transportation system. We are actually the lowest in the Midwest because our registration fee is lower. Other fees are lower. Other states have other ways of taking dollars from you to fund transportation. So I mean, I think that needs to just be considered as well as we have these discussions. Our registration fee, which is $75 right now, is the lowest in the Midwest. If we raise that by $25, that would be $86 million a year that could go into transportation. If there's people that support raising the gas tax, I believe that's fairly unlikely that that will happen just because it goes back to the same problem I talked about. We could raise the gas tax and it couldn't be, it would not necessarily be a source that would be continuing to grow over a period of time. It would be declining. There's proposals to assure that, as we have more electric vehicles on the road, that they're paying a fee towards them as well, which I think is fair. If you use it, you should pay for it, but that's a very low amount. So I mean, there's a number of proposals that are out there. I think the registration fee is probably one of the most likely. I do not anticipate that we will be able to tackle the whole $600 million shortfall in one budget. I think it'll probably be a couple budget process before we get there. And that's considering the governor has said no to any tax and fee increases. So if we do do that, we're gonna have to arm wrestle a little bit with the governor at the end of the day. Luke. As we talked at the table, first of all, the fact that the last budget had increases for school districts for students of $75 and another $75, the fact that we're looking at pulling that out would really suggest that it wasn't needed in the past. And my view would be, although a lot of people in surrounding me disagree, I think Act 10 did a lot of good to maybe take waste and the balance of public versus private benefits, that whole issue out of our class relative schools. But at the same time, we're privately investing in schools, industry and individuals in this county are investing in projects to improve our school systems. And they're doing it because there's no other source of revenue to do it. And to have a situation where we now cut back the support of schools, it just seems to be incongruent with number one, what even the governor is trying to do by preparing students to move forward out of the education system and be a benefit to our local areas. At the same time, I think the school systems, particularly in this area, are doing a good job of controlling costs. And yet we all know, just as you were speaking about the highway program a moment ago, some costs are going up. So I would really like to think that the education part of the budget is not only gonna, as you suggest, get rid of the decrease, but provide some manner for the school systems to get additional funds. I think the guy at the table would tell you, based on caucus discussions, it's the number one priority. As I said, last time the governor had no increase last time. And we were, the caucuses are the ones that put it in. I anticipate the same thing will happen again. You know, I mean, one thing I want to be, I want to make sure people understand that. I mean, here's the arm, first of all, my wife's a public school teacher. And as a legislator, I also was affected by Act 10. So both of us were. But I do agree with you. It put more of a balance. It put it in power at school boards to make decisions that were right for them, rather than giving the power away. But just remember, it's not public folks stepping up to help with programs and projects. That's laudable, I think, and it's great. But there is another alternative and that's to make, to get the public behind it and that there, because there are opportunities for, if you don't have the opportunity, you can go to referendum. And oftentimes school districts say, well, the public won't support that. Well, the public is who sends us there too. So, you know, we're under that same microscope of having to make decisions and from a funding standpoint. So it's a pull. It's a tug of war that goes on that we have to be able to do our best to be able to make decisions that will help. And I think we're gonna do that. But I can't necessarily tell you why the governor made it, but put the proposal he did on the table. I just think we should also understand that it isn't just the so-called educators in this room or in the base that are thinking that education is important and that it is important for us to continue to fund it at an appropriate level. The reason K-12 gets got funded with 300 million extra last time and the way regional probably get funded again this time with additional revenues is because it's important to our, my colleagues, and that's because it's important to the people that sent them there, regardless of whether you're an educator or whether you're a mom, reason, you know, three kids right now. You know, it's just a basic priority in our state. Other questions? Yes, sir. Yeah, I wanna follow up on what Lou said just briefly. It's more of a comment than a question, but we're spending an awful lot of money downstream on jobs initiatives and workforce, and I love it, that's great. I work in higher education, by the way. But we're spending all that money downstream. We gotta spend it upstream. We have to spend it in Crete K-12, so we don't have to spend as much downstream. I work at a college and the preparation level- Which one do you work? I work at Lakeland College. Okay. And the preparation level is becoming challenging when schools cannot teach like they used to be able to do. Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin used to be known for their public education systems, and we're getting beat up here in Wisconsin. So please, put it back in the Crete K-12 that's gonna help everybody spend less money on social services down the road. Just wanna be clear, so I mean, and then I couldn't agree, first of all, one of my colleagues, Dale Coyga is a graduate of Lakeland, played on your basketball team. He's on the Joint Finance Committee with me. I'll tell him you said hello. It's not that Wisconsin doesn't prioritize education as I was sharing at the table earlier. It goes back and forth, but for the most part we're number one-ish in the Midwest as far as per pupil education, dollars per pupil that we spend, and 15th nationally. So it's not that we don't prioritize it, but when budgets are tight, the governor had to make some tough decisions. I think the legislature, when we probably see some new revenues in May, because things are looking pretty good, we're going to basically step in where he did not. Yes, sir. The municipalities, they told us that they don't see any movement in raising that levy cap at all. One of the mayors brought up a suggestion, well, how about just removing that new construction? Because that would really help, especially some of the older, mental-sized cities. Right now we have a community building, two buildings, which we can add to my tax base, but I, last but not least- Yeah, subtract anything you tear down from it, yeah. So I'm wondering if that might be something the legislature could consider in not having to move any caps, but just give us a little bit of room under that level. They've come to me and talked to me about that. I mean, I think that something that's on the docket is for us to consider. Another thing for us to consider is the use it or lose it. In other words, if you don't levy to the max one year, say you save a couple percentage points, 10th of a percent, that maybe the next year you're able to, when demands are different, you might be able to go back and use what you didn't lose or use the first time. I mean, I think that the use it or lose it mentality probably almost everybody uses it. That's the motivation is to use it. So if we can find ways to incentivize other type of behavior that you can then later tap into, I think that's good. So we're looking for ideas like that. There's other ideas that are out there, which politically we got to work through the system, but there's other ideas about possibly local, local sales tax potential through referendum to give local communities that wanna fund certain things that opportunity, but these are only proposals. It's gonna take a lot of arm wrestling before we get to that point. But yep, the county association's been in and talking to me about it. Yes, sir, in the back. We recently had a local heads of government meeting with the city towns and villages heads of community colleges. And the primary problem we have is our transportation needs and mayor of Andrews Dean's School to the levy limits if there could be some adjustments there. And also there's a pre-dealing wage that hits us pretty hard with any project that we have on our rules over $100,000. Is the higher cap that that could be adjusted or better yet eliminate the pre-dealing wage with the great savings with no state dollars? I'm not familiar with the higher cap. It actually used to be a lower cap. We actually repealed the lower cap when we came in in 2011. I'm not familiar with it, it may have been it was, but there's discussions going on about prevailing wage right now. I will say my position is so for me to be able to get a budget passed, I need 51 votes and there are 50 votes in the assembly. And my goal is to have all 63 of my Republican colleagues vote yes. My goal is to make things less divisive, not more divisive, prevailing wage is one of those issues that can be if for a complete repeal. However, if we can look for things in the changes that we can make in the budget from a reform standpoint, I'm supportive of that. And at the same time, there is a bill that's running through the legislature to completely repeal prevailing wage. Let that bill have its day, have its hearings, have its debate and go through that process. But I guess what I'm saying is, I'm supportive of what you're saying. I just don't see the state budget as the vehicle to do that. Possible reforms, yes, repeal, no. Yes, sir. Thank you. I'm John Laws with Hearthstone, Wisconsin. We are a self-help advocacy group for people with disabilities. And I was hard to hear that you're considering taking the portion, the governor's portion of the budget out for further debate with family services, long-term care. Does joint finance have the power to actually remove that section of the budget so that it can't be... We do. However, I don't, just to be clear, I don't think I said removed. I think what worked, and some of my colleagues, Terry was probably in the last meeting, where I don't think we know enough to say yes at this point in time, but at the same time, as I said, with the pressures on our budget, because of Medicaid and long-term care costs in the future, I don't know that we know enough to say no either. So if there's the potential, some of my colleagues were teasing me about riding the fence there, but if the potential is that we could save money down the road, I think we should at least have those discussions. So what I see happening is us saying to the Department of Health Services, sit down with the stakeholder groups, the elderly services, the disabled communities, have those discussions, go to CMS, because pretty much everything that we, if we're gonna make changes, CMS needs to say yes to a two, go to them and then come back to us with what the plan actually is gonna look like and then we can make a decision whether it makes sense or not. So our goal is to at least have those groups at the table having discussions so that we all can, we all may not get what we want, but at least we can have a dialogue to help better understand why we're going the direction we're going. And this would be done in the fortune first? Oh, no, no. Well, the, that initiative, I see that's our response in the budget to the question that was put before us. So what I would see happening is that we would say no, but go do this, this, and this, come back to us and I probably think that would probably be a year or so down the road before they can actually have those conversations with CMS and others and then let us know what the idea is, what it really looks like and hopefully build support from the disabled and elderly communities before we move forward. Great, thank you. You bet. Yes, ma'am. I'm really happy to hear that there's a class that you, if that money comes back in, that you also keep an eye on the policy that's put into the budget that has the unintended consequences such as the course action spot that was put in last year. That and the other stuff would have increased the amount of money that we would have had came from the school district close to $200,000. And so you bring the money back with the fund and mandates that go in, sometimes they don't balance out, so I would just ask that you keep an eye on those types of things and make sure that they don't kid us like the double one of me that way. No really additional comment there. Five minutes. Okay, so I got five minutes. Nobody else? What exactly is the timeline on making a decision on the transportation funding that that decision be made by you, like you said, whether it be a bonding, whether it be a non-profit, so that's... The transportation funding decisions will typically be made by final passes of joint finance and then go to the floor. So what we decide in joint finance typically is pretty close to the final bill. The two floors, Assembly and Senate, have the opportunity to make changes through amendment. But for the most part, I mean, there might be subtle changes, but nothing significant typically. And then the governor has, as I said earlier, a very powerful veto pen in our state. We have the opportunity to override vetoes. You know, after that might be done, but joint finance done in May, end of May, action on the assembly and Senate floor sometime in early June with the goal of being passed, assigned into law by the governor by the end of June. And all those decisions need to be made by them. You know, just thinking a little bit about the transportation bill, you're probably aware that Highway 23 has been jacked around for the last 30 or 35 years, but when that highway was gonna be improved, you know, even if there's gonna be a reduction in it, is there any thought given to projects that just seem to be continually and continually delayed versus other projects? How has that divided up and who makes that decision? Typically, those decisions are made by the Department of Transportation rather than it kind of goes back to what I said earlier. If you want legislators making decisions about what projects are gonna get moved around, it comes down to who's got, you know, more clout than the other. And I think decisions need to be made based on, doesn't say that will never happen. Because I actually, there was a portion of Highway 23, I remember a few years it got moved up. I think it was in my first body, the portion of it got moved up. I see some head shaking and that was done through with the political process. So the potential does exist, but if you rely on it to happen that way, it comes down to who's got the most clout and I think giving the current system to be able to work, I think that makes the most sense. I don't, and as I said earlier and Terry might disagree, but I don't see the goal of any of our legislators to cut projects. I see it as our solution. We've looked for fat with DOT, don't get me wrong. And I know people don't like certain things. I hear all the concern about roundabouts and all that. Either you love them or hate them, whatever. That's up to individual people. We've done away with things like all the stamp concrete and all the rod iron and all that community. I forget what that program was called. Somebody help me with community options or something was like in transportation where it was to get the community involved in the process of design. Green Bay might have cat tails on their overpasses. It's all nice, but at the end of the day, it comes down to safe design of our transportation system, not how pretty it looks. So we're looking for things to reduce like that. But at the end of the day, I don't see that reducing projects is the way for us to balance our transportation shortfall that we're gonna have over the next 10 years. Yes, sir. You mentioned earlier that Wisconsin has more revenues than ever. Yes. Just clarify for me then why the other statements, not necessarily from you, but all the media about we have no choice but to cut this and this shortfall. It's because based on projections of revenue, the costs are higher than the revenues. And those can change from day to day. As a matter of fact, there was a discussion a few weeks ago about we might end this current budget with a shortfall. The projections I've seen right now, that won't happen. We'll actually end up with a surplus. So I mean, it changes from day to day based on revenue collections. So, and the thing that's driving the costs over the last three budgets has been Medicaid. This budget, it's requiring about $700 million of more money, of new money to be put into the Medicaid program to be able to balance. So, we do anticipate that come May, beginning of May, when the new revenue estimates come out, that we'll have additional revenues to be able to make some changes, things like education and others. One last quick question. Yes, sir. I don't remember, but does this budget include money for the bucks to move home? I brought it up earlier, didn't I? It's things that might be controversial. Maybe I did just sit at my table. Yeah, it does. The governor's proposal was to give, and it's quite, these arena issues are always terrible in every state, every local municipality that they come up in. He proposed using the growth in player salaries to help pay for a bond that the state of Wisconsin would give on behalf of the team for $220 million. There's some basic things that need to be understood about that. First of all, I think most of my colleagues and I thought that was a too high a number, but there's some basic things that need to be understand. First of all, the bucks, if they leave, we lose hundreds of million dollars into the city of Milwaukee and tens of millions of dollars in actually player salaries and other type of state incomes. So the team leaving has a cost as well. In addition to that, the legislature and decision makers back in the 80s when they built the Bradley Center, it is owned by the state of Wisconsin. So if the team leaves, we have, that's why you might see political commercials over the years about somebody voting for a new scoreboard for the Bradley Center, because the state owns it. So if the team leaves, we will have no tenant. It has deferred maintenance of about $100 million. And they're a little bit of debt. So about $120 million would be the number that's estimated that if we did nothing and the team left. So my colleagues and I are saying, okay, there is a cost of doing nothing and that's the team leaving and then being stuck with this empty building. So we've said, let's look for other options. We're proposing $150 million using that same funding formula in only new player salaries to be able to pay for it. And, but we've also been able to find another funding source that the interest rate paid would go down by a couple of percentage points and save the state tens of hundreds of millions of dollars in interest over the life of life alone. We also reduce the bond term from 30 years to 20 years. So we're heading in the right direction. But I think people just need to understand there is a cost of doing nothing by the team leaving and it's real. It is, this is not the Green Bay Packers who will never leave the city of Green Bay, okay? The NBA has two potential sites that will pay the value and once the team leaves, the value of the team will basically double. Seattle and Las Vegas, the team will leave if we do nothing. So that's where, you know, I don't like it. I'm from North of Green Bay. I don't like it, but when Mercury Marine was talking about leaving and the economic impact to our state, we stepped up and provided some assistance to be able to keep them here. I wouldn't kind of relate a similar concern needs to be considered when we're talking about the box leaving the state of Wisconsin. Leadership sucks sometimes. Thank you. And because we're all interested in getting to have your bending time, Senator Lemahue and Representative Borpegel will be available for listening sessions on April 13th and Howard Sprow from 4 to 5 p.m. And then on Friday, April 17th at the Keel listening session from 11.30 a.m. to 12.30. And even better is we have Representative Terry Katzma with us today so you can bend his ear for just a few seconds. But otherwise he will be tomorrow in Random Lake at the library at 10 a.m. for 40 minutes. And then again, it's Cedar Grove Library at 11 a.m. for 40 minutes. And Representative Terry Katzma, we would also like to thank you for coming today and Representative John Nigrant. Thank you so much for your time. Just so everybody knows, on April 15th we have a couple really cool things going on, but the two that I'm gonna focus on right now are our focal point where what the hashtag, social media trends and what they mean to your business event. And then the business after hours will be at Spaceport, Sheboygan. I invite you to go and check it out. May 6th is our next wave Young Professionals Awards Night. And that's a Wednesday. And then our next Friday forum is not going to be the first Friday forum. It seems to be a theme we're gonna go through in 2015. It's gonna be our second Friday forum because we are so excited. We're gonna have the Marine Sanctuary update and benefits are gonna be here. So we will be here, but it'll be May 8th, not May 1st. So I hope you all have a wonderful April. And if you're not doing anything on April 20th, it's my birthday, so you can wish me happy birthday. But otherwise, you guys have a great month. Thanks so much.