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Agriculture and the next Wisconsin state budget

Paul Zimmerman is Executive Director of Governmental Affairs for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau. He says the next state budget is going to be the big issue facing the next state legislature.  “It’s going to be a discussion between assistance for the needy, K-12 and higher education funding and transportation, those three items are the three big items in the state budget and how the legislature and the Governor will allocate between the three programs.”

Transportation is a big challenge, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation says we are millions of dollars per year behind where we should be in funding for roads. Zimmerman says there has been a lot of talk about raising fees but “a lot of legislators campaigned on no fee or tax increases.”  So the debate is going to be where the money will come from.

One of the big accomplishments for agriculture in the last session of the legislature was passage of the Implements of Husbandry legislation. Zimmerman says 2015 is going to be a “learning year” as local municipalities determine how they want to utilize the new rules.

Zimmerman talks about the issues: