Incoming Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would need to find about $1.1 billion to give state agencies all they requested to pay for schools, prisons, Medicaid and other government operations over the next two years, a report released Tuesday said.
The analysis from Gov. Scott Walker's administration revises revenue estimates for the current year and makes a prediction of how much the state will collect in taxes over the next two years. It then subtracts spending requested from state agencies over that time period, assuming they would get all that they ask for, which they never do.
Although revenue estimates will be revised several times over the coming months, the report is a snapshot of the challenge facing the new governor and Republican-led Legislature. This will be the first budget debate since 2007 in which the governor and Legislature are under split party control. Republicans have controlled everything for the past eight years and Democrats had full control during the two years prior.
In 2007, the governor was a Democrat, the Senate was controlled by Democrats and the Assembly was run by Republicans. The budget wasn't signed into law until October, four months late. In 2017, when Walker and Republicans couldn't agree on transportation funding, Walker signed the budget three months late, in September.
The other four budgets were all passed and signed into law on or before the July 1 deadline.
Evers will introduce a budget early in 2019, which the Legislature will then revise over several months. The current budget, which runs until June 30, 2019, will remain in effect until a new one is signed into law.
Evers' spokeswoman, Carrie Lynch, had no immediate comment on the report, which comes from Walker's Department of Administration. The report is required by law.
The report assumes that tax collections will be 4.2 percent higher this fiscal year than the previous one. It then assumes growth of 3.5 percent the first year of the next state budget and 2.5 percent the second year.
The Walker administration revenue estimates are based on current state and federal law and "can be volatile," the report cautioned.
Revenue estimates will be updated in mid-January by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Those numbers will then form the basis of the state budget Evers submits.
The $1.1 billion shortfall is not out of line with recent budget projects at this point in the process. The average imbalance in the past four reports was about $1 billion, Walker's administration said.
However, the numbers can change quickly. By the time Walker introduced his first budget in 2011, the projected shortfall was $3.6 billion.
