Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu
While many municipality and state governments have had some financial difficulties due to COVID-19, the State of Wisconsin is doing quite well.
Senator Devin LeMahieu was on the WCUB Breakfast Club yesterday and he says that the COVID pandemic caused a few changes in the two year budget, but they are still doing quite well.
“Just to give a little bit of history, back in January we were projected to have a surplus,” he explained. “It was actually supposed to be a billion-dollar surplus, but then the pandemic hit, and obviously the economy suffered greatly with the shut down of the state. We were a little concerned what we might finish off the year with, but we actually finished off the year with a surplus.”
That surplus equaled out to around $200 million.
He elaborated, saying “When we do have surplus, some of that goes into the rainy-day fund. So our rainy day fund is going to go from $650 million to $750 million, which is better than pretty much all of our neighboring states. Illinois is looking to borrow $5 billion to cover their deficit, and other states are thinking about budget repair bills because they are in the red.”
He did admit it is not going to be easy going forward, but Senator LeMahieu has high hopes for the future of the state.
