To see the summary of top budget items for local government, handed out at the press conference in Green Bay, go here.

Kettl II on the Drawing Board 

In promising to be an advocate for local government in the McCallum administration, Lt. Gov. Margaret Farrow also is promising to continue the work of the Governor's Blue-Ribbon Commission on State-Local Partnership in the 21st Century, the so-called Kettl Commission.

The project is a high priority with Lt. Gov. Farrow, but the budget is taking up most of her and Gov. Scott McCallum's time right now, said Jeff Grothman of the lieutenant governor's office.

Four provisions stemming from the Kettl Commission's recommendations remained in the budget bill when it reached McCallum's desk:

• A 1% increase in shared revenue while the potential for growth-sharing is sorted out.

• Expanded municipal fee authority.

• Area Cooperation Compacts.

• A performance review pilot program.

Local Government Groups, Road Builders Meet

Representatives of local government groups and Citizens for a Better Environment met with representatives of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association in May to discuss the road builders' plan to restructure transportation funding in Wisconsin.

Days later, the package showed up in the Assembly Republicans' version of the budget, but it was eliminated in the conference committee version that was sent to Governor Scott McCallum. That plan would have gone beyond what WTBA esecutive director Tom Walker disclosed to us by designating sales tax revenue attributable to car purchases for the transportation fund.

As this newsletter went to press, Walker had not responded to our request for insight into the road builders' current intentions.

The version of the road builders' plan that Assembly Republicans embraced would have included funneling all vehicle sales tax revenue to the transportation fund, the transfer to be phased in over a 10-year period.

It turns out the entire package will have to await  more public discussion and debate. It was rejected by the budget conference committee. To see Walker's letter and the two-page summary of his plan, look here. 

Phone Companies declare war
on local government power

Wisconsin's telephone companies had plans to have a bill introduced this summer to pre-empt local government's authority to operate telecommunications utilities to fill the "digital divide" that separates some Wisconsin citizens from reasonably-priced high-speed Internet services.

An effort to insert the phone-company proposal into the state budget bill in the Assembly Republican caucus failed, and the telecos were regrouping as this newsletter went to press.

Local government advocates believe the phone companies' efforts are misguided because the Telecommunications Act of 1996 said that "no state ... may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide any ... telecommunications service." U.S. District Judge James P. Jones of western Virginia agreed last spring, in a decision to allow Bristol, Virginia to offer high-speed Internet access, cable television and telephone services no matter what the state did.

That decision won't deter Wisconsin phone companies,  Ray Riordan Jr., executive vice president of the Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A bill to do that last session made it out of an Assembly committee but died in the Assembly Rules Committee last session.

To see Amy Rinard's story on the Virginia court decision and the phone companies' plans, look here.

Local governments are unhappy with the telephone companies too, because the phone companies don't pay a penny in local property taxes, Rick Barrett reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel August 6. To see his story, look here.