Education
• Creates a new cabinet level Department of Education.
• Ensures that all school districts will benefit from the large increase in school aid.
• Provides school boards with greater flexibility to innovate and enhances local control.
• Expands the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to include sectarian schools in Milwaukee only, and increases participation to up to 15,000 students by 1996-97 and thereafter.
• Initiates several reforms for Milwaukee Public Schools, including the authority to close failing schools.
• Provides that an unlimited number of charter schools can be created statewide.
• Maintains UW tuition at levels that are the second lowest of the schools in the Big Ten.
• Creates a University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics Public Authority to help maintain the hospital's high quality in an increasingly competitive health care market.
Environmental Protection and Resource Management
• Converts the Departments of Natural Resources and Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to cabinet agencies.
• Streamlines regulatory services to business and industry by consolidating in the new Department of Commerce responsibility for grants under the petroleum environmental cleanup fund award (PECFA) program and for approving remediation of low and medium priority leaking underground storage tank sites.
• Authorizes the reallocation of uncommitted funds from the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway component of the Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson stewardship program for acquisition of the Willow Flowage in Oneida County.
• Improves boating safety on Wisconsin lakes and rivers by increasing aids for local water safety patrols to over $1 million.
• Eliminates the $2 per tire fee for removal and recovery of waste tires, effective June 30, 1997, reflecting successful cleanup of waste tires in the state.
• Encourages the redevelopment of vacant urban industrial sites by providing staff for review and approval of property cleanups to ensure purchaser release from future liability related to past contamination.
• Enhances the recycling of high volume industrial waste (including foundry sand and paper mill sludge) by authorizing its use in highway improvement projects and by directing the Department of Natural Resources to establish standards for the reuse of this waste.
Human Services
• Renames the Department of Health and Social Services to be the Department of Health and Family Services, reflecting the agency's redefined mission.
• Creates an assisted living initiative providing a long-term care option stressing independent and individualized living.
A386
• Provides counties with an estimated increase of $20 million in federal funds for the biennium by expanding claims for federal funds for MA services currently paid with county dollars.
• Creates a Division of Children's Programs to provide a focus for the well-being of children.
• Creates state support for an optional medical relief program for counties to pay for the medical costs of the indigent.
• Provides an increase of $1 million annually to pay for treatment costs of drunk drivers.
Government Operations and Justice
• Completes the phased-in pickup of county court costs by providing additional state funds to offset approximately 90% of court costs currently funded by the property tax.
• Consolidates juvenile correctional programs and youth services in the Department of Corrections.
• Eliminates juvenile court jurisdiction over 17-year olds alleged to have committed criminal offenses.
• Lowers the minimum age of adult court jurisdiction from 18 to 17.
• Provides funding and staff to operate new or expanded state correctional facilities at Jackson County, Dodge, Oshkosh, Taycheedah, Waupun, Kettle Moraine and Green Bay.
• Authorizes up to $25 million in state bonding for a super-maximum security state correctional institution.
• Places responsibility for administration and operations of the state lottery with the Department of Revenue.
• Creates an information technology fund to ensure that all state agencies have access to adequate information technology.
• Creates a new Bureau of Judicial Information Systems to develop common information technology systems for agencies involved with court and legal proceedings and case management.
• Provides limited pay increases for state employes.
The budget I am signing today is a budget that positions Wisconsin for the future. It does this by reducing property taxes, controlling spending at all levels and making our state government work smarter for the benefit of everyone. State government is being challenged to innovate, to economize and to become more efficient. We will respond to these challenges.
Respectfully submitted,
TOMMY G. THOMPSON
Governor
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VETO MESSAGE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. EDUCATION AND TRAINING
ARTS BOARD
1. Elimination of the Arts Board
INDUSTRY, LABOR AND HUMAN RELATIONS
2. Private Sewage System
3. Career Counseling Centers
4. Safety and Buildings Code Development Operations
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
5. Student Achievement Guarantee in Education
6. Compulsory School Attendance
7. Maximum Allowable Revenue Increase
8. Certification of Athletic Associations
9. Definition of a School Bus
10. Earmarking of Operations Funding
11. Modifications to Cooperative Educational Service Agencies
12. Charter School Notification
13. Charter School Petitions
14. Restrictions on MPS Contracting for Educational Services
15. Handicapped Education Aid Reimbursement
16. Public Instruction -- Technical Correction
STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETy
17. Budget Efficiency Measures
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SYSTEM
18. University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics -- Agreement Approval Process
19. Distribution of Efficiency Measures Reductions
20. Student Application Fee Initial Applicability
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B. ENVIRONMENTAL AND COMMERCIAL RESOURCES
AGRICULTURE, TRADE AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
1. Board of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection Membership
2. Proportional Funding of Agrichemical Clean-Up Grants
3. Agricultural Drainage Districts
DEVELOPMENT
4. Development Opportunity Zone Day Care and Environmental Remediation Credits
5. Safety and Buildings -- Technical Correction
NATURAL RESOURCES
6. Financial Hardship Assistance Grants
7. Advance Funding Grants for Plans and Specifications
A387
8. Clean Water Fund Loan Interest Rates
9. Public Intervenor Board
10. Fish and Wildlife Account Expenditure Reduction Plan
11. Heritage State Parks and Forests Trust Fund
12. Nonresident Sports and Conservation Patron Licenses -- Technical Correction
STATE FAIR PARK BOARd
13. Youth and Athlete Facility
14. Memorandum of Understanding Approval
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - EXTENSION
