The committee approved 12-4 along party lines a motion that includes a new exemption to the personal property tax with a price tag of $74.4 million annually. The personal property tax provision would kick in Jan. 1, 2018, and exempt

The Joint Finance Committee kicked of its final budget action Wednesday with a 12-4 party-line vote to revamp the special needs scholarship, which allows students with a disability to receive state money to attend private schools. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau

The Joint Finance approved the GOP transportation motion 12-4 along party lines and then recessed until 11 a.m. Wednesday. It will then reconvene to take up taxes and the remaining provisions in the budget, Co-chair John Nygren said.   …

Joint Finance Dems torched the DOT’s transportation package Monday night, saying it was chockful of earmarks and falls well short of the long-term transportation fix Republicans have been promising for several years. Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, recounted GOP remarks on

The DOT would eliminate 200 jobs over the next two years, there would be a new fee on hybrid and electric cars, and many local regulations of quarries where material is mined for construction and transportation projects would be pre-empted

The Joint Finance Committee voted 12-4 along party lines to approve a GOP amendment to the Foxconn bill that would overhaul the appeal process for any lawsuits filed over the project. Dems slammed the GOP amendment, saying it would give

The state Supreme Court would take jurisdiction over any appeal of a circuit court decision relating to the Foxconn project under an amendment Joint Finance Republicans proposed today. Under the proposal, any circuit court order vacating, enjoining, reviewing or otherwise

The transportation package the Joint Finance Committee expects to take up today would not enumerate I-94 east-west or the north leg of the Zoo Interchange while imposing new fees on electric and hybrid cars, according to the committee’s co-chairs. The

The Joint Finance Committee voted 12-4 along party lines Monday to tweak Gov. Scott Walker’s K-12 education plan by adding a boost for low-spending school districts and increasing the income cutoff for students in the statewide voucher program. Dems slammed

The Joint Finance Committee is meeting Sept. 5 to take up transportation, taxes and the Special Needs Scholarship Program. Specific items on the agenda include local transportation aid and assistance, the state highway program, State Patrol and the Department of

GOP lawmakers today are calling for boosting low-spending districts and raising the family income limits for the statewide voucher program as part of a $639 million K-12 package. The Joint Finance Committee also will consider placing new limits on when

The Joint Finance Committee today unanimously approved a $1 billion building budget, expanding Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal by more than $200 million as lawmakers seek to fund an expanded engineering program at UW-Platteville, among other things. Co-chair Alberta Darling, R-River

JFC approved a significant increase in the daily rates state taxpayer and counties pay to house juvenile offenders. State Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, objected to the modification and slammed the “inhumane” treatment of those housed at Lincoln Hilly and Copper

The Joint Finance Committee approved a boost of $1 million annually for lottery advertising, $2 million less than what Gov. Scott Walker wanted. It would be the first increase in advertising in nearly a decade. Dems proposed using $96,600 of

The Joint Finance Committee signed off along party lines 12-4 on the guv’s plan to reorganize the DNR, including the eliminating the Bureau of Science Services and transferring its research position to other areas. The plan also would consolidate functions

The Joint Finance Committee voted 12-4 along party lines to create a new exemption from permitting requirements for placing riprap on up to 200 feet of rivers and inland lakes or 300 feet on a Great Lake. Currently, a permit

Returning from a two-month break, the Joint Finance Committee today went back to work on the state budget, unanimously rejecting Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to eliminate a program that seeks to encourage schools to buy locally sourced food. The committee’s

The Joint Finance Committee will be in Monday to take up public instruction, the choice program and the building program. Other items on Monday’s agenda include: the Building Commission, the school levy tax credit and the lottery fund. The five

The Joint Finance Committee will end a more than two-month break from the budget today with an agenda that includes the reorganization of the DNR, the repeal of the forestry mill tax and DATCP. The guv’s call to repeal the

Gov. Scott Walker said today Republicans have reached a deal “in principle” on the state budget that would include a partial repeal of the personal property tax, saying he expects to sign the budget by Sept. 22, when summer ends.