Wisconsin Republicans buck Walker to save DNR's popular outdoors magazine
Patrick MarleyMADISON - The Legislature's budget committee Wednesday rejected Gov. Scott Walker's plan to eliminate the state's outdoors magazine, but cut it back from six issues a year to four.
The budget-writing Joint Finance Committee approved the plan, 12-4. All Republicans backed it and all Democrats voted against it, saying the state should keep publishing Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine as frequently as it does now.
Also Wednesday, Republicans on the committee agreed to allow fees to go up at state parks and said they would go along with a Walker proposal to cut property taxes by $180 million over two years.
RELATED:New subscriptions flood DNR magazine as Wisconsin officials pull plug
Republican lawmakers said they didn't want to eliminate the Department of Natural Resources' magazine, but thought it should be scaled back. Under their plan, the magazine would lose one of its two employees.
Rep. Amy Loudenbeck (R-Clinton) noted newspapers and magazines across the country are printing their publications less frequently.
"It's a little different than the status quo, but it's kind of following the trend of print media," she said of the GOP plan.
Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) said he believed Wednesday's vote was the beginning of the end for the magazine, which has been in print since 1919.
"This is the end of the magazine as we know it," he said. "It's going to be phased out."
News of Walker’s plans to kill the publication perplexed some because Wisconsin Natural Resources is self-supporting. Its funding comes from subscriptions and a portion of fees paid for a conservation license.
Walker and top DNR officials said noneditorial DNR workers are taken away from their primary duties when they work on the magazine. Commercial magazines address many of the issues covered in the DNR's magazine, they noted.
But critics said mothballing the magazine is an example of the administration’s efforts to weaken the DNR. Also, former editors told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that DNR officials made it clear they wanted the magazine to avoid controversial issues such as climate change and environmental regulation.
Average circulation of the magazine has fallen from about 122,400 in 2000 to about 84,500 in 2016. Subscriptions perked up this spring after Walker announced his plans to eliminate the magazine.
Park fees could go up
The Joint Finance Committee will spend the coming weeks on the budget and then forward it to the Republican-controlled Senate and Assembly for their approval.
State parks. Walker's natural resources secretary could raise the daily admission fee to state parks by up to $5 — from $8 to $13 for Wisconsin residents — under a plan adopted by the committee on party lines.
The secretary would have the power to set fees that differ from one park to the next, with the highest fees charged at the most popular parks. While the daily fees could go up, annual fees would stay the same — $28 for Wisconsin residents.
Natural resources projects. On another party-line vote, the committee earmarked nearly $3.5 million for natural resources projects. The panel provided up to $1 million for the 13-mile rail corridor between Dover and Sturtevant in Racine County; up to $1 million for a marina and campground in Iron County; up to $500,000 for a shelter in the Horicon Marsh Wildlife Area in Dodge County; and up to $415,000 for pedestrian bridges across the Fox River in Winnebago County.
Deer. The state Department of Transportation — instead of the DNR — would be responsible for paying to remove dead deer from state highways under a proposal adopted by the committee 12-4 on party lines.
The DNR spent more than $550,000 last year to remove nearly 18,000 deer carcasses from state highways. Walker wanted to drop that funding, leaving it to counties to come up with paying for their removal.
Parole Commission. The committee voted 12-4 to scale back the state Parole Commission from eight commissioners to four and reduce its administrative staff from five to two.
Walker wanted to eliminate the Parole Commission and replace it with a single parole director. Wisconsin ended parole in 2000 when it passed its truth-in-sentencing law, but about 3,000 inmates who were convicted for crimes committed before then remain eligible for parole.
Last year, 68 inmates were granted parole under that system.
Judicial pay. The committee agreed, on a 12-4 vote, to give judges 2% raises in each of the next two years, keeping them in line with the raises that the governor wants to give other elected officials and state workers.
That's well shy of the 16% pay raise Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack sought for herself and the state's other judges. She has said the move is needed because Wisconsin jurists are paid less than their peers in most other states.
Wednesday's action left open a chance for Roggensack to seek an additional pay hike before a different legislative committee.
Prosecutor pay. Assistant district attorneys would get raises of about $2 an hour — or $4,100 a year — in each of the next two years under a plan the committee adopted.
Public defenders would get a much smaller increase — about 2% each year.
Milwaukee business training. The state would provide a $200,000 grant for the Building Occupational Skills for Success program aimed at training future business owners in Milwaukee. The city would have to provide equivalent funding.
Property taxes. The committee put off a vote on Walker's plan to eliminate the state portion of property taxes, but Republicans plan to go along with the governor's proposal, said the heads of the committee, Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette).
Most property taxes are levied by schools and other local governments, but a small portion of them are collected by the state to help maintain Wisconsin’s forests.
Walker and Republicans on the committee want to eliminate that part of the property tax and cover forestry expenses using other state funding. The proposal would save $26 on the property tax bill for a median-valued home.
Health insurance. In an escalating dispute with Walker over how to provide health insurance to public workers, Darling and Nygren said they would seek an audit of the state's insurance system.
Walker wants to move the state to a self-insurance system for its workers, saying it would save $60 million over two years. Critics question whether any of those savings could be realized, and the Legislature's budget office determined Wednesday that even if Walker's assumptions are correct, the savings would be $47 million, or $13 million less than Walker has said.
The memo from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau also found the state has built up health insurance reserves of $144 million, at least $18 million more than the upper limit recommended by the state’s actuary.
Darling and Nygren said they would seek an audit to find out more about how those reserves were built up.
Walker administration spokesman Steve Michels said that the state would save more and save it year after year by switching to self-insurance.
Lee Bergquist and Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.