Even as a legislative committee worked to approve of a Department of Revenue budget request for additional auditors and collections officers, some Assembly Republicans were expressing skepticism with the plan on Wednesday. Rep. Steve Nass was the first to suggest that the DOR should not be hiring new officials to work with the IRS in conducting and overseeing audits of Wisconsin taxpayers. Nass’s call early in the day was joined by several other Republicans even after the budget writing committee gave the green light to the spending.

Nass’s concern was driven by the sweeping scandal that found IRS employees abusing their power to target some groups for political and ideological reasons. So far, the scandal has led to the resignation of the IRS commissioner, who was already scheduled to leave the federal bureaucracy in a few months.

“No one should feel comfortable right now,” Nass wrote in an open letter to the Joint Finance Committee the day it began publicly voting on the DOR’s budget. Nass called for policy items expanding the scope of the DOR’s ability to pursue a taxpayer as well as the over five dozen newly proposed tax enforcement positions to be struck from the budget.

“In fact, part of DOR’s request relates to assistance they provide to the IRS for federal audits or other issues the two government taxing agencies work on relating to individual taxpayers,” he wrote. How Republican members of the committee would vote would “show the public if the Republican majority stands with the Tax Collector or the Taxpayer.”

Rep. Joe Sanfelippo echoed Nass in a letter of his own to the Republican Assembly caucus urging Joint Finance Committee members to “take a stand for the taxpayers.” The committee, he wrote, should “delete the Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s request for additional auditors and expanded powers (including unlimited access to numerous state databases) from the 2013-15 Biennial Budget.”

Another Republican legislator felt that hiring the new DOR officials would send a bad message to Wisconsin taxpayers.

“The real danger in this whole IRS scandal is that it causes folks to fear speaking out politically,” wrote Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt. “We should not feed that fear by hiring additional agents to assist in enhanced proctological exams of taxpayers.”

Conservative freshman stalwart Rep. Rob Hutton mentioned to the caucus that in April he asked Rep. John Nygren, the Assembly co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, to consider his motion to remove the new positions from the DOR’s budget. Hutton said his intent was to reduce “additional overhead” and force the DOR “to find greater efficiencies within the department.”

“We must be wary that expanding powers within our own DOR has the potential to lead to similar outcomes. We need a serious discussion surrounding the implications of expanding resources and power to the DOR,” Hutton concluded.

The lawmakers’ calls were not heeded by the JFC. Committee members there waived through the new spending and new government worker positions. After the committee concludes its work, the budget will be debated and voted on by both chambers of the legislature.

While the $63.5 million reduction may sound significant, when compared with the overall amount of money lawmakers have approved for the program, it amounts to a very small figure. Before the changes were made on Wednesday, the stewardship program was authorized over its lifetime – from 1989 to 2020 – to issue up to $1.43 billion in bonds. A cut of $63.5 million equals a reduction in bonding authority of 4.44%.

According to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, debt service for the life of the program, before the recent change, was slated to cost the state $2.2 billion. For just this year alone, the governor’s budget proposal called for spending $84 million to pay for previous stewardship spending.

Republicans crafting the state budget voted late Wednesday to back a meager reform of the stewardship program. Managed by the Department of Natural Resources, the Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship Program uses money the state raises through debt financing to acquire land to be owned by the state, ostensibly for preservation purposes. Since its inception in 1989, the program has been used by the DNR to boost its land holdings to nearly 1.5 million acres.

Under the plan approved by some Republicans, the stewardship fund is authorized to buy approximately 400,000 more acres of land, and required to sell only 250 acres of farmland a year until 2020, and a total of 10,000 acres of other lands. The annual total cost of the program, not including debt service, declined from $60 million to $47.5 million the first year of this budget and $54.5 million the second year of the budget.

State Sen. Alberta Darling, the Republican co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, expressed grave concern over the “unsustainable” level of bonding that funds the program. The bonding, which this year is slated to cost $84.2 million, “just started to really haunt us,” Darling said on Wednesday.

But despite that concern, lawmakers only tinkered to change the amount of money the program is spending to purchase new land through direct acquisitions and grants to local governments and non-profit conservation organizations. Governor Scott Walker’s budget plan called for the DNR to spend $32 million each year on new land purchases. The plan crafted by State Rep. Dan LeMaheiu and approved by the Joint Finance Committee leaves that total the same.

Republicans who are not on the budget-writing committee lobbied Speaker Robin Vos and Rep. LeMaheiu to make more substantial cuts to the program. Roughly 30 lawmakers signed a letter to the Speaker written by Rep. Chris Kapenga urging more in-depth reform of the program.

“On behalf of the Assembly Republican Caucus, the signatories of this letter request that the DNR may not obligate more than $30 million total to the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program to the land acquisition subprogram in the 2013-15 biennium,” the letter explained.

One of the more frugal parts of the Governor’s budget plan for the program involved reducing to $9 million a year the amount of state money that would be given to non-profit organizations seeking to purchase land for conservation. If a conservation organization wishes to purchase land but doesn’t have all the money necessary for the purchase, they can receive state funding for their project. The state then uses its bonding authority to run up what amounts to a credit card bill that state taxpayers will eventually have to pay.

Joint Finance Committee Republicans congratulated themselves in the Wednesday hearing after pushing the total amount of money available for conservation organization land purchases to $12 million annually.

Lawmakers kept intact another provision of the program that awards state money to local governments that buy up land allegedly for conservation purposes. Over the next two years this part of the program will cost $12 million. According to DNR records, local governments in Dane County are far and away the biggest recipients of this money. From the start of the program through the middle of 2012, state taxpayers have given $22.4 million to Dane County for environmental stewardship programs.

Sen. Alberta Darling and Rep. John Nygren, the co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee, proclaimed their satisfaction with the stewardship program changes in a press release on Thursday morning. “We believe we have made responsible reductions while preserving the integrity of this valuable program. This motion protects taxpayers and the environment. Significantly reducing the debt service in the Stewardship Program helps ensure the program will continue in the future,” the statement read.

The motion that passed meagerly reforming the stewardship program: Motion267

In a gesture to remember the late Lady Margaret Thatcher, a bipartisan cadre of Wisconsin legislators submitted a joint resolution honoring her life and legacy. Such resolutions generally pass with little opposition and are often designed to recognize the life or worthy accomplishments of some person. Last session, for example, the legislature declared December 12, 2012, Aaron Rodgers Day.

Since Thatcher’s death on April 8th, foreign leaders from across the political spectrum have offered their condolences and remembrances. President Barack Obama called Thatcher a “true friend” to the United States, noting, “As a grocer’s daughter who rose to become Britain’s first female prime minister, she stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can’t be shattered.”

As President Obama stated, Thatcher is heralded as a role model for women as the first female Prime Minister in Europe serving the United Kingdom for over a decade. Thatcher was key in the eventual dissolution of the former Soviet Union and transformed her country’s economy.

After unanimously passing the state Senate in April, the Thatcher resolution moved to the Assembly. When the matter came up for a vote there this past Tuesday , however, three Democrat members rose to speak in opposition. Representatives Cory Mason, Fred Kessler, and Tod Ohnstad all criticized the measure suggesting Thatcher was a person hardly worth honoring.

Mason took it upon himself to declare, “we would be remiss if we didn’t take some notice of a mixed legacy that the former Prime Minister has.” Mason and his colleagues pointed to Thatcher’s support of the Falkland War and handling of South African apartheid sanctions as evidence of poor leadership.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos stood to support the resolution pointing to Thatcher’s vast support around the world. Vos said that after hearing from the Dalai Lama who called for finding common ground the resolution should not be controversial, and that resolutions honoring progressive leaders had been passed by the Assembly previously.

Another Democrat, Rep. Melissa Sargent, issued a press release after the vote stating the Assembly, “Honored a leader who is best known for war and destroying the middle class of a nation.”

Despite voicing their opposition to Thatcher, something that contradicted the statements of other more well-known figures in their party, Democrats were not successful at preventing the resolution’s passage.

Through the state budget, the Department of Revenue is seeking access to numerous state databases that will be used by more than 5 dozen newly hired officials to target Wisconsin taxpayers for tax enforcement. A DOR budget request notes that the new tools and tax collectors will work in conjunction with the IRS on taxpayer audits.

Nass’s strongly worded letter to fellow Republicans read:

Based on the startling information coming to light in the IRS scandal, I am asking the Joint Finance Committee to delete the Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s request for additional auditors and expanded powers (including unlimited access to numerous state databases) from the 2013-15 Biennial Budget.  In fact, part of DOR’s request relates to assistance they provide to the IRS for federal audits or other issues the two government taxing agencies work on relating to individual taxpayers.

No one should feel comfortable right now based on the alleged un-American activities of the IRS.  No one should assume something similar couldn’t happen within our own DOR.  That is why these requests should be stripped from the budget.  If the agency can make effective case in the future for these needs, a separate piece of the legislation can be introduced at a later date.

Today’s action in JFC will show the public if the Republican majority stands with the Tax Collector or the Taxpayer.

While the IRS’s apparent malfeasance did not come from an abuse of audit power (at least media reports have not yet uncovered that), the IRS did go to great lengths to probe the personal lives of leaders of conservative organizations applying for non-profit status.

UPDATE: Rep. Joe Sanfelippo (R) joined Rep. Nass’s call with the following statement:

I whole-heartedly agree with Rep. Nass.

Given the information that has come forward as of late, I ask the Joint Finance Committee to honor Rep. Nass’ request and delete the Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s request for additional auditors and expanded powers (including unlimited access to numerous state databases) from the 2013-15 Biennial Budget.

I also agree that if DOR’s requests are justified, the legislature can address those needs with separate legislation at a later time.

Please make the right decision on this and take a stand for the taxpayers.

The Joint Finance Committee appears to have approved the funding anyway today.

“Citizens should be asking at least two serious questions of Wisconsin state legislators as the Joint Finance Committee heads into a decision this week on funding for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund,” the joint statement declared.

Those questions are, “How much land should the state of Wisconsin own? And how great a debt burden should the State of Wisconsin be allowed to impose on taxpayers in order to maintain an ever-longer list of public lands?”

Contending that the DNR-managed program “is doing more harm than good” to the state, the coalition called for the legislature to wind down spending and focus on paying off current debts, not purchasing additional lands.

“Less land on the tax rolls means that both state and local taxes will only continue to increase on Wisconsin families, farms, and businesses as the cost of maintaining public lands increases,” wrote Jeffery Horn, a grassroots leader from Sun Prairie. “It also means significant reduction in the amount of real property available for use in agriculture, forestry, and other types of private industry that result in real jobs.”

The groups signing on to the press release hail from across the state, and included leaders like Kim Simac, who ran for state senate in 2011 and now works as a coalition builder among grassroots conservatives.

Jeffery Horn, who led the effort, told Media Trackers that the groups are going to urge their members to contact lawmakers, and particularly Joint Finance Committee members, about the program. The committee is expected to debate spending for the fund sometime later this week.

Wisconsin taxpayers bought a golf course for $11,134 an acre thanks to the Department of Natural Resource’s stewardship program. The program uses bonding – a form of debt financing – to purchase land that DNR bureaucrats believe should be set aside for conservation purposes. Around 5.17% of Wisconsin land is owned by the state, while nearby states like Iowa and Illinois only own respectively 0.64% and 1.14% of their state’s land.

The state purchase of the golf course land came in 2009 and was a topic of heated public debate. Two courses totaling 970 acres, including land and lakes, were purchased together for a total price of $10.8 million, or $11,134 per acre. Governor Scott Walker (R), early in his administration, sought to at least partially undo the golf course spending that happened under Governor Jim Doyle (D).

The stewardship program, known by its official name as the Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship Program, has greatly expanded since it was first created in 1989. Just as the program has purchased more land for the state, the cost of the program to state taxpayers has steadily risen.

Because the stewardship program uses bonds, which allow the DNR to spend money it doesn’t have, its total cost to taxpayers is significantly greater than the amount lawmakers have authorized it to spend. Buried in a Legislative Fiscal Bureau report on the program, its true cost to taxpayers is explained. “Debt service payments (principle repayment and interest) on the up to $1.43 billion authorized for the program could total approximately $2.2 billion” for the duration of the program’s bonds.

Bonds issued to pay for the land purchases generally run for 20 years, meaning that from 1989 (the start of the program) until 2020 (the scheduled end of the program) the bonds would run from 1989 until 2040.

The currently proposed state budget authorizes the DNR to spend $64 million on the stewardship program, or $32 million each year. But while lawmakers are mulling giving the green light to that new spending, the budget also spends $84 million in just the next year to pay off the debt from previous land purchase spending. The vast majority, $70.7 million, of that debt repayment comes from the state’s general fund, which comes from taxes.

That kind of debt financing comes out to $230,000 a day that Wisconsin taxpayers are spending just to pay off land state government already purchased.

According to the nearby chart from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, debt payments will be up this budget because Governor Jim Doyle’s (D) budget passed in 2009 decided to just pay the interest on the stewardship program debt. That means that thanks Doyle’s final budgets, the state made very little – if any progress – towards retiring the initial cost of some of the ongoing state land purchases.

For comparison, the amount of money Wisconsin will spend paying for the stewardship debt is greater than the amount it will spend on some state agencies or parts of state government. The Supreme Court’s proposed budget, for example, is $63.2 million for the next two years, and the state Department of Tourism’s two-year budget was proposed at $35.7 million.

The Joint Finance Committee, which writes the state budget, is slated to vote on the stewardship program this week, possibly as early as Wednesday.

State government already owns over a million and a half acres of land and yet the proposed state budget allocates up to $64 million to buy more. Compared with other Midwestern states, the percentage of land in Wisconsin owned by state government is already relatively high.

A major hitch in the proposal is that the money for land purchases would come from bonding, not money the state already has on hand or expects to have on hand to spend. Bonding, which allows the state to go into debt now to spend now and pay later, has been a sore spot in the proposed budget with fiscal hawks calling for a more responsible approach to spending.

The Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship Program is a Department of Natural Resources managed project that purchases land for state ownership and offers financial assistance to conservation organizations looking to purchase and preserve land. According to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the “state generally issues 20-year tax-exempt general obligation bonds to support the stewardship program.” As the LFB report notes, “the government is required to use its taxing power if necessary to repay the debt.”

Originally authorized in 1989, the program is now, thanks to subsequent expansions and adjustments, authorized to go into debt for as much as $1.4 billion before it ends in 2020.

State government ownership of land in Wisconsin already outpaces state ownership of land in other nearby and regionally neighboring states. Reports prepared for lawmakers indicate that around 4.5% of Wisconsin’s total land is owned by state government. Data taken from the Wisconsin Blue Book, a statistical manual prepared by state government, comes up with a higher figure of 5.17%.

Available data for other states varies, but samples of data from a study produced by the National Wilderness Institute in 1995 and checked against other more recent sources indicate that the NWI study is a still a relevant report. According to that study, in Illinois a modest 1.14% of land is owned by the state, in Indiana 1.33% of land is state owned, and in Iowa a mere 0.74% of land is state owned. Over in Ohio, a still very modest 1.61% of land is state-owned.

Michigan and Minnesota both have a higher percentage of state owned land than Wisconsin. Michigan has roughly 12.6% of land state owned, and Minnesota has about 10.5% of land owned by the state.

Citizen Action of Wisconsin is leading the way in this effort to build support among various groups for an ObamaCare expansion of Medicaid. Medicaid is a joint state-federal program that provides medical insurance to lower income individuals and families, and in Wisconsin the largest Medicaid-funded program is BadgerCare.

Walker says he will not accept the federal money because a significant chunk of it would be phased out over time, leaving Wisconsin taxpayers with the bill for newly expanded entitlement programs. Instead, the governor is pushing for a more aggressive overhaul of state entitlement and welfare programs. With BadgerCare, Walker’s plan is to limit it to serving those who are at or below the federal poverty level. Individuals above that level would be placed on the federally-established and federally-paid for ObamaCare health insurance exchange, where the federal government would pay for the healthcare.

Liberal groups are upset that Walker plans to rely heavily on ObamaCare’s exchange system – which is federally funded – and not the Medicaid expansion gimmick which uses federal dollars to get states hooked on expanding programs that will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars down the road. Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action complained:

“Accepting the federal funds for BadgerCare is essential because the health insurance market has failed to provide low-income Wisconsinites with affordable health insurance options. Rejecting these funds will lead to a crisis so severe that organizations from virtually every perspective in the health care discussion are speaking out against the impact.”

Kraig doesn’t mention that the federal funds he describes will actually be cut by millions of dollars in the near future. The money is not free.

A large number of the organizations backing Citizen Action’s attempt to browbeat Walker have very little to do with healthcare, but a lot to do with left-leaning political organizing. The list opposing Walker includes labor union locals that are a part of AFSCME, WEAC, AFL-CIO, Teamsters, United Steel Workers, and the SEIU, as well as community organizing groups like Wisconsin Jobs Now!, the Racine Interfaith Coalition, and the various offshoots of WISDOM (a religious community organizing group).

All of these groups directly or indirectly worked against Walker during the 2012 recall election.

Groups like the League of Women Voters regularly weigh in on policy and political issues from a liberal perspective, often in opposition to Walker’s ideas. Add to that the opposition of several local Democratic Parties in the state, and the Citizen Action list rounds out like a roster of Walker political opponents, not a serious list of thoughtful policy analysts.

That labor unions, Democrats, and liberal community organizers oppose Walker is something that is true beyond just the Medicaid issue.

Residents of northern Wisconsin who live near the Bad River Band of Chippewa are asking the federal Environmental Protection Agency to start enforcing clean water regulations currently violated by the tribe. The requests came in the form of comments submitted to the EPA’s Region 5 office in Chicago. From April 5 until May 6, EPA officials solicited public comment on a series of draft permits they are preparing to issue to the Bad River Band’s tribal wastewater treatment plant.

Local boaters, sportsmen and residents protested a decision by EPA officials to issue new permits to the tribal wastewater plant without first requiring the facility to be in compliance with water quality standards required by the Clean Water Act. “Please tell me how it is possible, the EPA would even consider a re-issuance of a discharge permit for the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, when so many violations have been exposed?” wrote Ross Peterson, a Hurley resident.

A detailed review of EPA records earlier this year showed that the Bad River facility repeatedly and flagrantly violated water quality standards over a period of several years. At times, the tribe would pump water with E. coli levels 5,400% in excess of federal limits into a river that flows into Lake Superior. A 2009 study by the New York Times found the tribe’s facility to be the worst repeat-violator of the Clean Water Act in Wisconsin.

The Saxon Harbor Boating Club strongly expressed its opposition to the EPA’s re-issuance of a permit to the tribe. “As citizens that reside near the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northern Wisconsin, we are writing to express our concern about the EPA’s proposed re-issuance of the NPDES permit for the Bad River Band’s wastewater treatment facility in Odanah, Wisconsin,” the organization’s officers wrote.

According to their letter, the Saxon Harbor Boating Club is made up of 230 members, all of whom are concerned about water quality in and around Lake Superior. Begging the EPA to not dismiss their concerns the letter declared, “The importance of the Bad River and Lake Superior to our way of life here in northern Wisconsin should not be underestimated.”

The EPA’s failure to stop the pollution violations was particularly frustrating to some residents. Tribal facilities are regulated directly by the federal government and state environmental officials have no oversight or authority over tribal environmental violations. Peterson wrote in his letter to the EPA that he felt officials let residents down. “The EPA needs to explain how it knowingly let these violations go unchecked and this was permitted to continue for so long!” he emphatically exclaimed.

In addition to asking the EPA to refrain from issuing new permits until the Bad River Band is able to bring its facility into full compliance, residents asked for a hearing to be held in northern Wisconsin before any permits are issued. According to the EPA’s draft permit, anyone can request a public hearing about a permit by stating the issues of concern to be raised in the hearing.

So far, hearings and calls for hearings in northern Wisconsin have primarily centered around the proposed iron ore mine that is opposed by the Bad River Tribe and some environmental groups.

Saxon Harbor Boat Club letter to EPA (PDF)