Joint Finance Committee Co-chair John Nygren today confirmed that the Joint Finance Committee will not meet tomorrow. Nygren, R-Marinette, had last week told JFC members to keep their calendars for tomorrow open. But he told reporters this afternoon that he instead expects top GOP leaders will continue holding budget talks as

GOP legislative leaders are still at an impasse on the transportation budget, although they’re confident they will strike a deal on K-12 education soon. Following a full day of meetings yesterday with top Republicans, as well as an additional meeting scheduled for this afternoon, Joint Finance Committee Co-chair John Nygren

Senate and Assembly leaders are meeting tomorrow to hammer out differences over the budget’s remaining big-ticket items, ahead of a potential Joint Finance Committee meeting on Thursday. Co-chair John Nygren, R-Marinette, told members last week to keep Thursday open, but it’s still unclear whether lawmakers are close to finding common

The Joint Finance Committee has adjourned for the evening but may come back on Thursday, according to JFC Co-chair John Nygren. Nygren, R-Marinette, told committee members at the close of the session to keep Thursday open on their calendars. Nygren and his fellow co-chair, Sen. Alberta Darling, told reporters earlier

The Joint Finance Committee today voted to prohibit people in the future from entering into a type of domestic partnerships available only to same-sex couples under state law. Republicans pitched it as a fairness issue, noting that specific arrangement and the benefits that come with it aren’t available to opposite-sex couples. But

The committee unanimously approved providing less money to cover overtime costs at state prisons than Gov. Scott Walker proposed as Dems Republicans weren’t doing enough to boost pay and morale for guards. The committee’s action dropped the amount available for overtime to $100 million over the biennium, $8 million than

The committee approved 12-4 Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to kill the the Local Government Property Insurance Fund, which has seen municipalities flee over the last two years, spooked by a 2015 attempt to kill it and a more than 70-percent hike to shore up the sagging fund. Walker proposed ending

The committee voted 12-4 along party lines to go along with Gov. Scott Walker’s call to end providing domestic partner benefits to state and local public employees. The move would end all health insurance coverage for partners and dependents of domestic partners effective Jan. 1, 2018. The move is expected

The committee unanimously signed off on giving state and UW employees raises in 2018 and 2019. Under the plan, non-UW state employees would get a 2 percent raise Sept. 30, 2018, and another 2 percent on May 26, 2019. To pay for it, the committee set aside $15.3 million in

The Joint Finance Committee today unanimously shot down Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to self-insure state workers, putting an end for now to an effort the Walker administration has studied for years. The committee rejected Walker’s plan on a bipartisan 16-0 vote, with lawmakers again questioning the guv’s saving projections and

After taking last week off, the Joint Finance Committee will meet Thursday to resume voting on the budget. But its agenda does not include the biggest sticking points left to work out, including transportation, taxes and K-12 funding. The committee will instead take up: Budget Management and Compensation Reserves; Employee

Speaker Robin Vos vowed today his caucus would not rubber stamp Scott Walker’s budget, while the guv and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald dismissed the Assembly GOP’s K-12 proposal as a non-starter. Backed by members of his caucus, Vos touted the $580 million Assembly GOP plan as a fairer approach

Republican divisions over the state budget took a twist today as Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald raised the prospect of his house doing its own version of the document. Bypassing the JFC would be unprecedented in the 106-year history of the committee, according to Legislative Fiscal Bureau Director Bob Lang.

The Joint Finance Committee will meet June 13 on whether it’ll approve the self-insurance contracts Gov. Scott Walker’s administration reached. JFC co-chairs John Nygren and Alberta Darling have said the committee will reject those contracts with six companies, taking issue with Walker’s savings projections and saying switching employees to self-insurance

The committee approved giving the DNR secretary the authority to raise daily entrance fees at most state parks and forests by $5 and nightly camping fees up to $10 as the guv wanted. But it nixed his proposal to allow the secretary to increase the cost of an annual pass

The committee approved 12-4 earmarking $3.4 million from existing, unobligated stewardship bonding to aid five projects. The biggest two were $1 million each for Iron County to rebuild Saxon Harbor marina and campground and for the acquisition of a 13-mile long abandoned rail corridor between Dover and Sturtevant in Racine