January 23, 2003
Contact: Jessica Erickson, 608-261-2156

Governor Jim Doyle announced today that he will call the Legislature into special session to pass an emergency budget bill to address the shortfall in this fiscal year's budget. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported today that the state faces a $452 million deficit in the current fiscal year.

"This shortfall is a result of a larger-than-expected decline in revenue growth this year, bad decisions made in the past, and a failure to fix the underlying problems that have been built into the state budget," Doyle said. "With the severity of the problem in focus, we are going to have to start fixing this problem now. We cannot wait to start many of these cuts and cost savings."

Doyle said the emergency bill introduced by his administration will identify $161.5 million in immediate savings. Because the vast majority of revenue has already been spent in this fiscal year, the remaining deficit will have to be rolled into next year's budget.

"This emergency bill will be a down payment on the deficit," Doyle said. "It will cause serious and painful cuts in state government spending, and will work together with my upcoming budget bill to end the culture of ever increasing spending in this state. All savings that we can realize in this fiscal year will help reduce the overall size of the budget deficit in the next biennium."

The Governor is currently working with legislative leaders to establish a date for the special session.

"It is vital that the Legislature acts quickly on this repair bill because every day we wait, it is harder to reduce our spending for this fiscal year," Doyle said. "The bigger the deficit is coming out of this year, the more painful it will be to solve the budget problem for the next biennium."

The Doyle administration has already taken several actions to save money in the current budget year. The Governor has directed the Department of Administration to keep current job openings vacant, place limitations on out-of-state travel, review all state building projects, and place a moratorium on all new space requests and lease renewals.

"I am still confident that even in the face of this growing fiscal problem, we will be able to present a responsible, balanced budget that does not raise taxes," Doyle said. "Only by setting our fiscal house in order will we be in a position to make the kind of changes we need to improve education for every child, help our citizens deal with rising health care costs, and create the kind of jobs Wisconsin needs in the future."

The overall deficit number for the state of Wisconsin in the current fiscal year is $452 million. This number includes a deficit of $373 million, and additional shortfalls in medical assistance (MA) and BadgerCare of $64 million and an anticipated shortfall in the Department of Corrections of $15 million.