The Joint Finance Committee voted unanimously today to increase bonding authority by $732.3 million to provide more revolving loans for clean water and safe drinking water projects.
The move would cover for the next four years the state’s requirement for providing matching funds to qualify for federal grants.
Committee Co-chair Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, said the program impacts communities represented by every member of the committee.
>> Follow the Budget Blog by entering Budget Blog into the keyword section here.
The clean water fund provides assistance to municipalities for wastewater treatment facilities, while the safe drinking water program includes low-interest loans for public drinking water systems.
“It’s a big deal for a lot of our communities,” Marklein said.
Rep. Deb Andraca, D-Whitefish Bay, said some communities in her suburban Milwaukee district are looking at water bills spiking 50% to 196%.
“These investments will not only help our communities replace lead infrastructure, some of which is 80, 90 years old, but also avoid cost increases, which is something we should all be very, very concerned about,” she said.
The committee also:
- Approved $447,600 in funding for the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands to cover increased costs to manage its investment portfolio, as well as for road maintenance on land it oversees and tree planting. The committee’s motion, approved 12-4 along party lines, also would eliminate the commission’s vacant deputy position.
- Approved $862,400 and six positions for the state Legislature. That includes four financial auditors at the Legislative Audit Bureau.
- Approved $584,600 on a one-time basis for the Ethics Commission to complete an update to its online system for filing campaign finance reports.
The committee had planned to take up the Elections Commission today. But Marklein said before the hearing the committee put that off after receiving a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice threatening to withhold future federal funding from the agency because it lacks a process to hear complaints filed against the commission alleging it violated the federal Help America Vote Act. The agency has cited a 2022 state Supreme Court ruling that found it can’t police itself in declining to hear such complaints. That leaves the courts as the only option for such a complaint.
