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Welcome to the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau tutorial series. This edition discusses researching appropriations.
There are two locations in the Wisconsin statutes that detail appropriations, both in Chapter 20. The first is the Chapter 20 schedule
and the second is the appropriation's statutory text.
You can access Chapter 20 through the Wisconsin State Legislature website. Select "Documents",
under "Statutes", click "Table of Contents", and scroll down to the PDF logo next to Chapter 20.
The Chapter 20 schedule, or more formally, the appropriations schedule, is the figure that follows the text of section 20.005 subsection 3.
Use your browser's search function, and type in this section number to quickly locate it.
The Chapter 20 schedule is a helpful guide that synthesizes statutory appropriation text into a single table.
The rows of the table comprise hundreds of appropriations organized by agency.
The table has 5 columns.
In the "Statute, Agency, & Purpose" column, appropriations are listed by their purpose under each agency heading.
The source column includes acronyms that identify an appropriation's funding source.
The type column consists of several possible abbreviations that describe the time basis of an appropriation's distribution.
And the final two columns contain the amount appropriated, one column for each fiscal year.
For more information on the acronyms and abbreviations in the schedule, you can refer to
the Legislative Fiscal Bureau publication, titled, "State Budget Process"
or the definitions in section 20.001 of the statutes.
The appropriation text that follows the schedule contains the actual legal parameters for a state program's funding.
Both the schedule and appropriation text are organized by statute section.
Often the most difficult aspect of researching an appropriation is simply locating it within Chapter 20.
Depending on the state program you are researching, different strategies may be helpful.
First, you can use your browser's search function and type in the name of the program you are researching. For example, if you want
to view appropriations relating to badgercare, you can search the term, "badgercare".
Or, it may be easier to first determine which agency oversees the program you are researching, and then scroll
through its appropriations if the "badgercare" search was unsuccessful, for example,
you can locate the "Department of Health Services" header and review all appropriation purposes beneath it.
Other times, a state program is located elsewhere in the statutes where a direct reference to its statutory appropriation text is
provided. For example, if you are researching the American Indian diabetes prevention and control statute in section 250.20,
subsection 6, it references, "the appropriation account under section 20.435 subsection 1 paragraph kf".
Clicking the link takes us directly to the appropriation's statutory text.
Continuing with our example, to determine the appropriation's dollar value, its statutory text refers us to "the amounts in the schedule".
Returning to the tab used to explore the schedule, we can find our appropriation under section 20.435
subsection 1
paragraph kf, the same section number used for the statutory appropriation text. There we see $22,500 appropriated.
The schedule also lists an "A" in the "Type" column indicating that these funds are distributed annually.
In the source column we see PR-S, which stands for Program Revenues-Service.
This indicates that a transfer of money from a separate appropriation account funds American Indian Diabetes Prevention and Control.
For more specifics on this program revenue account we can refer to the appropriation statutory text.
All moneys transferred from the appropriation account under section 20.505,
subsection 8, paragraph hm, subdivision 24, shall be credited to this appropriation account.
Clicking on the link, we see that this program is one of the many uses of moneys from Indian gaming receipts.
To review our example, by analyzing the schedule and statutory text in Chapter 20, we found that $22,500 was appropriated for each
fiscal year during the 2011-13 biennium for the purposes of American Indian Diabetes Prevention and Control,
and the funding for this program came from Indian gaming receipts.
Every appropriation is unique and often more complex than this example,
so it is important to be mindful of the many terms unique to Wisconsin budgeting.
For more assistance on appropriations, please contact the LRB.