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Here are the top three issues the public raised at state budget listening sessions

Wisconsin State Capitol
Reading Time: 4 minutes

The Joint Finance Committee has wrapped up its budget listening sessions around the state, and lawmakers will soon begin writing their own two-year budget for 2025-27, likely after throwing out Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ budget recommendations. 

The public hearings — held in Hayward, West Allis, Wausau and Kaukauna — were attended by hundreds of residents who voiced their budget concerns and requests to the Republican-controlled committee. 

Here are three of the budget-related issues that attendees raised most frequently. 

Education funding 

Education was the top concern at all four hearings, with many attendees voicing support for more higher education and K-12 school funding. Many residents also called for increased special education funding. 

The Legislature reimbursed a third of Wisconsin school districts’ special education costs in the 2023-25 state budget. Private voucher schools receive up to 90% reimbursement of special education costs through a special program. Evers has proposed a more than $1 billion increase in special education reimbursements to meet a 60% coverage level in this year’s budget. 

Multiple attendees said their public school districts have transferred thousands of dollars from their general funds to their special education funds to cover costs that have not been reimbursed. Others urged lawmakers to raise the special education reimbursement level to either 60% or 90%.

“Special education is mandated, it is regulated, and more than that it is important to our students and our staff,” Josh Viegut, assistant superintendent of the Wausau School District, told lawmakers in Wausau. “This year, our district will transfer over $10 million from our general education fund to our special education fund. By increasing the reimbursement rate to 60%, you would have a great impact on all students.” 

A record number of public school referendums were held statewide last year, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, largely because inflation has exceeded the Legislature’s increases in per pupil revenue limits. Of the 94 questions on the ballot in February and April alone — the most in an odd-numbered election year since 2007 — 62 were operating referendums that asked taxpayers to raise their own property taxes to pay for daily school operations like utilities, routine maintenance and staff salaries.

“The state’s chronic underfunding of our public schools led Wauwatosa to recently pass its first operating referendum — the only way to prevent devastating cuts to our beloved teaching staff and programming,” a parent told the committee in West Allis. “Other school districts haven’t been so lucky.” 

Last month, the state Supreme Court upheld Evers’ line item veto used in the 2023-25 state budget, in which he set in state law an annual increase of $325 in public school spending per student for the next 400 years. Republicans have criticized the decision and may seek ways to sidestep the governor’s veto power in this year’s budget. 

As the federal government cuts funding to higher education, Republican lawmakers have pushed back on Evers’ $856 million budget request for the UW system. Wisconsin currently ranks 43rd out of 50 in state spending on public universities.

“This underfunding puts us at a disadvantage in the war for talent to retain and attract new students, faculty and future innovators,” Rocco Paulson, a student at UW-Superior, told the committee in Hayward. “This funding will directly support affordability — ensuring tuition remains stable … and making sure the possibility of raising our tuition doesn’t fall upon me and my fellow students.” 

Health care 

Other attendees raised concerns about federal threats to Medicaid, telling lawmakers how even a small cut to funding could greatly affect their respite care centers, disability care centers, in-home care programs and more. 

“If anything would happen to any part of the Medicaid program, we would probably end up closing our doors, and we have 55 participants that come there every single day,” an attendee from the Balsam Lake Endeavors Adult Development Center told the committee in Hayward.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives last month passed a revised budget resolution that would require the committee that oversees Medicaid to cut spending by $880 million over the next 10 years. Medicaid programs like BadgerCare, Family Care and IRIS provide coverage to 20% of Wisconsin residents, 38% of the state’s children and 60% of nursing home patients, according to the Department of Health Services. 

An attendee from Washburn providing in-home care for a disabled individual expressed concerns that the Family Care program will face federal cuts. 

“Any reduction of support for this program will make it impossible for me to continue providing care for this person … the person will once again become homeless and without care,” he told the committee. “​​Is the state prepared to house and care for these individuals?”

Evers’ budget request would accept federal Medicaid expansion and would add 897,000 low-income people to the state’s program. Wisconsin is one of 10 states that have not yet expanded Medicaid. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has defended that decision as insulating the state from the federal government scaling back Medicaid reimbursements.

Child care 

Residents also used the public hearings to express concerns regarding child care access in Wisconsin, with many supporting Evers’ $480 million funding request for Child Care Counts — a pandemic-era program that helps providers cover costs.     

Affordable and accessible child care has been a persistent issue across the state. Wisconsin is losing hundreds of child care providers every year, according to the Department of Children and Families. 

In 2023, the JFC voted to end state funding for Child Care Counts. With the program set to run out of funding at the end of June, 25% of child care providers may close without continued Child Care Counts funding, according to a recent DCF survey. Many others say they would have to raise their tuition rates. 

Chris Phernetton told the committee in Hayward that she owns one of only two licensed child care centers in Burnett County. She said her center’s small margin of profit last year was only possible because of the Child Care Counts program. 

“We raised our tuition rates in January to try to make up for the 50% cut to Child Care Counts, but as we feared, enrollment quickly dropped. Families in Burnett County can’t afford the new rates,” she said. “When families can’t find care, they can’t work.” 

A mother of two young kids told the committee the cost of child care is overwhelming. Her children’s care center often closes early due to lack of staff “because it’s hard to find teachers to work for less than a livable wage,” she said.

“If we lose state support for child care, I don’t know what families like mine will do,” she said. “Like so many others, we face tuition hikes when we can barely afford unexpected early pickups … all because there simply aren’t enough teachers to stay open.”

Here are the top three issues the public raised at state budget listening sessions is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

‘A practice driven by a lack of good options’: Homeless drop-offs in Eau Claire showcase need for state action

Illustration of woman in police car
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Click here to read highlights from the story
  • The city and county of Eau Claire recently asked Attorney General Josh Kaul to weigh in on the legality of police officers dropping off homeless people outside their jurisdiction.
  • Their request for an opinion cited several examples, including the Durand Police Department, which transported a woman in handcuffs to a city homeless shelter that has been over capacity and at risk of reducing beds.
  • The story includes interviews with the Durand police chief and the mayor of Santa Cruz, California, which recently outlawed the dropping off of homeless people without prior communication and a plan for helping the person find a housing solution.

On Oct. 27, a Durand police officer responded to a suspicious person call. He made contact with a woman who had committed no crimes but had nowhere to stay on a cold night. 

She told the officer she was from Fargo, North Dakota, and waiting for a ride, but couldn’t explain how she arrived in Durand.

When that ride didn’t show, the officer asked if she had a credit card, which local hotels require homeless individuals to put down when using a motel voucher to stay overnight. She said she didn’t and didn’t know what to do. 

There are no homeless shelters in Durand or Pepin County.

The officer then suggested she go to Sojourner House, a shelter in Eau Claire about 40 minutes away. She agreed to be transported in handcuffs, in accordance with what the officer said was department policy. He called several other shelters in communities outside of Durand, all of which were full for the night. Sojourner House didn’t answer, but he offered the woman a ride there anyway. She asked if the shelter was open.

“It’s hard to say. Once I get you up there, they might not even have a bed for you to go,” the officer told her, according to body cam footage obtained by Wisconsin Watch. “Once you get up there, ask them for resources — see what else is available to you up there.” 

The officer dropped her off and left without contacting the shelter staff or Eau Claire city officials. 

According to Eau Claire County Corporation Counsel Sharon McIlquham and City Attorney Stephen Nick, the shelter was full, and Eau Claire city police later took the woman to a hospital. She then had a run-in with UW-Eau Claire police for indecent exposure. 

“They still found themselves homeless in an unfamiliar community and committed crimes — had to get medical attention,” Nick told Wisconsin Watch, referring to multiple people who have been dropped off in Eau Claire. “So not a good outcome for them or our community.” 

But what started as a conflict between local agencies is now a legal question being posed to Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul: Should police departments in Wisconsin be allowed to transport someone experiencing homelessness out of their jurisdiction?

Body cam footage obtained by Wisconsin Watch shows a rural police officer trying — and failing — to connect a homeless woman with support services. Reporters Hallie Claflin and Trisha Young discuss what’s happening in the footage and what it illustrates about the specific challenges of addressing rural homelessness.

Nick said the problem has persisted for years in Eau Claire and extends far beyond the three examples cited in his January letter to the attorney general, asking his office to weigh in on the legality of these drop-offs.

“This is the first time we’ve received a communication along these lines, certainly since I’ve been attorney general,” Kaul told reporters at WQOW. “But I can say more broadly, some of the issues raised are ones that I think are true around the state.”

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said the drop-offs display a need for more rural resources.

The letter pointed to instances of homeless individuals from neighboring counties being dropped off in Eau Claire by other agencies including the Menomonie Police Department and the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office. McIlquham and Nick called it “a practice driven by a lack of good options,” but said the drop-offs are “unlawful at worst and unprofessional at best.” 

“None of the individuals we referenced actually received care, and that is the most common outcome from these sort of transports,” Nick said. 

Durand Police Chief Stanley Ridgeway said if his department is barred from carrying out these kinds of transports, the city’s human services department would have to pay other agencies or organizations to transport those in need of shelter. He added that rural communities like Durand lack rideshare services, public transportation or homeless shelters. 

“In the end, it will increase our cost,” Ridgeway said. “Our hands will be tied.” 

A statewide problem

The situation is not unique to Eau Claire. Police chiefs in Waukesha, Green Bay and Appleton told Wisconsin Watch they have dealt with a similar problem. 

“For as long as I can remember, we have struggled with people from outside the Fox Valley coming to this area to utilize this invaluable resource,” Appleton Police Chief Polly Olson said. “We know they … may be given rides by other, outside law enforcement, or they find out through word of mouth about the shelters and resources in this area.”

Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis told Wisconsin Watch these drop-offs happen occasionally, but he has asked agencies outside the county not to transport people because it strains local resources and makes it difficult for the homeless to return to their city of origin.  

Drop-offs are also prevalent in Waukesha, with unhoused individuals coming from surrounding areas like Delafield, Hartland, Chenequa, Pewaukee and New Berlin. But Chief Daniel Thompson said the issue is complicated because the city is a hub for resources such as hospitals, mental health clinics, trauma centers, charitable organizations and shelters.

He said it makes sense that people experiencing homelessness in smaller, rural jurisdictions would come to Waukesha for services because their own communities often don’t have any.

But it’s a problem when other municipalities drop their homeless off in Waukesha simply because they don’t want to deal with them. This is particularly a problem at Waukesha Memorial Hospital, Thompson said.

In December, Wisconsin Watch reported that the state’s estimated homeless population has been rising since 2021, following national trends. It rose from 4,861 on a single night in 2023 to 5,037 in 2024. In rural Wisconsin, the increase was 9%, according to the annual homeless count. 

Despite accounting for over 60% of the state’s homeless population in 2023, every Wisconsin county besides Milwaukee, Dane and Racine collectively contained just 23% of the state’s long-term housing with on-site supportive services, which experts say is the best way to address chronic homelessness.

‘Only because we have such poor options’

Police departments in Durand and Menomonie quickly responded to the letter sent to the attorney general, emphasizing the transports were voluntary. Police footage from both departments confirms the officers didn’t coerce the individuals, but did suggest the destination. Neither individual knew where Eau Claire was. 

“They’re not looking to come here, they’re being asked if they want to come here,” Nick said. “When that’s being done by a uniformed police officer — that changes the circumstances quite a bit in terms of how voluntary that is.”

In the letter, McIlquham and Nick cited another example in which they say a woman who was a frequent source of contact for St. Croix County sheriff’s officers was dropped off at a gas station in Eau Claire without receiving any services. Eau Claire EMS, the county sheriff’s office and the city police department later responded to multiple complaints regarding the individual, who did not have ties to Eau Claire. 

St. Croix County Sheriff Scott Knudson described the incident to WEAU as a “courtesy ride.” He did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s interview request. 

“I feel bad for Eau Claire that the facilities that we have available to us are in their jurisdiction, so sometimes they have to deal with the aftermath,” said Ridgeway, the Durand police chief. “But it happens a lot. That’s where the services are.”

Ridgeway told Wisconsin Watch the Durand Police Department will continue this practice as long as the attorney general allows it, adding that his department is not responsible for crimes these individuals may commit in Eau Claire. Asked how those individuals get back to where they came from, Ridgeway said that’s “out of our control.”

“These facilities receive funding from the federal government, state government, grants, donations — they’re not just receiving funding from Eau Claire County residents or city of Eau Claire residents,” Ridgeway said. “This is a service for all of western Wisconsin, and we’re going to take advantage of that service whenever we can.” 

He defended the decision to drop a woman off in front of a shelter that was either full or not open.

“You might not tonight have a place, but they can tell you what time they open tomorrow so you can be in line to get services,” Ridgeway said. “We’ll continue to call and try to get a bed verified as being available, but if a person wants to be dropped off there, we’ll do so.”

In a March 11 press release, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of La Crosse said it is facing a potential decision to reduce Sojourner House’s operations from year-round to just six months, citing a loss of funding and a shortage of volunteers.

On one night in January, Dale Karls of the Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council told WEAU, Sojourner House, which has a normal capacity of 53, opened overflow spaces and housed 77 people.

Nick said he doesn’t doubt the officers were trying to help these people, “but the message needs to get out that they weren’t helped.” There’s been a growing need for homeless services since the pandemic as temporary services and funding have been rolled back, he said. 

In the state’s 2023-25 biennial budget, the Republican-controlled Legislature rejected Evers’ recommendations to spend $24 million on emergency shelter and housing grants, as well as homeless case management services and rental assistance for unhoused veterans.

The Legislature also nixed $250 million Evers proposed for affordable workforce housing and home rehabilitation grants.

This year, Evers recommended another $24 million for homeless prevention programs in the 2025-27 state budget. Republican lawmakers who control the powerful budget committee vowed to throw out the governor’s budget and start from scratch this spring.

“The issue here is the disinvestment by the state and needed resources regionally,” Nick said. “It’s a law enforcement issue, but only because we have such poor options.” 

A California city has outlawed the practice

In 2024, the city of Santa Cruz, California, outlawed the practice of transporting homeless people into the city without authorization. Mayor Fred Keeley told Wisconsin Watch the local ordinance has pressured surrounding communities to ramp up their own resources for the homeless. 

The drop-off ban was sparked by an incident last summer when Hanford police drove a homeless woman with a disability nearly 200 miles to Santa Cruz — a city similar in size to Eau Claire — and left her outside a local shelter. 

“I know that for decades, other cities in our county bring people and dump them in the city of Santa Cruz,” Keeley said. “Nobody should do this to us because we would never do it to you without a prior conversation.” 

Keeley said these drop-offs almost never solve someone’s housing problem and instead shift the responsibility to another city. Santa Cruz is sympathetic to smaller municipalities with limited resources that are willing to coordinate with the city to arrange a transport, Keeley said, but that person should have some community ties. 

Keeley said the city’s investments in permanent supportive housing and other programs have reduced the city’s street homelessness by more than 50% in the last two years. 

Now, a bill has been introduced in the California Legislature that would ban local law enforcement agencies from transporting homeless individuals to another jurisdiction without first coordinating shelter or long-term housing for them. Keeley said he’s glad the issue is being taken up at the state level.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

‘A practice driven by a lack of good options’: Homeless drop-offs in Eau Claire showcase need for state action is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Republicans take skeptical view of UW system’s ‘make-or-break’ funding request

UW system President Jay Rothman
Reading Time: 4 minutes

At an April 1 hearing, in a sign of what the most contentious issues will be in this year’s state budget, the Republican-controlled budget committee only heard from two state agencies: Corrections and the Universities of Wisconsin system.

UW system President Jay Rothman told lawmakers he agreed with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ assessment that the 2025-27 biennial state budget is a “make it or break it” budget year for the public university system.

Evers’ budget request for the Universities of Wisconsin matched the agency’s ask of $856 million in additional funding over two years, which would be one of the largest increases in the university system’s history. Evers told reporters this funding, in addition to $1.6 billion proposed for capital projects, is essential even without the Trump administration’s threats to cut university funding.

Republican lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee asked Rothman to justify “administrative bloat” across the system’s 13 universities, as well as the sizable budget ask. Rothman said while the request is large, Wisconsin currently ranks 43rd out of 50 in state spending on public universities. Evers’ budget would add 214 state-funded positions to UW campuses. Rothman said that excluding UW-Madison, the universities have lost over 1,000 positions since 2019.

The share of the UW system budget that comes from state funds has decreased by about 15 percentage points in the last two decades, from 33% to 18%.

“If we get the budget funded, we will not have to raise tuition,” Rothman told the JFC. “If we don’t get funded at an adequate level, that’s one of the levers we have. We keep our branch campuses open, that’s another lever we have that I don’t want to have to use.”

But amid declining birth rates and enrollment in public schools across the state, Republican lawmakers questioned whether the $856 million ask is reasonable considering university enrollments may soon drop significantly. Five of the 13 campuses had enrollments shrink last year.

“You cannot cut your way to success,” Rothman told the committee. “You need to invest.”

State funding for UW-Madison — the state’s flagship university — in inflation-adjusted dollars was $644 million in 1974. Since then, it has declined by $93 million in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the university’s 2023-24 budget report. Figures aren’t available system-wide.

Republican Rep. Mark Born, co-chair of the committee, asked Rothman why the request called for 13 new staff positions — one on each campus — to support students who have aged out of the foster care system. He cited a UW system report that found there were 420 students in that program across nine of the campuses. He questioned why a position would need to be created at a school like UW-Platteville, which served nine of those students last year. The report also shows that the program didn’t serve all 570 students who qualify, including 23 on that campus.

“I think this is a shining example of the governor’s desire to grow government and your desire to grow your system, and it’s not focused on the reality of how you invest in this stuff,” Born told Rothman.

Rothman said the intent behind the positions is to expand the number of foster care students who could be served.

GOP lawmakers critique admissions process

Republican lawmakers have criticized enrollment and admissions at the state’s flagship university in recent years, citing constituents who say their high-achieving children have been rejected from attending UW-Madison. They have also raised concerns that the university is denying admission to in-state students in favor of out-of-state or international students.

Unlike some of the smaller Wisconsin campuses, UW-Madison has maintained high enrollment numbers likely due to its ability to attract out-of-state and international students.

If the university significantly increased its enrollment of in-state students from an already declining pool of applicants, enrollment at other UW system schools could be negatively affected, UW-Madison Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Derek Kindle told WPR.

During the April 1 hearing, Sen. Rob Stafsholt, R-New Richmond, said he adamantly believes in retaining Wisconsin-based students in the university system. He asked Rothman why one of his young constituents — who has a 4.3 GPA, 32 ACT score and a father who is a military veteran — was rejected from UW-Madison.

“How are we not serving our own kids, as they graduate, by admitting them to our universities before we spend taxpayer dollars and increase taxpayer dollars to attract people from other parts of the world?” Stafsholt asked.

Rothman said he didn’t have the specifics of that student’s case, but pointed to a bill signed into law last year that allows graduating high school students who rank in the top 10% of their high school’s graduating class to gain admission to any UW system school and guarantees admission to UW-Madison for those in the top 5% of their class. The bill takes effect for college admissions starting next fall.

In fall 2024, UW-Madison admitted around 59.3% of in-state applicants, down from an average of 66.8% over the previous nine years. The out-of-state U.S. student admission rate was 46.5%, and the international student admission rate was 33.3%, compared to a previous nine-year average of 52.7% and 38.6% respectively.

The questioning was similar to a national talking point about high-achieving students being rejected from universities, which some Republicans have attributed to diversity, equity and inclusion practices. Right-wing activists like Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, have questioned whether the government should be funding higher education.

On the same day as the hearing, Kirk took to social media to share an example of a high-achieving student similar to the one Stafsholt spoke of.

“Why are we giving hundreds of billions of dollars to universities so stupid they won’t offer this kid an admission because of his skin color (and let’s be honest, that’s why he was rejected everywhere)?” Kirk wrote on X. “Defund the college scam.”

Slashes to federal funding loom over UW-Madison

Last month, the federal Department of Education notified UW-Madison that it was one of 60 universities across the country under investigation by the Office for Civil Rights. The letter warned that the university could lose federal funding if it failed to protect its Jewish students.

The move was part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on antisemitism on college campuses, which has involved detaining, deporting and terminating the visas of students with ties to the national pro-Palestinian protests last spring.

UW-Madison is also one of 45 universities being investigated for alleged racial discrimination related to its diversity, equity and inclusion practices. The Trump administration has made sweeping threats to pull federal funding from colleges that continue to consider race and diversity in their policies and programs.

But how much funding is at stake here?

According to the Associated Press, out of 50 public universities under OCR investigation, UW-Madison is among the top five that received the most federal revenue in 2022-23. The university collected more than $827 million in federal funds that year, which was just over 20% of its total revenue.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Republicans take skeptical view of UW system’s ‘make-or-break’ funding request is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

How do unauthorized immigrant workers pay taxes?

Page from Internal Revenue Service website shown on a laptop
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Do unauthorized immigrant workers pay taxes?

It’s a question that is widely misunderstood, but yes, unauthorized immigrants do pay taxes. 

While many immigrants are still paid “under the table” for their work, the majority pay income and payroll taxes on their wages, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. While an exact number is difficult to determine, a 2013 estimate from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy suggested at least half of all unauthorized workers in the United States pay income taxes.

An estimated 70,000 unauthorized immigrants live in Wisconsin, about 47,000 of whom are employed, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. About two-thirds of those had lived in the U.S. for 10 years or more. But that information, while the most recent available, is now over five years old. The Department of Homeland Security estimated that there were 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country as of 2022.

In 2018, unauthorized immigrants in Wisconsin paid an estimated $157 million in federal taxes and $101 million in state and local taxes, totaling nearly $258 million, according to the American Immigration Council. That estimate dropped slightly to a total of $240 million in federal, state and local taxes as of 2022.

Unauthorized immigrant workers nationwide paid an estimated $97 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, according to a July 2024 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

But how do they pay taxes without being identified by authorities? 

Unauthorized workers who lack a Social Security number can instead apply for an individual taxpayer identification number through the Internal Revenue Service — a system created in 1996 — to file their income taxes. As of December 2022, there were an estimated 5.8 million active ITINs in the United States, according to the Administration of the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number Program. 

Taxpayer ID numbers allow unauthorized workers to file tax returns. All that is required to obtain an ITIN is an application that does not require proof of work authorization or proof that you reside in the United States legally. 

ITIN holders’ tax information has historically been legally protected and could not be shared with the Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Unauthorized immigrant workers had been able to get one without threat of the information being shared with authorities who may find and deport them.

But on April 7, the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security struck a deal on behalf of the Trump administration to share taxpayer data on unauthorized individuals under final removal orders. The agreement faces legal challenges.

Some unauthorized immigrants provide employers with fake Social Security numbers, someone else’s number or a previously valid number. When they’re hired, most employers do not and are not required to verify the identification numbers with any government entity, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. 

But when tax return season comes around, the IRS will not accept filings that include a fake, stolen or invalid Social Security number. If unauthorized workers want to file their taxes and create a paper trail, then they will often obtain an ITIN.

The Social Security Administration may alert an employer when an employee’s name and Social Security number on a W-2 form do not match, but it cannot enforce any penalties. The IRS rarely ever investigates employers with a high number of W-2 forms that don’t match. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, this is due to limited resources and employers’ ability to simply claim they asked an employee for the correct number, which is all that is required of them by law.

The financial penalty for each W-2 discrepancy is so small that the federal government often will not investigate it. Legally, a mismatched name and number cannot be considered proof that a worker is in the country illegally.

Why would unauthorized workers decide to pay and file taxes? 

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, many unauthorized workers choose to pay taxes in the hopes that it will eventually help them gain citizenship. Should a pathway to citizenship ever be established through a comprehensive immigration bill, a history of paying taxes can be viewed as a way to show “good faith.” 

While many unauthorized immigrants pay taxes, they do not qualify for many benefits like Social Security retirement, Medicare coverage and the federal earned income tax credit — despite contributing billions of dollars in federal payroll taxes that help fund these programs. 

If they purchase goods and services in a community, unauthorized immigrants pay sales taxes just like others do. When buying a home, they will pay state and local property taxes as well.

Wisconsin Watch readers have submitted questions to our statehouse team, and we’ll answer them in our series, Ask Wisconsin Watch. Have a question about state government? Ask it here.

How do unauthorized immigrant workers pay taxes? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

‘Just plain old Larry’: A Wisconsin man’s testimony about gender-affirming care went viral. Here’s his story.

Older man wearing Alaska hat
Reading Time: 6 minutes

When Larry Jones arrived at the Wisconsin State Capitol on March 12, he didn’t know what he was getting into — let alone that he would be a viral internet sensation the next day. 

The 85-year-old self-described conservative had been invited by his grandson to a public hearing on a Republican-authored bill that would ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth in the state. He decided to make the short drive from his home in Milwaukee. 

“I thought, ‘OK, I’ll go up there and listen to a couple people moaning about some kind of problems and be there for a couple hours and be long gone,’” Jones told Wisconsin Watch. “I got into something that I really didn’t know a heck of a lot about.” 

The hearing was packed with speakers there to testify either for or against the bill. Most people were limited to two minutes, but the hearing lasted more than eight hours. Jones was there in support of the bill, but wasn’t intending to get up and speak. But after listening to nearly seven hours of testimony, he put his name down. 

“I have very little knowledge of gay people and things like that there, so when I came here, my eyes were opened,” he told the state Assembly’s Health, Aging and Long-Term Care Committee just after 9 p.m. “I was one of the critics that sat on the side and made the decision there was only two genders, so I got an education that was unbelievable. And I don’t know just exactly how to say this, but my perspective for people has changed. … I’d like to apologize for being here, and I learned a very lot about this group of people.”

After he spoke, several attendees applauded.

Shortly after, his grandkids told him about a video of his testimony going viral online — as of Sunday the video had nearly 1 million views on YouTube. They called him a hero.

“Thank you for the compliment, but what the heck are you talking about?” he recalled responding. 

Jones told Wisconsin Watch he doesn’t think he did anything out of the ordinary and spoke because he felt like he owed it to the people there protesting the bill. He never thought a few sentences would garner such attention. 

“After a day or two, my 15 minutes of fame were long gone, and I went back to who I am, just plain old Larry,” Jones told Wisconsin Watch. 

Others saw an act of courage.

“Listening to his testimony was incredible,” one user commented under the viral video of Jones on Instagram. “It is powerful and brave to admit that you were wrong and have learned. I wish many of our legislators had that same strength.”

The bill

Republican politicians in recent years have frequently targeted transgender rights. One of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders the day he took office disregarded biological nuance in declaring there are only two sexes, male and female, which can’t be changed, and that gender identity “does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.” A later order declared the country wouldn’t fund transition of youth from one sex to another or medical institutions that provide such health care.

Wisconsin Assembly Bill 104 would ban gender-affirming health care, including puberty-blocking drugs, hormone replacement therapy or surgery, for those under the age of 18. Under the bill, medical providers found to be providing this care could have their licenses revoked. The legislation faces a certain veto by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has vetoed a similar bill before. 

The authors of the bill — Sen. Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, and Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha — say it would “protect minors from making life-altering, irreversible decisions that cause mental and bodily harm.”

“They’re not voting on this bill as a person, they’re voting Republican party lines,” Jones told Wisconsin Watch. “That shouldn’t be that way. … Party line is a bunch of garbage.” 

It was just one of four bills raised in the Legislature in recent weeks targeting transgender youth in Wisconsin. Two others are aimed at banning transgender girls and women from participating in high school and collegiate women’s sports. Another would prohibit school employees from using a student’s preferred name and pronouns without parental consent. 

For hours, Jones listened to the stories of kids who wanted to transition and said it seemed like “their brain was tearing them apart.” He now believes the decision to receive gender-affirming care should involve a child, a qualified doctor and a parent — not lawmakers. He likened the issue to lawmakers banning doctors from providing abortions.

Just the introduction of such bills can have negative effects on LGBTQ+ kids, research shows. The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that works to end LGBTQ+ youth suicide, found in a 2024 national survey that 90% of LGBTQ+ young people said their well-being was negatively impacted due to recent politics. Research also shows that transgender youth who are called by their preferred names and pronouns are happier and healthier.

An older man wearing a brown baseball cap and dark green sweater walks through a doorway that has a crucifix over it. A photo of a woman in a wedding gown is on the wall.
Larry Jones, shown in his Milwaukee home on March 21, says testimony from a transgender teen helped change his perspective about a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors in Wisconsin. “All of these kids, they deserve a chance to see where they belong,” he says. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

Jones said a 14-year-old transgender teen — one of the youngest speakers who advocated for their right to go on hormones — helped to change his perspective at the hearing. In their testimony, they shared that they had recently contemplated suicide.

“I started to listen to this kid, and it wasn’t some kind of whim or something like that. This kid was actually suffering,” Jones said. “And I thought to myself, nobody has to do that. You’re only a kid.”

The GOP-controlled committee voted to advance the bill. Republican lawmakers in the Assembly passed it last week. 

“Children are not allowed to get tattoos, sign contracts, get married, or smoke — so why would we allow them to physically change their gender?” Rep. Tyler August, R-Walworth, said in a statement. 

Jones had a different take. 

“All of these kids, they deserve a chance to see where they belong,” he said. 

Who is Larry?

Jones grew up in a small, rural unincorporated town in northern Michigan before moving to Milwaukee when he was 19 years old. 

“When I moved to the city, it was like I was a kid in a candy store. I discovered books, and once I discovered books, I discovered the world,” he said. 

For most of his life, he worked in the maintenance department at the Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center  — a prison formerly known as the House of Corrections. There, he encountered gay men and women, but said he had never met someone who was transgender. 

“If there’s something you don’t understand or don’t know anything about, it kind of frightens you a little bit,” Jones said. 

When he was younger, he said LGBTQ+ people were “hidden.” 

“In the area where I grew up … men were men,” Jones said. “I was taught by men who had their own visions of what gay people were like. They were called ‘queers’ and ‘fairies’ and off-the-wall, ungodly names back in the day. As I grew older … the whole world changed.” 

Note on table next to magnifying glass says “Thank you for being open to hearing all this and being open to changing your mind. That’s brave.”
A note given to Larry Jones by a young woman lies on a table in his Milwaukee home on March 21, 2025. As Jones was leaving a Wisconsin Assembly hearing on a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors, a woman in her early 20s tapped him on the shoulder and handed him this note that reads, “Thank you for being open to hearing all this and being open to changing your mind. That’s brave.” (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

Jones calls himself conservative, but said he’s willing to look at both sides of an issue. He mostly tunes into Fox News and local TV stations. He said he still has a lot to learn about the transgender community, and he’s made that his mission for the next six months or so. 

Prior to the hearing, he said he believed that someone who was transgender was “play acting” and simply changed their name and clothes along with a few other cosmetic things. 

“It’s through no fault of their own. I don’t think there’s a medical problem. I think these kids were born this way,” Jones said. “I looked at it through a different perspective, from a different set of eyes, and I promised myself that I would look into this with a clearer sense of understanding.”

After his testimony, a young woman handed him a note that read, “Thank you for being open to hearing all this and being open to changing your mind. That’s brave.” Jones kept it. 

His advice to others? “Don’t wear a pair of blinders and walk down the road. Keep an open mind.”

Wisconsin Watch reporter Jack Kelly contributed to this report.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

‘Just plain old Larry’: A Wisconsin man’s testimony about gender-affirming care went viral. Here’s his story. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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