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Rising
Tax breaks: Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to use more than $500 million of the state’s projected budget surplus for tax cuts spent most of the past month in political limbo as Senate and Assembly Republicans sparred over its impact on the state’s long-term fiscal picture. The state Assembly quickly advanced the proposal with a few of its own tweaks, but several Senate Republicans questioned the wisdom of increasing the structural deficit heading into the next fiscal biennium. Last week, however, a compromise emerges and moves through the Legislature’s budget committee, giving Republicans the support they need to pass the bill through both chambers. The deal moves money originally intended for the state’s rainy day fund to the general balance while extending millions in state agency budget lapses into next year. But the tax cut numbers remain untouched, providing some $400 million in property tax relief and another $100 million on the income tax side. Meanwhile, there also appears to be room for a couple more tax breaks as the legislative session winds down, including a $3.4 million sales tax break for aircraft maintenance and a $2 million sales tax exemption aimed at certain agricultural operations.
Mixed
UW research: Backers of economic development efforts at the UW System receive both good and bad news as state lawmakers advance an effort to bolster campus research. On the positive side, UW officials and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. announce the Ideadvance Seed Fund, a $2 million effort to help commercialize technology and ideas developed at UW campuses. Under the program, up to $75,000 would be available to entrepreneurs in two stages and, unlike most early-stage investment programs, would encourage efforts from all academic disciplines. One day later, however, UW-Madison announces plans to shut down its Synchrotron Radiation Center near Stoughton next month in the midst of a federal funding shortfall. The center conducts experiments using a large loop carrying speeding electrons, and remains on the cutting edge of science despite operating for 28 years. Then, the state Assembly passes legislation that would allow UW campuses to conduct classified research for national security purposes, which backers said could open up huge government research contracts and lead to spin-off companies down the road. The original measure would have carved an exemption for UW research in the state’s open records law — drawing concerns from open government proponents — but that language was dropped from the bill and it passes without controversy.
Falling
American TV: The TV, furniture and appliance retailer, which has had a presence in Wisconsin for six decades, announces it will shutter its 11 locations — including seven in the Badger State — selling off its entire inventory and laying off nearly 1,000 employees. A receivership petition filed in Dane County court indicated the fair value of the Madison-based company’s assets is worth less than its net book value of more than $72 million, and that it had total liabilities of nearly $55 million. CEO Doug Reuhl simply attributes the move to an “unforgiving economy” over the last five years. Court papers also showed nearly 700 American employees in Wisconsin at two locations each in Madison and Appleton and three locations in metro Milwaukee, with the remainder at the two stores in each in Iowa and Illinois. The stores will be closed permanently following a final going-out-of-business sale that began last week.
