Wisconsin is back on track. In fact,
we ended the 2016 fiscal year with a General Fund balance of $331 million and
it’s estimated to grow to $453 million by the close of fiscal year 2017!
Now
is not the time to raise taxes. Not the income tax. Not the gas tax. And we
certainly shouldn’t be raising taxes on our hard-working farmers and
manufacturers.
Instead,
our next biennial budget reinvests our Reform Dividend into our top priorities,
including education and our transportation system.
Our
budget proposal makes the following investments:
Education
- $11.5 billion for K-12 education
(the most ever).
- Increase per-pupil state
aid by $649 million.
- Increase funds for the
University of Wisconsin (UW) System by more than $100 million.
- Reduce resident
undergraduate tuition for UW students by 5% .
- More into technical
colleges than ever before.
Transportation
- $23.5 million in funding for
local governments to fix roads, bridges, and potholes – more funds than
they’ve seen in over a decade.
- $1.7 billion for state highway
rehabilitation, the largest amount ever.
- More than $669
million over
the biennium to put all active major projects outside southeastern
Wisconsin back on track.
- Add $31 million for the work on I-94 N/S
from the state line north through Kenosha and Racine counties.
We
need to be lowering the overall tax burden on the hard-working people of
Wisconsin and reinvesting in our top priorities. Together, these efforts will
continue to move our state forward for generations to come.
Today, I joined advocates from
throughout the state at the Together for Children Conference in Milwaukee,
which works to provide training and awareness about child abuse and neglect in
hopes of stopping it before it even occurs.
As
governor, I am committed to protecting our state’s most vulnerable, including our
children, those affected by domestic violence, and their families. Our biennial
budget reinforces our commitment to ending domestic violence and preventing
child abuse by increasing funds to protect child victims of sex trafficking,
expanding exclusive original jurisdiction of juvenile courts, eliminating the
wait list for long-term support, increasing children and family aids allocation, and increasing foster care and kinship care rates.
My
thanks to important advocates like the Sojourner Family Peace Center and
shelters like it throughout the state, as well as to the Department of Children
and Families (DCF), Prevent Child Abuse Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Child
Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board, co-sponsors of today’s conference, for
their efforts to raise awareness and get to the root of these issues so we can
end them here in Wisconsin.
We enjoy sharing all the great news about our state with you. It is an honor to serve as your Governor and represent the people of Wisconsin.
Sincerely,
Governor Scott Walker
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