Work on state budget resuming as Foxconn hearing comes to Sturtevant Tuesday

MADISON - After two months of stalemate, work on the stalled state budget will restart next week as lawmakers take up a property tax cut and hear testimony on an up to $3 billion deal to lure a flat screen plant to southeastern Wisconsin.      

The Legislature's budget committee will meet twice next week in its first sessions since June 15 and will vote on eliminating the state's roughly $86 million-a-year property tax for forestry. The Joint Finance Committee isn't scheduled, however, to act on the most difficult to resolve issues like spending on state highways, a personal property tax levied on businesses and school funding. 

Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette), the panel's co-chairman, said there is an agreement in principle on transportation and the personal property tax between Gov. Scott Walker and GOP leaders in the Senate and Assembly. But Nygren declined to reveal the deal in detail, saying it was tentative and could still fall apart as legislative leaders share it with rank-and-file lawmakers.

"It's not final, but there's a framework," Nygren said. 

A spokesman for Walker had no comment but the committee's other co-chair, Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), said progress has been made between Senate Republicans, who favor sizable borrowing for road construction, and Assembly Republicans, who oppose new borrowing without new revenue to pay for it. 

"We're very close on transportation and both sides had to give to get to something," Darling said. 

Both Nygren and Darling said the committee will vote Thursday to eliminate the property tax levied by the state for forestry programs, which would save $26 on the tax bill for a median-valued home. 

The panel will also take up the rates charged to counties that send inmates to the state's embattled prison for juveniles. Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls, which share a campus 30 miles north of Wausau, are under a federal judge's order to curb the use of solitary confinement, pepper spray and use of restraints.

Nygren and Darling said the budget committee is also close to a deal to cut the personal property tax, which is levied by local governments and paid by businesses on certain furniture and equipment. 

Darling said Republicans are looking at eliminating the tax on certain classes of property to help small businesses such as restaurants and grocery stores. 

The tax is also levied on some manufacturers, but Darling noted that Republicans have already moved to eliminate nearly all income and corporate taxes on manufacturers. 

"I think the priority is small business," Darling said.

Also next week, the budget panel will hold a meeting at 11 a.m. Tuesday to take testimony in Sturtevant, one of the communities that could benefit from a plant being proposed for that area by the Taiwanese electronics maker Foxconn Technology Group. 

The Assembly passed an incentives bill for Foxconn Thursday on a 59-30 vote in which almost all Republicans were joined in approving the bill by three Democrats – Reps. Cory Mason of Racine and Peter Barca and Tod Ohnstad of Kenosha.

GOP Reps. Adam Jarchow of Balsam Lake and Todd Novak of Dodgeville joined the bulk of Democrats in opposing the measure, which now goes to the Joint Finance panel and the state Senate, which could make further changes. 

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In exchange for yearly state subsidies of $15,000 or more per worker and exemptions from environmental rules, Foxconn has pledged to build an up to $10 billion plant that could provide up to 13,000 jobs. The deal would be the largest in state history, amounting to 46 times as much as the previous record offered to a manufacturer in Wisconsin.