Proposed Budget Cuts Shared Revenue, School Aids, UW System, Maintenance of Effort for Public Libraries

Governor Walker introduced the 2011-13 Executive State Budget (AB 40) in an address to a joint legislative session Tuesday at 4 p.m. He outlined cuts to shared revenue totaling $96 million in fiscal year 2012, and capped local levy increases at the greater of 0 percent or the gain in value due to net new construction, while also extending levy limits for two years.

K-12 school aids will be cut $749.4 million over the biennium. Revenue caps will be reduced 5.5 percent below those in place during fiscal year 2010-11.

In addition, the UW-Madison and the UW System will share cuts totaling $250 million. The budget also calls for UW-Madison to become an "independent public authority with greater flexibility to manage compensation, human resources, tuition and capital projects." The UW System would also be required to expend $250,000 to develop a plan to convert UW-Milwaukee to a public authority.

Budget documents also reveal elimination of maintenance of effort (MOE) funding for public libraries.  The budget document reads, "The Governor recommends eliminating the requirement that municipalities and counties maintain annual local expenditures for public libraries at the average of the prior three years as a condition for being a member of a public library system."

The move to eliminate MOE was expected as Walker had promised to provide local governments with "tools" and "flexibility" to help balance their budgets. In addition, the League of Wisconsin Municipalities had listed repeal of library MOE funding as a priority on their legislative agenda, and maintenance of effort had been targeted for elimination by Republican lawmakers in previous legislative sessions. The City of Milwaukee had also recently sought relief from MOE requirements.

The proposed budget appears to decrease by 10 percent funding for public library systems, BadgerLink and statewide contracts in the first year of the biennium, with flat funding in the second. DPI is continuing to analyze the budget to determine the detailed ramifications of the budget bill.

Library Legislative Day is February 22, 2011

Invite a friend, don't be late, prepare for the most important advocacy event of 2011: Library Legislative Day, Tuesday, February 22, at the Concourse Hotel in Madison. Because the new governor of Wisconsin will be introducing a budget (and facing a nearly $3 billion deficit), because local budgets are stretched tighter than ever, your voice is more essential than ever at Library Legislative Day.

Co-sponsored by the Wisconsin Library Association and the Wisconsin Educational Media & Technology Association, Library Legislative Day is our chance to make the case for state support of libraries - whether it's public library systems, the UW System's Digital Research Commons, BadgerLink, the Common School Fund, or other library-related budget items.

Registration will open in December, but make plans to attend now.

State of America's Libraries

The value of America's libraries continued to grow in 2008, as people looked for cost-effective resources, according to ALA's State of America's Libraries report, released April 13, 2009. However, public library funding didn't keep pace with use. There are many other key findings in the report. The full text is available at http://www.ala.org/2009state.

Gov. Doyle proposes Universal Service Funds for library programs in state budget

Governor Doyle used Universal Service Funds (USF) to cover costs to continue for several library programs in his 2009-11 state budget proposal, announced last night. Public library system aids received an additional $1.5 million over the biennium, maintaining state funding at 8.2 percent of local library aids. Notably, Gov. Doyle proposed that the entire base funding for systems aids also come from USF, rather than from general purpose revenues. Likewise, he proposed that the costs to continue Newsline for the Blind, BadgerLink, and statewide service contracts come entirely from the USF.

A DPI proposal to provide an additional $448,000 over the biennium for statewide delivery service was not included in the governor's budget recommendations. Also left out of the governor's proposal was the $6 million requested by UW Regents to fund the Digital Commons, a digital library initiative that would support research and advanced study across the UW System.