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(AP) - Wisconsin finally has a new state budget,
nearly four months late.

      Gov. Jim Doyle signed the two-year, $57.2 billion budget Friday morning in Madison, ending the year's last state budget impasse in the nation.

Wisconsin's budget was due July 1, and 118 days later Wisconsin
remained the only state without a new spending plan. Current tax
and funding levels remained in place during the impasse.

Doyle loosened property tax limits on local
governments from 2 percent this year to 3.86 percent, largely
because the budget passed so late and governments were already
close to completing their budgets. 

A 2 percent cap in place the past two years expired in January. In 2008, the limit will be 2
percent.

The budget includes a $1 per pack increase in the cigarette tax, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2008. It also includes higher fees for registering and titling a car and obtaining a driver's license.

Doyle vetoed a provision that would have allowed free shots of liquor to be distributed at local grocery stores.

A provision slipped into the budget at the last minute would
have allowed up to one and a half ounces of liquor to be handed out
for free. Doyle said in his veto message that he strongly objects
to that.  Free wine and beer samples
continue to be legal.


The governor also vetoed a new three-tiered distribution system for wine sold in the state.

      Doyle says the new system would have stifled the state's small
wineries, perhaps forcing them out of business.

Doyle allowed the state Department of Natural
Resources to ask the Legislature for more money to fight chronic wasting disease, which has been discovered in the state's whitetail deer population. 

The budget state lawmakers passed cut $2.1 million from the agency's CWD funding, and limited how much money from the state's conservation fund could be used to combat the disease.

The governor says the budget will require state government to
become more efficient, but layoffs won't be required. 

Doyle said last week there may have to be a partial government shutdown, and
layoffs of state workers, if a deal wasn't reached soon.

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Politics and Government News

Gov. Jim Doyle signed the two-year, $57.2 billion budget Friday morning in Madison, ending the year's last state budget impasse in the nation.


Wisconsin finally has a new state budget

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