On Tuesday the State Assembly took action on the 2007-09 state budget. In order to execute their "no tax,
no fee increase" budget, the Republican majority drastically cut vital funding for local governments, state
employee contracts and health care reform while carving up collective bargaining rights for public
employees. Among the most glaring actions taken by Assembly Republicans:

Compensation Reserves – Cuts $94 million from the funds for state employee wage and benefit
packages.

Municipal Employment Relations Act (MERA) – Eliminates rights to bargain health insurance and
privatization of public services, and places artificial caps on final offers sent to an arbitrator.

Shared Revenue – This vital aid to local governments is cut by nearly $60 million.

Pension Contributions – The employer contribution is shifted to the employee for all local public
employees and all non-represented state employees.

Health Insurance – Eliminates health insurance as a subject of collective bargaining for state employees,
and requires state employees to pay 10% of premiums.

Property Tax Freeze – Lowers the cap on local government revenue to between 0% and 2% depending
on variables. (The Governor’s budget had a 4% levy cap).

Wisconsin Shares – Eliminates the bi-partisan agreement reached in the Joint Committee on Finance to
increase funding for child care subsidies by $70 million and implements harmful rule changes for
providers like attendance based reporting.

A conference committee is being convened to hammer out the differences between the Senate and
Assembly budgets. The conference committee budget will ultimately be sent to the Governor. Attached to
this alert is a more detailed analysis of many of the harmful changes Assembly Republicans made
to the budget. Most of these changes would harm public employees and in many cases eliminate
public services. Now is the time to act to prevent these changes from being passed by the state
legislature. Contact your State Senator and State Representative today and tell them to…

Reject the anti-worker, anti-family, anti-public service, anti-Wisconsin budget passed by the
Assembly. The Assembly Budget should be thrown out and not considered at the conference
committee bargaining table.



LEGISLATIVE WEBSITES. . .For those "online", here are some good info spots: