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    June 17, 2011

    Legislature sends state budget bill to Gov. Walker

    June 17, 2011 – The Legislature has finished its work on the proposed 2011-13 biennial state budget, sending the bill to Gov. Scott Walker for his review.

    Legislature sends state budget bill to Gov. Walker

    Legislature sends state budget bill to Gov.   Walker

    By Adam Korbitz, Government Relations Coordinator, State Bar of Wisconsin

    June 17, 2011 – The Legislature has finished its work on the proposed 2011-13 biennial state budget, sending the bill to Gov. Scott Walker for his review.

    Gov. Walker is expected to sign the bill, along with any vetoes, by the end of the current biennium on June 30, 2011.

    The state Senate gave the bill final passage on Thursday, June 16, 2011, on a 19-14 party-line vote, a day after the Assembly passed it on a 60-38 vote that was also along party lines. Legislative leaders introduced the budget bill, Assembly Bill 40, at Gov. Walker’s request in March 2011.

    While posing difficult challenges to Wisconsin’s justice system, the budget bill does contain some initiatives the State Bar of Wisconsin supports. The budget bill also contains several provisions that the State Bar opposes, such as the elimination of all state funding for indigent civil legal needs and the elimination of public financing for Wisconsin Supreme Court campaigns.

    The good

    When the previous Legislature enacted 2009 Wisconsin Act 164, which expanded financial eligibility for public defender representation from the antiquated 1987 Aid to Families With Dependent Children limits to current W-2 limits, it also authorized 45 new SPD staff positions to handle the anticipated increased caseload. The budget bill fully funds those new positions, which under Act 164 are created effective June 19, 2011. However, as passed by the Legislature, the budget bill also locks in SPD financial eligibility limits to 2011 W-2 limits and does not index them for future W-2 increases, as originally provided in Act 164.

    In addition, the budget bill proposes increased funding to help fill the hole in the perennially underfunded SPD private bar appropriation, which has repeatedly run out of money during the first half of odd-numbered years. The budget bill increases the private bar appropriation by $3.6 million, which will not cover the entire shortfall in the next biennium.

    The State Bar’s Board of Governors has long-standing public policy positions in favor of both expanded SPD eligibility standards and adequate compensation of private bar attorneys who take SPD cases.

    The budget as passed by the Legislature also extensively modifies a provision Gov. Walker originally proposed to provide pay progression for assistant district attorneys (ADAs). Gov. Walker had proposed using $1 million annually from the justice information surcharge to fund a pay progression plan worked out by district attorneys and the Office of State Employment Relations (OSER).

    The Legislature eliminated this plan and proposed instead that during the 2011-13 biennium, district attorneys would retain the base funding for ADAs who have retired. Under the budget bill, the difference between the salaries of attorneys who retire and the salaries of new attorneys who replace them will be used to fund a pay progression plan.

    The plan can use savings from retirements that occurred on or after Jan. 1, 2011. The union representing the ADAs, the Association of State Prosecutors, and OSER is to submit a pay progression plan to the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee by Sept. 30, 2011.

    The State Bar’s Board of Governors supports a proposal to provide increased compensation to ADAs. For years, district attorney offices have incurred turnover from ADAs who leave public service due to low compensation rates. The lack of pay progression causes strain on district attorney offices when they are forced to replace and train new ADAs.

    Unfortunately, the proposed state budget does not contain a similar compensation provision for SPD staff attorneys. As President Jim Boll recently stated, the State Bar supports adequate funding for both prosecutors and public defenders.

    The budget bill also increases biennial funding to reimburse counties for court interpreter services by $366,700. The State Bar supports the continued funding of the court interpreter program.

    The bad

    Unfortunately, the budget bill completely eliminates funding for two initiatives the State Bar also strongly supports, indigent civil legal needs and data collection to study the extent of racial profiling in Wisconsin.

    The Legislature first provided funding for civil legal services for low-income individuals in the 2007-09 state budget when it included $1 million for that purpose, a move long-supported by the State Bar. A study released by the State Bar in March 2007 (Bridging the Justice Gap: Wisconsin’s Unmet Legal Needs) showed that more than 500,000 state residents routinely cope with evictions, divorces, and other critical legal issues on their own.

    The state budget for the current 2009-11 biennium, which ends on June 30, 2011, significantly boosted state funding for indigent civil legal needs by adding $4 to the justice information fee and designating that money be used to provide grant funding for civil legal services through the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation, Inc. (WisTAF).

    The budget bill also eliminates funding for data collection and analysis to study the extent of racial profiling in Wisconsin. The Legislature has also passed separate legislation to eliminate the study of racial profiling, which is awaiting the governor’s signature. The State Bar supports measures to study the extent of racial profiling in Wisconsin and opposes efforts to eliminate funding for the study.

    The Legislature’s budget bill also eliminates public funding of Wisconsin Supreme Court campaigns. Under Gov. Walker’s original budget proposal, funding for the program would have been limited to the amount of money generated by a voluntary income tax check-off, but the Legislature modified the bill to completely eliminate the program.

    Under the public financing program, enacted in 2009, money from a $3 check-off on individual state income tax returns is placed in a Democracy Trust Fund. Under the current program, which is eliminated by the budget bill, if the check-off did not generate sufficient funds, money would be transferred from the state’s general fund to fully fund the program.

    The State Bar’s Board of Governors has long supported public financing for supreme court campaigns using general purpose tax revenues as under the current program.

    Finally, the budget bill as passed by the Legislature maintains the Wisconsin Judicial Council as an independent agency but cuts half the funding for the council’s staff attorney position. Under the bill, the other half of the funding would have to be transferred from the budgets for the Director of State Courts, the State Law Library, or from some other source under the supreme court’s control. Gov. Walker did not propose any similar changes to the Judicial Council, but the cuts were inserted in the bill by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.

    Continue to monitor WisBar.org and visit the State Bar’s Government Relations page for updated information on these issues.

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    RotundaReport

    Rotunda Report is the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Government Relations e-newsletter that highlights legislative, judicial, and administrative developments that impact the legal profession and the justice system. It is published twice a month and is distributed free to attorneys, public officials and others who help shape public policy in Wisconsin. We invite your suggestions to make the Rotunda Report more informative and useful and we encourage you to visit our website for the most current information about justice-related issues.

    © 2011, State Bar of Wisconsin



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