$100 tax rebate, prison overhaul and Kimberly-Clark incentives face end-of-session uncertainty in Wisconsin Capitol

Jason Stein Patrick Marley
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - In a multimillion-dollar game of chicken, GOP lawmakers are making their final decisions this week on a $100-per-child tax rebate for parents, a $100 million school safety package and an overhaul of Wisconsin's prison for teens.

Gov. Scott Walker and Republican leaders in the Senate and Assembly are matched in a test of wills against the backdrop of the final days of the legislative session and a difficult 2018 election for their party. That has led to unexpected questions about whether the GOP-held Legislature will pass all the bills their party's governor considers crucial for his campaign. 

Walker is pushing for agreements, but there are none yet on the one-time tax rebate, the closure of Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Foxconn-style subsidies to save two Kimberly-Clark Corp. paper plants.

"We do not have any deals right now," Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said. 

The Senate is meeting Tuesday to consider passing and possibly rewriting these bills, which have already passed the Assembly once. But Assembly GOP leaders haven't said whether they're willing to pass those bills a second time with the Senate changes included, leaving it in doubt whether the proposals will make it to Walker. It's also in doubt whether both houses will pass the same versions of the six school safety measures.

RELATED:Lawmakers pass Kimberly-Clark aid, $100 child tax credit rebate and sales tax holiday

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Here's what must be decided this week:

Assembly Bill 944 would provide $122 million for the $100-per-child tax rebate and a one-time $50 million sales tax holiday for the first weekend in August that would cover all goods under $100.  The bill passed the Assembly last month 61-35, but Senate Republicans have strongly signaled that they plan to pass the tax rebate only and drop the tax holiday. 

Assembly Bill 953 would close Lincoln Hills School — the state's only youth prison — and replace the facility north of Wausau with smaller, regional lockups, some of which would be run by counties. The $80 million proposal passed the Assembly unanimously last month.

The move was a response to a 3-year-old criminal investigation into prisoner abuse at the prison and to a judge's order last year curbing the use of pepper spray and solitary confinement there. 

Fitzgerald has said that GOP senators will vote to close Lincoln Hills by 2021 but will mostly leave it to future legislation to decide where and how to hold teen inmates after that date.

As a result, the Senate bill would allocate less funding, though it does include $15 million to expand Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center in Madison, which holds inmates with mental health problems.

There are no gun control measures in the school safety package unveiled by Walker last week in the wake of a Florida school shooting. But the legislation would give schools $100 million for making building improvements, training staff and putting police officers in schools. 

Assembly GOP leaders have backed Walker's school safety bills, but Fitzgerald has said he planned to make some as-yet-unnamed changes to the package. That once again raises the question of whether the bills can pass in identical form and get to the governor — something that clearly got Walker's attention Monday.

"We don’t want to be sitting a week from now scratching our head wondering why they couldn’t get it done," Walker told WITI-TV. "That’s what happens in Washington." 

Walker released his school safety plan a day after roughly 3,000 high school students protested at the Capitol to demand gun control measures such as universal criminal background checks for firearm sales. 

Lydia Hester, a 16-year-old Madison sophomore who participated in the protest, said Monday she was disappointed that Walker hadn't backed any new regulations on guns. 

"The demands that we brought to Walker were not even listened to at all," she said.

The Assembly Committee on Education will hold a public hearing on the school safety bills Tuesday. But Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) criticized GOP senators for scheduling floor votes on the Senate version of the $100 million package in that house without any hearing for students and other members of the public. 

"It is disheartening that Senate Republicans would ignore these pleas and prevent students from sharing their concerns about gun violence at a public hearing," she said in a statement. 

Assembly Bill 963 aims to head off a decision by Kimberly-Clark to shut down plants in Neenah and Fox Crossing and eliminate 600 jobs.

The Assembly last month voted, 56-37, in favor of the bill, which would provide state subsidies at levels previously only offered for a flat-screen plant that Foxconn Technology Group of Taiwan is building in Racine County. 

If Kimberly-Clark kept the plants open, the state would cover 17% of qualifying wages paid to workers there and also cover 15% of any factory upgrades. The state would also waive sales taxes on any equipment upgrades at the plant.

The wage incentives alone could cost state taxpayers $101 million to $117 million over 15 years, according to estimates from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.

Fitzgerald hasn't committed to passing the Assembly bill in any form.