As the sun was coming up on Saturday, June 13, the State Assembly was finishing their work on the state budget. After a full week of meetings and caucuses, the Assembly finally went to the floor late Friday night to debate the state budget bill. Now the State Senate has their turn to caucus and debate the budget bill. The Senate hopes to begin their floor debate on Wednesday, June 17.
The Governor and Legislature are dealing with a very large budget deficit of $6.5 billion and trying to maintain core programs that are needed for children and families. So far, WCCF is very pleased to see that the cut to Youth Aids funding has been restored, BadgerCare Plus and the Wisconsin Shares child care program funding levels maintained from Joint Finance, and improvements made to the W-2 program.
We are disappointed that federal stimulus funds were not used to improve the quality of child care by creating a Quality Rating System, and were sorry to see that a plan to return 17-year-olds to the Juvenile Justice System was not adopted. Please review our memos (WCCF’s and the Early Learning Coalition’s) to the legislature as they continue their work on the state budget.
https://kidsforward.org/pdf/AB75_memo_060809.pdf
https://kidsforward.org/pdf/memo_elc_jfc_060909.pdf
We still hope that legislators can reconsider these policies. You can visit the State Legislature’s website and Wispolitics.com to follow along on the state budget debate. And of course, check the “Budget Essentials” page of the WCCF website regularly for ongoing analysis of the state budget and its impact on kids and families as the process continues to unfold.
