Proposal to release $32M for planning and adjust project thresholds fails at SBC meeting

At the State Building Commission’s March 25, 2025 meeting, Other Business items that would have adjusted project thresholds and released planning funds did not pass. Item 115 proposed increasing State Building Program project thresholds by inflationary adjustments under Wis. Stats. § 16.855(16)(b) and § 16.867; Item 116 asked DOA to request the release of $32,000,000 from a Joint Committee on Finance supplemental appropriation to the Building Trust Fund and, upon release, to allocate $49,734,000 BTF for preliminary planning and design for future enumerations.

The minutes record that option #1 motions for these items failed in subcommittee votes and failed again in full commission votes with recorded tallies of 4-4-0. Administrative Affairs and Higher Education subcommittee notations list movers and seconds (for example, motions in Administrative Affairs were recorded as moved by Senator Brad Pfaff and seconded by Barb Worcester); the full-commission motions and vote tallies are recorded separately in the minutes.

Because the motions failed, the commission did not approve the threshold increases and did not authorize DOA to seek the supplemental planning appropriation or to allocate the listed BTF planning funds at this meeting. The minutes do not record subsequent steps for resubmission, only the failed motions and the vote tallies. The item is recorded as part of the meeting’s Other Business and the minutes note they are subject to ratification at a later meeting.