LoginSenate Democrats on budget committee say they hope Republicans change their approach
Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) during a press conference in March 2023. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) and Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) both serve on one of the most powerful committees in the Wisconsin State Legislature, yet as members of the minority they’ve often been frustrated by the way Republicans on the committee have excluded them from conversations. The lawmakers say they hope some of this changes next year.
The 16-person Joint Finance Committee is responsible for writing the state’s two-year budget — deciding which policy priorities get funding and which don’t — and reviewing all state appropriations and revenues. Republican lawmakers will continue to hold 12 seats next session with Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) serving as co-chairs.
In previous sessions, when Democrats held a smaller minority in the Senate and Assembly, the lawmakers said Republicans often excluded them from the budget negotiation process.
“The Republican party didn’t just treat us badly because we were in the minority, they treated us as though we did not exist on Joint Finance,” Johnson said. “Some of their motions we didn’t find out about until they were actually passing them out on paper. That means we had very little input.”
Roys said it’s been “very easy for the Republicans to just go in a little room, figure out what they’re going to do, and then they come out and they all vote in lockstep.”
“There’s no discussion, there’s no transparency, and there’s certainly no opportunity for Democrats to have our priorities reflected in the budget,” Roys said.
Beyond budget writing discussions, Republican lawmakers on the committee have also often rejected calls from Democrats on the committee to release money that was already dedicated to certain issues.
Johnson called the practice of withholding of money a “tremendous problem.” She noted that $50 million that was meant to help support the implementation of new literacy curricula in schools across the state haven’t been released despite being included in the 2023-25 budget.
“Not only are they holding those funds up, but the cost is continuing to rise, so that $50 million that was promised in 2024 isn’t going to go as far in 2025,” Johnson said. “We’ve seen that.”
Johnson also pointed out that funding to help expand the number of beds at Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center, a facility in Madison that provides specialized treatment services for juveniles transferred from the Department of Corrections, was withheld for about six months. It was only released after the death of a youth counselor for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections at Lincoln Hills School for Boys at the hands of a 16-year-old boy.
Other funds that have been withheld by the committee in the recent session include $10 million to support hospitals in the Chippewa Valley and $125 million to combat PFAS contamination.
“What is the purpose of us allocating these funds if the agencies can’t access them the way that they need to to make these programs work, to get what they need to get?” Johnson said.
Johnson said she thinks that new legislative maps could help change the dynamic. Roys also said it could have an impact that the state Supreme Court found it unconstitutional for the committee to block state spending on land conservation projects after the money has been budgeted.
“That dynamic is at play, and I wonder if it will chasten the Republicans. It doesn’t seem to have done so yet,” Roys said.
Elections under new legislative maps increased Democrats’ presence in the state Legislature by 14 seats. In the upcoming session about 45% of the Legislature will be Democrats, but they will only make up one-quarter of the finance committee with four seats. Despite this, Democrats hope that Republicans will allow for more communication.
Whether there is more bipartisan collaboration in JFC next session given the closer margins in the Senate and Assembly is an open question, Roys said.
“There’s always an opportunity,” Roys said. “Our doors are open, and we are very willing to collaborate. I think we’ve shown that in previous sessions by supporting legislation that would not have passed without Democratic votes, even though Republicans had these crazy outsized majorities.”
Johnson said that she hopes that Republicans learned a lesson from the recent elections, and warned that if Republicans don’t change their ways it could hurt their election chances in two years, when Democrats will aim to flip the Senate.
Republicans in the Senate lost four members in recent elections, including two who were members of the committee — Sens. Joan Ballweg and Duey Stroebel. Three new Republican Senators are joining the committee next session — Sen. Romaine Quinn, Julian Bradley and Rob Stafsholt — to replace the outgoing lawmakers and newly elected Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk).
Johnson said that, while she’s glad to have Sen.-elect. Sarah Keyeski of Lodi, who ousted Ballweg, joining the Senate Democrats, she thought Ballweg was a good lawmaker, who faced the consequences of gerrymandering.
“That’s the hard part of when maps are gerrymandered … when it’s corrected, sometimes the people that you lose are the moderates who are willing to do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing,” Johnson said. “That doesn’t mean that she never voted with her side. Of course she did. But she stepped away from that sometimes when she needed things for her community, too. She wasn’t opposed to doing the right thing.”
Johnson said she hopes the writing is on the wall for lawmakers that want to ostracize the minority.
“If they don’t take this as a wake-up call, then that’s better for us,” Johnson said. “Continue to operate the way that you have been operating for these last 11 years or so that I’ve been in the building, continue to do that, and it should most definitely be best for us next election cycle.”
Priorities for the lawmakers
Johnson, who has served on the committee since 2017, says she continues to because of the opportunity it presents.
“The quickest way to help some of the people that I know that need help the most — like the working poor in Milwaukee, Milwaukee County — is through JFC,” Johnson says. “That’s where all of the important decisions are made because if you’re going to get anything passed in that building that requires one dollar amount, then that money has to be set aside through JFC to make sure that the appropriate appropriations are there.”
Johnson said lawmakers have been preparing for the next budget cycle by reading agency requests.
The Democratic senators said they want to see next year’s budget invest in a variety of priorities, including K-12 and higher education, local government funding, child care, health care and public safety.
Johnson said that investing in some of these priorities could help bring down costs down the road.
Johnson noted the high costs of housing youth at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake schools. Currently, the state budgets $463,000 annually to house each juvenile in those facilities, and the Wisconsin Department of Corrections has requested that be increased to about $862,000 per year by 2026.
investing in human needs and public education instead could help prevent children from ending up at the facility, Johnson said.
“It drives me crazy,” Johnson said. “I would much rather see my tax dollars being spent on higher educational tuition reimbursements, more housing assistance, more Foodshare, more whatever, to keep these families stable, to keep these kids in the home, than to pay [over] $860,000 for one child that may or may not correct that behavior.”
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has requested an additional $4 billion in funding, the UW System has requested an additional $855 million and the state’s technical colleges have requested an additional $45 million.
Roys mentioned increasing funding for education and local governments as some of her top priorities.
“We’ve been asking our schools and local governments to continually do more with less under these harsh levy limits and inadequate funding from the state. That compounds over time,” Roys said. “We have got to make sure that our schools and our local governments have the money they need to continue providing the service that every single Wisconsinite deserves.”
When it comes to K-12 education, Roys said securing a 90% special education reimbursement for public schools would be her top priority. Private schools that participate in the school choice program already receive that rate of reimbursement, while public schools currently receive about a 33% reimbursement.
“We have a moral and a legal obligation to educate all kids, and that means meeting the needs of students with disabilities, but when the state only pays for a third of the cost of educating what that means is that school districts have to take away things for all students,” Roys said. “All kids are being harmed by the state failing to meet this unfunded mandate, failing to fund this obligation.”
Roys said investing in child care is another big priority for her.
Wisconsin’s Child Care Counts program was launched in March 2020 using federal money and has provided funding assistance to eligible child care providers to help support operating expenses, investments in program quality, tuition relief for families, staff compensation and professional development. The program is set to end in June 2025, however, as federal funds will run out.
“We cannot have a vibrant economy and have the workforce participation that we need for a strong economy if we don’t have affordable, accessible child care in every corner of the state,” Roys said. “The Legislature’s decision to go from, you know, $300 million Child Care Counts program that kept the doors open to $0 for child care in the last budget has had devastating consequences in every community across the state.”
Lawmakers on what people should know
When asked about what people should know going into next year, Johnson said people need to stay aware of what the committee is doing. She pointed out that people who closely watch Wisconsin politics probably already know about the importance of JFC.
“For those people who are not politically savvy and who don’t pay attention to those types of things, they really need to pay attention to JFC,” Johnson said.
“JFC is where those priorities are manifested, or they go to die,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t matter how good a piece of legislation is, if the funding isn’t there for it and it requests dollar amounts, it’s gonna die.”
Roys said people should make their voices and priorities known, saying that people could send emails to every member of the committee.
“Public input tells us what’s important,” Roys said. “We can’t guarantee, obviously, what the Republicans are going to choose and be funded, but it does send a strong message. That is how we know without a shadow of a doubt that public education and affordable child care were key priorities, but Republicans chose to ignore that.”
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