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ESP provision removed from state budget bill In late April, the co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee also removed the ESP retirement provision from the state budget bill, citing a Legislative Fiscal Bureau paper that identified it as a non-fiscal policy item. Senator Fred Risser has plans, however, to re-introduce the item as separate legislation. |
Governor Doyle's proposal to repeal the Qualified Economic Offer law was removed from the state budget document Friday (April 20, 2007) by the co-chairs of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee.
Democratic Senator Russ Decker and Republican Representative Kitty Rhoades said they removed the QEO repeal because it was included in the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau's list of "non-fiscal policy items" in the budget. If Decker had objected to removal of the QEO repeal it would have remained in the document.
The result is that the QEO repeal will not be debated or voted on by the Joint Finance Committee during its budget deliberations and will not be included in the budget document the committee forwards to the State Senate. However, the Democrat-controlled Senate could restore the QEO repeal when it votes on budget provisions later this spring.
The Senate will send its version of the budget to the Republican-controlled Assembly, and a conference committee will iron out differences between the Senate and Assembly final versions this summer.
Although the QEO repeal was removed, all other major education provisions of Governor Doyle's budget plan will remain in the document to be voted on by the Joint Finance Committee. That includes the governor's provisions that provide two-thirds state funding of schools; bolster categorical aids for programs such as SAGE, special education and school transportation; and provide significant relief from revenue controls for school districts throughout the state.
The Joint Finance Committee is made up of eight Democrats and eight Republicans and, because of the process the committee is employing, it will take a majority of nine votes to remove any more items before the budget is sent to the Senate.
WEAC President Stan Johnson said he is disappointed that the QEO repeal was removed from the budget by the Joint Finance co-chairs because the law undermines teacher collective bargaining and caused a severe stagnation in Wisconsin teacher salaries over the last 14 years.
"However, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau has again determined that repeal of the QEO would not have a fiscal impact. That means opponents of the repeal can no longer argue that repealing the QEO would have other negative fiscal consequences," Johnson said.
"Therefore, the QEO debate should focus on the damage it is doing to the teaching profession in Wisconsin and, by extension, to our schools and the quality of education for our children. The QEO lowers teacher salaries, which makes the profession less attractive to the best and the brightest of current teachers and potential future teachers. Our children deserve great teachers and staff, and we aren't going to continue to have them if we don't repeal this unfair and punitive law."
The QEO law was passed in 1993 - by a state budget conference committee - as part of a three-tiered plan to reduce property taxes. The other two parts of the package were school district revenue caps and two-thirds state funding of schools.
Posted April 20, 2007