The Joint Finance Committee (JFC) is now in week 3 of Executive Session. When a committee is in executive session, the committee is voting on proposals to recommend passage or no passage to the entire legislature. During the next 5 weeks or so, JFC will be voting on items in the state budget. JFC usually schedules votes on items in one state department at a time, or a portion of a state department, depending on the size of the department.

On Wed. April 29, JFC will vote on state budget items in the Higher Educational Aids Board, Wisconsin Technical College System, Medical College of Wisconsin and a portion of the Department of Public Instruction. On Thursday, April 30, JFC will vote on portions of the Department of Transportation, the Department of Children and Families, Department of Commerce and the Department of Health Services. JFC will also take up the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board and the Department of Regulation and Licensing.

Following JFC is easy. You can watch all the meetings live on Wisconsin Eye. You can review all the documents with more detailed information on the items the committee will be voting on at http://www.legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/LFBPublications_ButtonPages/Budget_Papers.htm. That page contains a list of JFC executive session dates for JFC. Click on a date and you will get a list of topics that will be covered in that session. From there, you can get a detailed paper by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau on most of the topics to be discussed. We’ll try to keep you up to date on what JFC is doing each week via this blog.