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Saturday, November 24, 2007

Potential $72 Million Hole

Just in case you thought that Wisconsin’s legislators learned their lesson...

In a move described as questionable and a potential time bomb, the state’s budget balances on a gamble it will win a court case against the Ho-Chunk Nation.

If the state loses, a $72 million hole could be blown into Wisconsin’s budget.

Passed during late October, the budget assumes that a court will order the Ho-Chunk to make payments to the state that the tribe says it does not owe. The state Department of Administration estimates the tribe will owe about $72 million in fees under its gambling compact by June 30, 2009. But a lawsuit over the money is pending in federal court and there are no guarantees that the state will win, get as much as it is seeking, or that payment will be received during the current budget cycle.

“I would consider this a potential time bomb inside the budget,” said Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay. He questioned assistant Department of Administration Secretary Dan Schoof about the case during a hearing Wednesday related to a state audit of casino payments.

“I don’t think that it was a good idea to assume this would come in,” Cowles said.

The move was also being questioned outside the Legislature.

Expecting the money is one in a series of questionable accounting moves made in the latest budget to make it balance on paper but not in reality, said Todd Berry, director of the nonpartisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. Others include a $200 million fund transfer that’s already being challenged in court and assumptions on how much in cigarette taxes will be collected, Berry said.

But an aide to a Republican lawmaker who helped craft the budget defended the move and said the Ho-Chunk payments are owed to the state and had to be accounted for.

What the story doesn’t consider is what the other tribes might do if the Ho-Chunk win the case.  The other tribes have been paying the state millions of dollars over the past few years.  If it turns out that they weren’t actually required to make those payments, don’t you think that some of them might sue the state for a refund?

(5) Comments
Posted by Owen at 0928 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. Sigh.  This falls under the “This would have been good to know BEFORE the budget passed” category.

    Posted by hsgbdmama on November 24, 2007 at 1007 hrs


  2. The Courts will give the state what it wants…forget everything else.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 24, 2007 at 1115 hrs


  3. Anon, you forget that this is not before the Doyle-controlled state courts, but the wholly-unpredictable fed courts (specifically, the 7th Circuit Appeals Court).

    Posted by steveegg on November 24, 2007 at 1203 hrs


  4. But an aide to a Republican lawmaker who helped craft the budget defended the move and said the Ho-Chunk payments removed from offare owed to the state and had to be accounted for.

    Then you target them to a contingency account or to optional expenditures.

    If they’re targeted to operating expenditures, then this staffer and his or her boss should be fired and the people who voted him or her in should go without representation for two years.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 24, 2007 at 2020 hrs


  5. If they’re targeted to operating expenditures, then this staffer and his or her boss should be fired and the people who voted him or her in should go without representation for two years.        
    This staffer should be fired? For pointing out the fallacy of this budget?
    No, Tosa voter, they should be congratulated as a voice of reason.
    Their boss, as you mentioned, should indeed be canned yesteday.
    Extreme would be leaving these people without representation for two years.
    That is not necessary. It is harmful.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 25, 2007 at 0331 hrs


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