Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman said in a statement that the state’s universities have become dependent on tuition due to lagging state funding over many years, but the “turnaround” from proposed cuts to the state investing in the budget will help “preserve access and affordability” for students and families. Rothman and UW-Madison Jennifer Mnookin testify in front of the Legislative Audit Committee in April 2025. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The announcement comes just days after the state Legislature passed and Gov. Tony Evers signed a state budget that includes increased investments in the system by over $200 million for operational costs and over $800 million for capital projects. While the increases took a different direction from Republican’s proposed cuts, they are nowhere near the $855 million operational budget increase initially requested by the system last year when Rothman warned that tuition increases would be on the table if there wasn’t significant investment.
Rothman said in a statement that the state’s universities have become dependent on tuition due to lagging state funding over many years, but the “turnaround” from proposed cuts to the state investing in the budget will help “preserve access and affordability” for students and families.
“Preserving quality while maintaining our ability to be a leader on tuition affordability in the Midwest is a top priority,” Rothman said. “After a decade of a tuition freeze and lagging state aid, we believe we have struck a balance for students and families with this proposal and the recent state investments in the UWs as part of the 2025-27 biennial budget.”
Rothman will ask the UW Board of Regents to approve a 4% increase at all campuses for the 2025-26 year.
Individual campuses would also have the option under his proposal of implementing an additional 1% increase. All universities except UW-Green Bay plan to adopt that. UW-River Falls is also seeking to increase its tuition even further by 5.8% to support “ student success initiatives.”
Under the proposal, nonresident undergraduate tuition at each campus would increase by the same percentage or dollar amount.
The system noted that most of the increases approved in the state budget are for specific purposes, including virtual mental health services, wage increases and addressing staff recruitment and retention.
State funding today makes up about a fifth of the UW’s total revenue. The UW system’s 2023-25 biennial budget was $13.7 billion with 58% of that coming from program revenue, 24% from the federal government and 18% from general purpose revenue.
According to the UW system, the average increase when segregated fees and room and board costs are included would be 3.8%.
If approved, the increase will be the third consecutive year of tuition increases for UW since the end of a 10-year tuition freeze in 2023. The system said its tuition increased just 7.7% from 2015 to 2025, below the tuition increases for its peers in other states that had increases ranging from 21.7% to 28.8% over the 10 years.
The UW Board of Regents will consider the plan on July 10.
Here are the proposed resident undergraduate tuition costs for 2025-26 at each campus:
Gov. Tony Evers signed the budget, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 15, at 1:32 a.m. in his office Thursday, less than an hour after the Assembly passed it. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers signed the $111 billion two-year state budget bill into law overnight following a marathon day of overlapping Senate and Assembly floor sessions where the bill received bipartisan support from lawmakers. The budget cuts taxes by $1.3 billion, makes investments in the University of Wisconsin system, boosts public schools’ special education reimbursement rate to 45% and allocates about $330 for child care.
Evers signed the budget, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 15, at 1:32 a.m. in his office Thursday, less than an hour after the Assembly passed it. Just before signing it, he thanked legislative leaders for working with him and said the budget reflects the fair legislative maps that he signed into law in 2024 and that were in place during November elections.
“We need to work together,” Evers said.
As the Assembly and Senate prepared to meet for debate Wednesday evening, Evers was outside of the east wing of the Capitol for Concerts on the Square and telling people not to “drop meatballs” on themselves.
“I was actually chatting with people about tonight outside,” he said. “Many of them were saying ‘How about that? Compromise.’ Compare that to what’s going on in Washington, D.C., and it’s significantly different, so I’m very proud to sign it.”
The passage and signing of the state budget comes two days after the end of the fiscal year.
Following months of negotiations and the announcement of a deal between Evers, Republican legislative leaders and Senate Democrats on Tuesday, the Legislature worked for about 15 hours Wednesday to get the bill over the finish line.
Their goal was to get the bill signed by Evers before the federal reconciliation bill made it to President Donald Trump’s desk.
One reason for the rush was a provision in the state budget that increases a Medicaid-related hospital assessment from 1.8% to 6%, the current federal limit, to supplement the state’s Medicaid resources. It’s estimated to result in over $1 billion in additional Medicaid revenue that will go back to Wisconsin hospitals, but the state’s ability to make that change is set to be restricted under the federal bill.
“We want our health care system to be in good shape, and in order to do that, we’re going to need help from the federal government,” Evers said.
Governor uses partial veto
In addition to signing the budget, Evers exercised his partial veto on 23 items . He had agreed not to partially veto any part of the deal that he came to with lawmakers, but other pieces of the legislation were fair game.
Evers vetoed language that set 2029 for closing Green Bay Correctional Institution. He said he supports closing the facility, but said more needs to be done before a date is set.
“We need more compromise on that. We need to get things going before we start taking people out of Green Bay,” Evers told reporters. “Saying that we’re going to do Green Bay by ’29 doesn’t mean a damn thing.”
He also partially vetoed $750,000 in grants to the Lakeland STAR Academy, a Minocqua charter school that specializes in serving students with autism and diverse learning needs; vetoed language excluding two of Wisconsin’s 11 federally-recognized tribes from a grant program; and vetoed $25,000 for a street project in the village of Warrens.
In addition, he vetoed funds for five projects that would go through the Department of Natural Resource.
“I object to providing an earmark for a natural resources project when the Legislature has abandoned its responsibility to reauthorize and ensure the continuation of the immensely popular Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship program,” Evers stated in his veto message.
Lawmakers said they are still working on legislation to continue the program. “Instead of renewing the program and helping the many, the Legislature has opted to benefit the politically connected few,” Evers wrote. “The Legislature must do its job and renew the Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship program.”
Evers said if he would change anything about the budget, he would have wanted “more in the area of specificity in child care.” The budget will spend about $330 million on child care including $110 million to extend direct payments to providers for another year, $65 million to a new program for providers serving 4-year-olds and $123 million to increase the reimbursement for child care costs for low-income families under the Wisconsin Shares program.
Evers also rejected the calls of some advocates that he veto the entire budget, noting the uncertainty that could result and the funding that could be put at risk by starting from scratch on a budget.
“Failing to reach consensus and vetoing this budget in its entirety was an untenable option, not just for me, but for the people of our state,” Evers wrote in his budget message.
Evers told reporters he wasn’t caught off guard by the number of Democratic lawmakers who didn’t support the budget.
“They have to do what they think is right, and everybody’s kind of looking for what’s going to happen in a couple years, and so I’m not surprised,” Evers said. “But there’s a whole bunch of Republicans that supported it so God bless them.”
Republican lawmakers also said throughout the day that the prospect of losing hospital funding if the budget wasn’t signed ahead of the federal reconciliation bill moving through Congress played a role in wanting to get the budget done as quickly as possible.
“That’s why we’re working really fast to get it done,” Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said during a press conference Wednesday morning. “We will get the bill to the governor’s desk prior to the President [Trump] signing the Big Beautiful bill.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said at a mid-afternoon press conference he expected Evers would sign the legislation late Wednesday or early Thursday.
“It’s about a billion dollars that will be able to flow to an awful lot of rural hospitals, people who are taking care of those with urgent needs,” Vos said. “We want to get it done and we want access to those dollars.”
Senate approves budget 19-14
The Senate took action on the bill first, passing it 19-14 shortly after 9 p.m. Five Democratic senators, including Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton), joined 14 Republicans to pass the bill. Four Republicans, including Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk), voted with the 10 Democrats against the legislation.
Democrats’ votes were needed to pass the budget bill in the Senate after several Republicans expressed concerns about the legislation. Hesselbein was at the negotiating table as a result.
The hospital funding, which led to lawmakers rushing work to pass the budget in one day, was also the top reason that Felzkowski voted against the budget.
Democrats voting yes, in addition to Hesslebein, were Sens. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D- Appleton), Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska), Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) and Jamie Wall (D- Green Bay). Republicans voting no, in addition to Felzkowski were Rob Hutton (R- Brookfield), Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) and Steve Nass (R Whitewater).
Felzkowski said she felt bad because there were good things in the budget, but that she was appalled the budget didn’t address the cost of health care, noting Wisconsin has the fifth highest health care costs in the country.
Felzkowski said that there should be other health care reforms if hospitals were going to get a “windfall” of over $1 billion a year and blamed Evers and hospital lobbyists for opposing those, including additional hospital price transparency measures.
“Gov. Evers, you failed Wisconsin,” Felzkowski said. “You failed constituents. You failed employers.”
Evers rejected the claims, calling them “bulls – – t.”
“The people that work in those hospitals are working real hard,” Evers said. “The last thing we need is to have hospitals going belly up in the middle of the pandemic or something.”
Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), who voted no, mentioned Evers’ previous vetoes of Republican tax cuts and said the current budget bill leveraged those vetoes “to hide the 12% increase in spending” as well as a structural deficit.
“In a time of economic uncertainty, when our spending decisions warrant further restraint and discernment, we need a budget that creates proper spending priorities and puts taxpayers first,” Hutton said.
Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) called the budget an “orgy” of spending in a statement explaining his “no” vote. Implicating fellow Republicans, he criticized lawmakers for spending the state’s $4.3 billion surplus on one-time earmarks and “funding for special interests” instead of larger tax cuts.
Despite the handful of opponents, the majority of Senate Republicans supported the budget, touting the tax cuts that they secured and some of the investments.
LeMahieu called it “a responsible budget that invests in core priorities” and touted the $1.4 billion tax cut.
At the Senate GOP press conference Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) singled out some of the University of Wisconsin system funding that will “put the thumb on the scale…to help some of those campuses like UW Platteville that have had declining enrollment over the last decade.” The budget allocates $53 million for UW system funding, distributed through two formulas: one for declining enrollment and another for the number of credit hours undergraduates complete.
The University of Wisconsin system will also get $840 million for capital projects, $94 million for staff wage increases, $54 million for recruitment and retention and $7 million for virtual mental health services.
Sen. Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac), who voted yes, said the budget didn’t do everything he wanted it to do and included some things he didn’t support.
“I always have, and always will, advocate for a smaller, smarter state government,” he said in a statement. “I’m glad to see that this budget cuts over 300 vacant positions from state government.”
Feyen highlighted his support for special education funding and child care provisions in the document. He said if people want a more “conservative” budget, then Republicans would need to expand their majority and elect a Republican governor in 2026.
The Senate took action on the bill first, passing it 19-14 shortly after 9 p.m. (Photo by Baylor Spears/WIsconsin Examiner)
Senate Democrats, whether they voted for or against the bill, all had a similar message: it doesn’t do enough.
“What we have on the floor today is better than it would have been if Senate Dems had not been at the table, but let me be clear, it is not perfect,” Hesselbein said at a Wednesday morning press conference. She described the budget as a “bipartisan deal” where “everybody left the table wishing it was different, but this is something that we can agree on trying to move forward.”
Asked about the advocates who called for lawmakers to vote against the budget and Evers to veto it, Hesselbein said she knew some people were upset.
“I’m glad they’re making their voices heard,” she said. “That’s why today, we’re going to be fighting for every single Wisconsinite.”
Day of drama delayed
The Senate convened a little after 10:30 a.m., but didn’t pass the bill until after 9 p.m.
The first several hours of debate centered on Senate Democrats’ 25 proposed amendments that ranged from increasing funding for the UW system, K-12 education and child care to expanding postpartum Medicaid. The body got through about half of those amendments before pausing for several hours to caucus.
During the delays, Republicans were working on a 35-page “technical amendment” with several changes, including an added requirement that the UW system conduct an efficiency study on declining student enrollment and future operations.
When the Senate reconvened around 7 p.m., it tabled the rest of the Democratic amendments and started debate on the full budget bill.
Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) said Democrats helped improve the budget but that it l would not allow people in Wisconsin to thrive.
“We understand the urgency to act. Congress is actively restricting our future funding. This budget must move forward, but that does not make it a good budget,” Spreitzer said.
The budget broke the “rule of 17” — the Senate Republicans’ practice of making sure 17 members support a measure before it’s put on the floor — Spreitzer said, and criticized them for not breaking the rule to pass other measures, including postpartum Medicaid expansion or funding for the Knowles-Nelson Conservation program in a bipartisan way. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just get it done today?” he said.
Spreitzer said the Democratic votes on the budget were not an endorsement, but were rather an acknowledgement that it was better than it would have been without bipartisan negotiations. Asserting that the budget didn’t deserve one more vote than was necessary to pass it, he voted against it.
Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said the optimism after Evers introduced his budget in February soon faded and criticized the governor for not fighting harder for his priorities. The result is “grossly” insufficient and “will do more harm than good,” he said
“It’s a ‘failure to fight’ budget,” Larson said. “This budget is cowardice. We all deserve so much better.”
Assembly passes budget 59-39
“We have a guarantee that we’re going to have a transformation budget that works for everyone,” Vos said during the Assembly floor debate. “I assume, like in the state Senate where Democrats and Republicans are going to vote for the budget, we would have the same thing here in the Assembly, if people are serious about saying we want to work together.”
The Assembly concurred in the bill 59-39 at around 12:40 a.m. Seven Democrats voted with Republicans in favor of the bill: Reps. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse), Steve Doyle (D-Onalaska), Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire), Maureen McCarville (D- DeForest), Lori Palmeri (D-Oshkosh), Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D-Milwaukee) and Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby).
One Republican — Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha) — voted with Democrats against the bill. Rep. Calvin Callahan (R-Tomahawk) was not voting.
The Assembly concurred in the bill 59-39. Seven Democrats voted with Republicans in favor of the bill: Reps. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse), Steve Doyle (D-Onalaska), Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire), Maureen McCarville (D- DeForest), Lori Palmeri (D-Oshkosh), Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D-Milwaukee) and Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby). (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Assembly Co-Chair Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said the budget process this time was different from any other that he’s worked on. This is his fourth as co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee.
“We did spend more time working with the governor’s office, the governor and Democrats,” Born said, and called the budget “more conservative” than the state’s 2023-25 budget, to his surprise. He noted that the $1.3 billion tax cut will get signed into law, unlike previous tax cuts that Evers has vetoed.
The budget spends the state’s estimated $4 billion budget surplus down to about $800 million, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The budget also has a 6% increase in general purpose revenue spending and a 12% increase overall.
While Republicans highlighted the bipartisan nature of the budget and measures included, Democrats throughout the day focused on their critiques and the measures that didn’t make it in.
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said at a press conference Wednesday morning that she was appreciative of Evers and Hesselbein for being at the negotiating table and getting what they could — but it wouldn’t be enough to win her vote.
“This proposal is a far cry from the budget that Assembly Democrats would have written,” said Neubauer. She said she was not at the table when the budget deal was made. With a 54-45 majority, Assembly Republicans had the votes to pass the budget without the Democrats, Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) said at a GOP press conference.
Neubauer said that as a consequence, the Assembly Democrats “were not part of those negotiations.”
School districts will get an increase in the special education reimbursement rate from about 32% to 42% in the first year of the biennium and 45% in the second year. It will be the highest that the rate has been in many years, but still lower than the 60% advocates and Democrats wanted.
Democratic lawmakers said that without increases in general aid or schools, districts will have to continue relying on property tax increases to keep up with costs.
“You didn’t set out to stop the cycle of [property tax increase] referendums, you set out to continue it,” Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) said on the Assembly floor. “When 96 of 99 Assembly districts have gone to referendum recently and the statewide demand for public school funding increases isn’t partisan for our constituents, why are we fighting so hard to get Republicans to adequately fund our schools? This isn’t a Democrat versus Republican issue across the state, and it shouldn’t be a Republican versus Democrat issue in the state Capitol.”
The four-member Wisconsin Legislative Socialist Caucus — including Reps. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee), Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) and Francesca Hong (D-Madison) — voted against the bill. In a joint statement they called the agreement between Republican lawmakers, Senate Democrats and Evers a “catastrophic failure of leadership that surrenders to Republican austerity.” They cited the lack of a general school aid increase for public schools, the special education reimbursement not meeting 60% and the failure to expand Medicaid.
“This is not a compromise, this is capitulation,” the caucus said.
Assembly Republicans mostly focused on the parts of the state budget they were appreciative of but also took jabs at Democrats for saying they would vote against the bill.
The Agriculture Roads Improvement Program, which was created in 2023 to support local agricultural road improvement projects statewide, will get an infusion of $150 million.
“That’s a big deal in my community and up in the rural part of the northwest,” Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) said. “It helps our state’s largest industry by improving the quality of our roads to get their products and goods out and inputs and services that farmers need into the field as well.”
Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek) said lawmakers committed to providing tax cuts for seniors and Wisconsinites as a whole through the elimination of the utility tax, a policy Evers had advocated for.
“I know that some people on the other side of the aisle said that people are not seeking tax relief,” Rodriguez said. “Yes, they have been. You just haven’t been listening.”
The Office of School Safety, housed in the Department of Justice, will get 13 permanent staff positions and $1.57 million in the budget.
The office provides training and grants to schools for safety and runs the Speak Up, Speak Out tipline where students can anonymously report safety concerns. Funding for the office became a flashpoint of criticism in the 2023-25 budget debate.
Rep. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville) touted the new budget’s provision for the office and spoke about working with Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul on getting the funding in this year’s budget. He also credited lawmakers on the finance committee for helping to keep the office going.
“The process is ugly, but working together to get something done is a really great thing, so I will defend this budget. I will run on this budget,” Novak said.
Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) said on the floor that lawmakers who voted against the budget shouldn’t take credit for any of its accomplishments in the budget later or attend groundbreakings for projects it funded.“If you vote against this, do not show your face,” Kurtz said. “You didn’t have the courage to vote yes.”
Gov. Tony Evers signed bills into law launching efforts to bring nuclear power to Wisconsin and creating and expanding programs to help children in crisis. Evers talks to reporters in March. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Ahead of floor sessions for the Senate and Assembly to vote on the budget, Gov. Tony Evers signed bills into law launching efforts to bring nuclear power to Wisconsin and creating and expanding programs to help children in crisis.
The bills passed the Senate and Assembly in floor sessions in June where debate centered heavily on the lack of funding attached to them. Evers had earlier told lawmakers to include the funding or he would veto the legislation, Democrats agreed the funding should be included, while Republicans said the funding would come in the budget if Evers signed the bills without any changes. State funding for the bills was included in the budget plan approved by the budget committee Tuesday.
One law, 2025 Wisconsin Act 11, will create a Nuclear Power Summit Board in Wisconsin responsible for putting on a summit in Madison to advance nuclear power and fusion energy technology.
The summit must be held within one month after instruction starts at the new engineering building at UW-Madison. Construction on the building, which is estimated to cost $419 million, started in April and is supposed to be finished in 2028. The funding for the building was approved by the Legislature and Evers in 2024.
Evers also signed 2025 Wisconsin Act 12, which requires the Public Service Commission to conduct a study to determine potential sites for a nuclear power plant. The state budget bill includes $2 million to fund the study.
Evers said the bills would help the state pursue an “innovative, clean energy future and bring more clean jobs to our state.”
Wisconsin currently has one active nuclear power plant. The Point Beach Nuclear Plant located in Two Rivers, which first came online in the 1970s, has two tractors and provides about 16% of the state’s energy, according to the conservative think tank the Badger Institute. A Kewaunee nuclear power plant shut down in 2013.
“We can’t afford to choose between mitigating climate change and protecting our environment or creating good-paying jobs and building a strong economy, and by working toward clean energy options Wisconsinites can depend on in the future, we’re doing both,” Evers said. “We must continue our efforts to help lower energy costs and improve energy independence by reducing our reliance on out-of-state energy sources, and these bills are an important step in the right direction.”
Evers also signed Senate Bill 106, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 9, that will create psychiatric residential treatment facilities (PRTFs) in the state. The law is the result of a study committee on the emergency detention and civil commitment of minors and aims to reduce the number of youth in crisis who are sent out of state for care by offering long-term mental health treatment closer to home.
The budget will include $1.79 million for grants to psychiatric residential treatment facilities.
Another law, 2025 Wisconsin Act 10, which is also a result of the study committee, instructs the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) to create a statewide portal to facilitate the sharing of safety plans for minors with designated safety plan partners. The budget includes about $819,000 in state funding for the program and the agency will get one staff position to run the portal.
Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp), who served as chair of the study committee, has championed the legislation this session.
At a press conference ahead of the Senate floor session, James said his focus has been on supporting Wisconsin’s children and that the issues are personal for him as a father and a law enforcement officer.
“I believe there are real positive changes within our reach. It’s about recognizing the opportunities in front of us and taking decisive action when that moment comes,” James said. “This budget is packed with great projects. We increase funding for our child advocacy centers. We take care of our child victims in a safe environment. We establish funding for psychiatric residential treatment facilities to keep children with intense mental health treatment needs closer to home.”
Another law, 2025 Wisconsin Act 13, officially recognizes new child advocacy centers in state statute and expands the number of them that are eligible for the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s child advocacy grant program. The centers work with law enforcement to investigate child abuse and neglect and provide children with resources and support. The budget will include $2 million to support the grants.
The final piece of legislation is 2025 Wisconsin Act 14, to distribute hearing protection devices to state and local law enforcement and firefighters. The budget will include $2.6 million to fund the program.
“This budget has involved an awful lot of compromise, both between the houses as well as with the governor's office,” Joint Finance Committee Co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said at a press conference ahead of the meeting. “A budget is a compromise and this budget is certainly one of those.” (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee advanced the budget deal announced by lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers Tuesday, with the full Senate and Assembly scheduled to take up the budget Wednesday. The committee also passed a $2.5 billion plan for capital projects, which included a measure to start work on a project that will allow for the closure of the Green Bay Correctional Institution by 2029.
The agreement announced Tuesday morning was negotiated by Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein over the last several months and will invest over $1 billion in education and child care and cut taxes by about $1.3 billion. The deal also includes funding plans for the Department of Transportation, including funding for roads, and changes to the state’s hospital assessment to help cover Medicaid costs.
The committee’s action comes a day after the end of Wisconsin’s fiscal year. Wisconsin’s government continues to run under the current budget until a new one is signed into law.
Legislators on both sides of the aisle had similar reactions saying the deal did not contain everything they wanted with some signaling support for the bill and others saying they will vote against it.
“This budget has involved an awful lot of compromise, both between the houses as well as with the governor’s office,” Joint Finance Committee Co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said at a press conference ahead of the meeting. “A budget is a compromise and this budget is certainly one of those.”
The committee voted 13-3 with Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) joining Republicans in favor of approving the deal. It also voted 12-4 along party lines to approve the entire budget bill to advance it to the Senate and Assembly floor.
Capital budget includes plan to close Green Bay prison
The over $2.5 billion capital budget plan grants funding for projects at the UW system, within the Department of Corrections, Department of Health Services, Department of Military Affairs and the Department of Natural Resources.
Over $480 million — or about 18% — of the capital projects plan is for projects at campuses across the UW system and was negotiated as part of the budget deal.
The plan also includes $225 million for the Department of Corrections, including $15 million for construction project planning for realignment of facilities and the closure of Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI) by 2029.
Marklein said lawmakers were investing across Wisconsin and the DOC plans would help to start to “right-size” the state’s corrections system.
As the state has faced a growing prison population and aging facilities, Evers had proposed a DOC capital budget of over $630 million that included renovating Waupun Correctional Institution and making it a “vocational village” as well as several other prisons. The plan culminates in the closure of the Green Bay facility. GBCI, which was originally opened in 1898, is one of the state’s oldest facilities and houses 381 more people than its intended capacity.
Lawmakers have been interested in closing GBCI for years, but were skeptical of Evers’ plan to make that happen.
Co-chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) signaled that the action in the budget is just the beginning of a years-long process.
“I think that this stuff will all be figured out over several budgets,” Born said in response to questions about the capacity of the state’s prison and Waupun. “These fiscal capital projects don’t happen in two years, and they won’t in this case, either.”
Lawmakers who represent parts of the Green Bay area said the inclusion of the GBCI closure date in the budget is a major step forward.
“Formalizing a decommissioning date into state law will ensure decisive action is taken to solve this long-standing issue and prevent the bureaucratic delays which have plagued this situation for far too long,” Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R-De Pere) said.
Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) called GBCI “unsafe, unstable and unsustainable” and said he is thankful for the step forward.
Alluding to Evers’ plan, Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha), meanwhile, said there is a plan that lawmakers could have moved forward. He said the item in the budget seemed like a plan that was “kicking the can down the road.”
The budget deal also includes $130 million for a Type 1 juvenile facility in Dane County. The planned 32-bed facility is the second one meant to replace youth prisons Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake — old facilities initially scheduled to close by 2021. The Department of Administration has estimated that with full funding ($124 million in bonding authority) the project could be completed by 2029.
Lawmakers, advocates have mixed reaction to deal on K-12, higher education and child care
Evers repeatedly said investing in Wisconsin’s K-12 and higher education systems as well as child care were his top priorities. Republican lawmakers said they were opposed to continuing state payments to child care facilities, supported cutting the UW budget and only supported incremental increases for the state’s public schools. The deal includes investment in each area.
Several Democratic lawmakers, nonetheless, had mixed feelings about the concessions Evers and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) got from the majority party. During committee, Democrats proposed investing over $500 million in the UW system, $200 million in child care grants and expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage, though Republicans rejected those ideas.
Under the deal, the University of Wisconsin system will get a $250 million increase, according to Evers’ office. The motion approved by the committee includes investments for general program operations, mental health, staff recruitment and retention and $94 million for staff wage adjustments.
The increase comes despite threats from Republican legislators to cut the UW system by tens of millions and as federal uncertainty, which has led some campuses to tell departments to prepare cuts
Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said lawmakers were short-changing the UW system, despite it contributing heavily to the state’s economic successes.
“What they are getting is about 5% of what they said that they needed,” Roys said. Evers and the system proposed an $855 million budget increase over the biennium. “We’re going to continue to see tuition hikes, we’re going to continue to see campus closures. We’re going to continue to see the doors of opportunity closing for our kids here in Wisconsin, and they’re going to have to go out of state or go without access to higher education and I think that’s wrong.”
Roys voted against the budget in committee, saying it would have needed to do more for the state’s kids to get her vote. “Ultimately, I want a Wisconsin, where every child, no matter who you are or where you’re from, have the opportunity to thrive,” Roys told reporters.
Stakeholders in the UW system also reacted to the budget deal on Tuesday.
UW President Jay Rothman said on social media he is grateful for the support of Evers and the Legislature.
“Today’s budget agreement marks the largest overall increase in investment in the UWs over two decades. For generations, Wisconsinites have invested in the UWs to provide affordable and accessible higher education. They should take great pride in what Wisconsin has built,” Rothman said. “With these new investments, the UWs can do more to provide the educational opportunities students deserve and parents expect.”
Public Representation Organization of the Faculty Senate (PROFS), the nonprofit organization of UW-Madison faculty, said it was “heartened” by the funding increase but worried about some of the concessions that Republican lawmakers got.
“We are concerned, however, that the agreement between Republican legislative leaders and the governor includes teaching-load requirements for faculty and instructional staff, which has always been the purview of the universities themselves, not the Legislature,” the organization stated.
Under the agreement, faculty will be required to teach no fewer than 24 credits per academic year. The UW Board of Regents will have to develop a buyout policy for positions not meeting the minimum credit requirements. The budget will also include a similar policy for the Wisconsin Technical College System.
The UW portions of the agreement will also include a cap on the number of positions that the system can have funded through general purpose revenue and program revenue and no institution will be allowed to designate more than 10% of its faculty and 10% of its academic staff to administrative duties.
Born said it was part of the compromise that Assembly Republicans made.
“It is a positive number, and most of our caucus on the Assembly side… is not happy about that because they know that there are major problems in that system that need work,” Born said. “We worked through that compromise and gave them $50 million as opposed to $800 million… to get some of those reforms.”
Child care providers will get a $330 million investment under the deal, including direct payments to continue once the Child Care Counts program lapses. A “Bridge” program will provide $110 million to help child care facilities stay open, though it will only last for a year. It also includes funding to kickstart a state-funded child care program targeted at supporting facilities serving 4-year-olds.
“The reality is this is a small amount of money in terms of the need, and it is only for year one, so all that’s happening here is we’re kicking the can down the road on massive child care closures a year from now… I don’t count that as a huge victory,” Roys said. “To get that money there have been agreements to functionally deregulate child care, to increase ratios, to make it less safe to take away the important protections.”
Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point), who said he plans to vote for the budget on the floor, said the investment would help make child care in the state more affordable and increase access.
“While it’s not perfect, this is where we’re at with divided government,” Testin said “Maybe it’s not as far as some would like but it’s a step in the right direction.”
Funding for K-12 education will increase the special education reimbursement rate to 42% in the first year of the budget and 45% in the second year. Republican lawmakers initially approved a maximum increase of 37.5%, while Evers had proposed a 60% increase.
There will be no general aid increase for public schools. School districts will only be able to increase their school revenue annually by $325 per pupil by going to local property taxpayers through the referendum process.
Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) said it was a “little sad” Evers “had to drag the Legislature kicking and screaming to a place that is frankly insufficient for our needs.” He said the increase to special education funding likely wouldn’t end school districts’ reliance on raising revenue through property taxes increases.
Some Democratic lawmakers and advocates said Evers needed to negotiate higher increases for schools and said the lack of general aid increase in the deal is a reason to reject it.
Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) said no general aid increases for Wisconsin’s public schools is “unacceptable,” calling the budget “Republican-led” and urging people to call their Democratic legislators and Evers’ office to tell them to vote against it.
“This budget fails to meet the needs of our children and working-class communities,” Hong wrote in all caps on social media. “This budget is guaranteed to raise property taxes and pit students and communities against one another.”
Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said he would vote “no” on the budget for similar reasons.
“The final product falls far short of what our neighbors need and frankly what they have demanded since the beginning of this process,” Larson said, noting the lack of general aid, the school revenue increase that doesn’t keep up with inflation and the special education rate. “For these reasons and many more, I will be voting ‘no,’ unless massive changes are adopted,” Larson said. “Democrats will be offering several amendments in pursuit of a budget that meets this moment.”
The Wisconsin Public Education Network sent out a similar message, and called for people to call Senate lawmakers and urge them to vote against the budget.
“The compromise on the table provides $0 (none, not one pencil’s worth) in new state aid for public schools in both years of the biennium — in exchange for a welcome but inadequate increase to the special education reimbursement rate,” the organization said. “A vote for this budget is a vote for widening our gaps. Public schools will close. We will see another two years of record rates of referenda.”
Asked about advocates’ desire to try to negotiate for a general aid increase for schools, Evers said on Tuesday that there were some policies that just weren’t going to happen. He spoke to the Wisconsin Examiner Tuesday afternoon after attending a Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. event in Middleton to announce a business expansion at Catalent, a bio-health company.
“We have the largest amount of money that we’ve ever sent to our public schools coming to them, and so I know there are people that wanted everything, and when you’re in a situation where you have Republicans and Democrats [who make up] about same size of part of the government, you’re going to you’re going to have to compromise,” Evers said. “I do wish we could have put another $5 billion into it of course, but that wasn’t going to happen.”
Democrats say new maps led to budget deal, pledge to do more in majority
The budget needs 17 votes to pass in the Senate and will likely find it from a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Marklein said he was “confident” that there would be enough votes.
Slim margins in the Senate and several Senate Republicans who said they were inclined to vote against the spending package, even ahead of the announcement of a deal, led to Democratic Minority Leader Hesselbein becoming involved in negotiations, which previously have only involved Republican legislators. Republicans have passed the budget before with only votes from their caucus, but in the Senate this year, the caucus can only afford to lose one vote.
Several Senate Democrats, including several who are serving their first term, said the budget deal was the result of new legislative maps that took effect for the first time in 2024. Under those maps, Democrats in the Senate flipped four seats, trimming the Republican majority from two-thirds to a margin of 18-15.
Freshman Sen. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi) said the state would be moving in the right direction with the budget agreement and Senate Democrats helped make it “palatable.”
“To be clear, this budget is not ideal, but in the spirit of bipartisanship and forward progress, I am pleased to be a part of what Senate Democrats were able to do on behalf of all Wisconsinites,” Keyeski said.
Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) said the deal reflects “bipartisanship and progress.”
“I am proud to see it move forward,” said Habush Sinykin, who is also in her first term. “What we are seeing playing out in this budget is the consequence of Wisconsin’s new fairer maps — legislators working together to find compromise and make meaningful progress for the people of Wisconsin.”
Two other Democrats in their first term highlighted local allocations in the budget. Sen. Jamie Wall (D-Green Bay) celebrated $30 million that was included in the budget for a new railroad bridge at Red Maple Road between American Boulevard and Lost Dauphin Road in West De Pere and Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) highlighted some of the items in the budget that will help her district, including the $137 million investment for UW-Oshkosh’s Polk Learning Commons.
“The new, fair maps created a balanced government, and this is the result: a government that can work together to reach an agreement where everyone walks away wishing they’d gotten more but no one leaves feeling kicked in the teeth,” Dassler-Alfheim said. “I’m hopeful that we can work together to get this over the finish line and move Wisconsin forward, together.”
Senate Democrats also said they would do more should they win a majority in future elections.
“Because of the negotiations that we had for this budget, the outcomes were a lot better than they would have been had those individuals not been at the table, had our voices not been at the table,” said Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee). “And I just want to say that going forward for every budget. It should be like that, and don’t worry, when we’re in the majority, it will be like that, which will be in 2026.”
She told reporters she is leaning towards voting for the budget, but added, “we’ll have to see.”
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) also said electing more Democratic legislators made a difference.
“I am thankful that Governor Evers and my Senate Democratic colleagues were at the negotiating table on our state budget and have gotten some real wins for the people of Wisconsin,” Neubauer said. “There are critical investments in education, child care and the priorities of Wisconsinites in this budget, but we also know that due to years of underfunding by the GOP majorities, there is a lot that remains to be done.”
Andraca praised the new maps in the committee meeting, saying that a nearly 50-50 split in the Senate and Assembly has spurred conversations in a new way.
“Congratulations on the bipartisanship. I think this budget does a lot of good,” Andraca said, but added, “I’m not sure it does enough to earn my vote at this time.”
The deal comes after months of negotiations (and multiple breakdowns in communication) among Gov. Tony Evers and Senate and Assembly leaders. Gov. Tony Evers delivers his 2025 state budget address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers and Republican and Democratic legislative leaders have reached a tentative agreement on the 2025-27 state budget, agreeing to invest hundreds of millions in the University of Wisconsin system, to create new grant and payment programs for child care facilities, further boost investment in special education and cut $1.3 billion in taxes.
The deal comes after months of negotiations (and multiple breakdowns in communication) among Evers and Senate and Assembly leaders. Each leader highlighted pieces of the deal in statements.
Evers focused on the investments in education and child care, saying it is “a pro-kid budget that’s a win for Wisconsin’s kids, families, and our future.”
“What was at stake is no secret — Republican lawmakers had long indicated this budget would not invest in child care providers, would provide no new increases for our K-12 schools, and would cut nearly $90 million from our UW System. But I never stopped believing we could work together to reach consensus and pass a bipartisan budget, and I’m proud of the months of work that went into getting to where we are today,” he said.
Evers thanked Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) for coming to the table to get a deal done.
“The people of Wisconsin expect their leaders to show up, work hard, and operate in good faith to get good things done,” Evers said. “We’ve shown we’ve been able to get good things done for Wisconsin when people put politics aside and decide to work together to do the right thing. I look forward to signing a bipartisan budget that makes these critical investments in our kids, families, and communities across our state,” Evers said.
Evers has also agreed not to utilize his partial veto power — previous uses of which have been both limited and sustained by the state Supreme Court in recent weeks — on parts of the budget included in the deal.
Vos said in a statement that he appreciated Evers’ willingness to work with lawmakers to find a bipartisan agreement.
“This budget delivers on our two biggest priorities: tax relief for Wisconsin and reforms to make government more accountable,” Vos said. “This deal brings those investments and reforms together and creates a Wisconsin that works for everyone.”
JFC co-chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said legislators worked hard to find compromise while staying “committed to our core principals.”
“We are proud to have worked diligently to craft this budget, listened to the priorities of our constituents and look forward to sending the bill to [Evers] later this week,” Born said.
LeMahieu and budget committee co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said in a statement that tax relief for middle-income Wisconsinites has been their top priority during the entire process.
“This compromise will provide meaningful tax relief for retirees and the middle class, stabilize the child care system without making pandemic-era subsidies permanent and strengthen our schools by reimbursing special education at a higher rate,” the Senate leaders said.
Hesselbein said she has “been at the table fighting hard on behalf of Senate Democrats to help hammer out a bipartisan budget agreement.” Her involvement in negotiations comes amid slim margins in the Senate.
“Remember where we were a week ago: Republicans proposing $87 million in cuts to the UW, a mere 5% increase for special education and no direct payments to child care providers. Elections matter: the fact that Democrats gained four Senate seats and are close to taking the majority means that Senate Democrats were able to make this budget agreement better for the people of Wisconsin,” Hesselbein said.
Last session, the state Senate passed the budget bill with only Republican votes even after a couple of Republicans voted against the proposal. This session the Republican Senate caucus would only be able to lose one vote if it were going to pass the bill with only GOP support, yet, even prior to a deal announcement, a handful of Republican members had publicly expressed concerns about the spending in the bill. Among them was Sen. Steve Nass who, in a statement last week, laid out requirements for a budget that he could support, Sen. Rob Hutton who, in a Friday opinion piece, and Sen. Chris Kapenga who, in a post on Monday, drew their own lines in the sand.
It is unclear how many Senate Democrats will vote for the budget when it comes to the floor this week. Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) earlier told WISN UpFront that the caucus was sticking together and members were “not willing to be picked off one by one.”
The Joint Finance Committee is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday to vote on the rest of the budget before sending it to the full Assembly and Senate.
Child care funding
Child care providers, who have dealt with staffing shortages, high costs and declining state support, will receive a $300 million investment under the deal.
Evers had proposed spending an additional $480 million to continue funding Child Care Counts, a program that was funded using federal pandemic relief. With that funding running out, Evers had said the state should pick up the costs to continue supporting child care providers, while Republican lawmakers said they were opposed to providing checks to facilities.
Under the deal, the Child Care Counts program will be phased out, but the state will invest $110 million to support direct monthly payments and monthly per-child investments to child care facilities for a bridge program. That will continue helping providers to remain in business, cut child care wait lists and lower costs for families. The money will come out of the state’s federal interest earnings.
The state will also invest $66 million in general purpose revenue for a “Get Kids Ready” initiative, which will be targeted at supporting child care providers serving 4-year-olds. This will be the first child care program in state history to be funded solely by general purpose revenue.
Another agreed-upon budget item creates a $28.6 million pilot program to help support child care capacity for infants and toddlers.
Under the program, providers are to receive $200 per month for every infant under 18 months and $100 per month for every toddler between 18 and 30 months.
Other child care investments include a $123 million increase in the Wisconsin Shares program, $2 million over the biennium for the creation of a competitive grant program aimed at supporting child care facilities seeking to expand their capacity and $2 million in Wisconsin’s Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies to help parents find child care and provide training to providers.
The deal also makes changes inspired by solutions that Republican lawmakers have advocated for including creating “large family care centers” that will be allowed to serve up to 12 children and standardizing the minimum age for an assistant teacher in a child care facility at 16.
No cuts for University of Wisconsin system
The University of Wisconsin system will get an investment of more than $256 million in the state budget under the deal — a significant compromise as Evers and the system had requested an $855 million investment, while Republican leaders in recent weeks were considering an $87 million cut to the system. Evers had threatened to veto the budget if it came to his desk with a cut.
The funding includes $100 million to support UW system campuses statewide. Some of the funding would be distributed to campuses according to a formula. Of this, $15.25 million each year would be distributed to campuses with declining enrollment over the last two years and $11.25 million each year through a formula dependent on the number of credit hours undergraduates complete.
There will also be $7 million across the biennium to provide 24/7 virtual telehealth mental health services across UW system campuses, $54 million to support retainment and recruitment of faculty and staff, $94 million to increase wages by 3% in the first year and 2% in the second year for UW system employees and $1 million for UW-Green Bay’s Rising Phoenix Early College High School Program.
The UW system will also be required to maintain the number of positions funded with general purpose revenue and program revenue at January 2024 levels.
The system will also get over $840 million for capital projects. Other parts of the capital budget, including the Green Bay Correctional Institution, were not addressed in the deal.
$194 million for UW-La Crosse to complete the construction of the Prairie Springs Science Center and to demolish Crowley Hall
$189 million for UW-Milwaukee to renovate the Health Sciences and Northwest Quadrant complex
$137 million for UW-Oshkosh to demolish a library facility, renovate and add a brand-new replacement addition
$10 million for UW-Madison to renovate and build a new addition to Dejope Residence Hall
$98 million for UW-Stevens Point to renovate and build a new addition to Sentry Hall
$800,000 for UW-Milwaukee to plan for renovations at Sandburg Hall East Tower
Nearly $32 million for UW-Stout to renovate and build a new addition at its recreation complex
Nearly $19 million for UW-Madison to renovate the Chadbourne Residence Dining Hall, $5 million to plan for relocation and demolition of the UW-Madison Humanities Building and $160 million for renovation of UW-Madison’s Science Hall
K-12 special education funding up to 45%
The deal also makes changes to the budget that Republican lawmakers on the budget committee passed in mid-June, boosting the special education reimbursement rate to 45% by the second year of the budget.
The state’s special education rate was one of the crucial issues discussed by education advocates with many saying a significant investment would help alleviate some of the financial stress schools have faced and ease districts’ reliance on property taxes.
Some advocates had called for a 90% investment, while Evers proposed a 60% rate. Republican lawmakers had initially approved raising the rate to 35% in the first year of the budget and 37.5% in the second year.
Under the deal, the total investment in the special education reimbursement will be over $500 million. The rate will rise to 42% in the first half of the biennium and 45% in the second. It will remain at a sum certain rate, meaning the amount of money allocated is finite and will not increase based on expanding demand.
The budget deal will also invest $30 million for comprehensive school-based mental health services.
Department of Health Services changes
The deal would also increase the hospital assessment rate to help maintain the state’s Medicaid costs. The Wisconsin Hospital Assessment is a levy from certain hospitals that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) uses to fund hospital access payments, hospital supplemental payments and reinvestment in the Wisconsin Medicaid program.
Wisconsin hospitals currently pay an assessment rate of about 1.8% of their net patient revenue to the DHS. That would rise to 6% under the deal with 30% of the funds being retained in the Medical Assistance Trust Fund, which supports Wisconsin’s Medicaid program. The rest of the funds will be used to invest in hospital provider payments and is estimated to provide over $1.1 billion in additional investments in Wisconsin hospitals.
The changes use federal funding to increase hospital reimbursement while decreasing the amount of general program revenue for the Medicaid program.
Evers’ office noted that federal reconciliation legislation proposals have included provisions that would prohibit or limit the policy change in the future, meaning that this budget could be the last for Wisconsin to make these types of changes.
The state will also fund the current Medicaid program under the deal.
The budget will also increase investments in free and charitable clinics by $1.5 million.
The deal does not include Medicaid expansion, which Evers continued to advocate for in the budget but Republican leaders have fervently opposed. It also doesn’t include the smaller postpartum Medicaid extension, which would allow postpartum mothers to receive Medicaid coverage for up to a year after giving birth.
Wisconsin is one of 10 states not to take the Medicaid expansion and one of two not to take the postpartum expansion.
Roads improvement program gets additional investment
A couple of projects created in the last budget to help with road improvement will get additional funding under the deal
The state will allocate $150 million in the Agricultural Roads Improvement Program, which was created in 2023 to support local agricultural road improvement projects statewide. Of the additional funding, $30 million will go towards improving and repairing deteriorating bridges across the state.
According to Evers’ office, the program has so far funded 92 projects across the state.
The deal would also generate nearly $200 million in additional revenue to improve the sustainability of the transportation fund, allocate $14 million for municipal service payments, invest $50 million to continue the Local Projects Program (also created in the 2023 budget), which supports local communities with construction projects that serve statewide public purpose, allocate $15 million for repairs and modifications to the Echo Lake Dam, invest $5 million for the Browns Lake dredging project and invest $30 million for the De Pere railroad bridge.
Under those changes, more people will qualify for the state’s second tax bracket with a rate of 4.4%. For single filers, the qualifying maximum income will increase from $29,370 to $50,480. For joint filers, the maximum will increase from $39,150 to $67,300 and for married separate filers, the maximum will increase from $19,580 to $33,650.
It’s estimated that this will reduce the state’s revenues by $323 million in 2025-26 and $320 million in 2026-27.
The cut will affect 1.6 million Wisconsin taxpayers and provide an average cut of $180. Under Wisconsin’s tax system, people pay the first-bracket tax rate on the portion of their income that falls into that bracket, the second-bracket rate on their income up to the maximum of the second bracket and so on. Thus even high-income earners will get a tax break through adjustments to the lower bracket rates.
The proposal also included an income tax exclusion for retirees. It is estimated to reduce Wisconsin’s revenues by $395 million in 2025-26 and $300 million in 2026-27. This will allow Wisconsinites 67 and older to exclude up to $24,000 for single-filers and $48,000 for married-joint filers of retirement income payments. Those filers will see an average cut of about $1,000 per filer.
The deal will also include the elimination of the sales tax on household utility bills, which is estimated to cost the state about $178 million over the biennium and create a film tax credit similar to one that Republican lawmakers have been advocating for.
The Joint Finance Committee convened at 10:17 p.m. Friday — over 12 hours after it was originally scheduled. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Joint Finance Committee convened at 10:17 p.m. Friday — over 12 hours after it was originally scheduled — to vote on a fraction of the budget areas it had originally planned and to release part of the literacy funding that is set to expire next week.
Legislative leaders have been working behind closed doors over the last week to negotiate with Gov. Tony Evers and work out the details of the state budget as the end of the fiscal year approaches next week.
Areas of the budget still left to take up are at the center of negotiations including the University of Wisconsin system, where Republicans have considered cuts, and the Department of Children and Families, which is responsible for the state’s Child Care Counts program. Evers has said he would veto a budget without funding for the program, which will run out of federal money soon. The committee also still needs to take up the Department of Health Services, the Department of Transportation, the capital budget and more.
The committee co-chairs did not take questions from reporters ahead of the meeting, but as the meeting started Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said the other agencies “will be taken up at a later date.” He didn’t specify when that would be.
The budget committee did approve the budget for several state agencies including the Department of Natural Resources, part of the Department of Justice, the Higher Education Aids Board, the Department of Administration and the Tourism Department. Each action the committee did take passed along partisan lines.
Portion of $50 million for literacy released
The committee voted unanimously to release $9 million of the nearly $50 million left in funding for literacy initiatives that was first allocated in the 2023-25 state budget. The majority of the money has been withheld by lawmakers since 2023 and is slated to lapse back into the state’s general fund if not released by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.
Lawmakers said action on the other $40 million will be taken soon.
“This has taken a long time to get here. One of the things that this bill was originally about was to make it so that kids could read. We want to help kids read. We want to give schools the tools to be able to do that,” Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) said. “Unfortunately, it’s taken this Legislature a tremendous amount of time to allocate the funds for that, and ultimately, that’s simply not acceptable.”
Born said he is glad lawmakers were releasing part of the money Friday and would have further motions on it in the future. He also said the delay on the funding was Evers’ fault. Lawmakers were holding the funding back due to a partial veto Evers exercised on a bill related to the literacy funding. The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday that partial veto was unconstitutional and restored the original language of the law.
“We’re glad that justice has been done, and we’re here now with the proper accounts and able to do these two separate motions here in the next couple of days in the committee to get this program that was a bipartisan program moving along,” Born said.
Certain projects funded in DNR budget, Knowles-Nelson not
Noticeably missing from the Republicans’ Department of Natural Resource motion was funding for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program, which allows the agency to fund the purchase of public land and upkeep of recreational areas.
Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) said lawmakers were missing an opportunity by not funding the program in the budget.
“There’s a lot of individual pet projects in here that seem to be of interest to individual legislators, but there aren’t a lot of park projects that are of interest to Wisconsinites, particularly Knowles-Nelson,” Andraca said.
The committee approved funding in the budget for an array of projects including $42 million to help with modernization of the Rothschild Dam, $500,000 to go towards the repair of a retaining wall for the Wisconsin Rapids Riverbank project, $2.2 million environmental remediation and redevelopment of Lake Vista Park in Oak Creek, $70,000 for a dredging project in Manitowoc River in the Town of Brillion, $1.75 million for dredging the Deerskin River and $100,000 for assistance with highway flooding in the Town of Norway in Racine County.
Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc), who is the author of a bill to keep the program going, said lawmakers are working to ensure it handles the program in the best way, which is part of why the funding is not in the budget as of now.
“We actually have until 30th of June of 2026 to work on this. It’s something that Sen. [Patrick] Testin and I have been working on along with our staff over the last six months. It’s something that is a bipartisan effort. We’ve met with so many different stakeholders, so many different groups, so many fellow legislators on getting this done,” Kurtz said. “We are committed to get it done.”
Kurtz said that the hearing on the bill was “good” and there will be “a lot more coming up in the future” when it comes to Knowles-Nelson.
The committee also approved raising nonresident vehicle admission sticker fees, nonresident campsite fees and campsite electricity fees.
Office of School Safety, VOCA grants get state funding
The Department of Justice’s Office of School Safety will get 13 permanent staff positions and $1.57 million to continue its work. That’s about $700,000 less than what the agency had requested, but is about what Evers had proposed for the office.
The office serves as a resource for K-12 schools — helping them improve security measures by providing training on crisis prevention and response, grants for safety enhancements, threat assessment training and mental health training. It also operates the Speak Up, Speak Out tipline where students can anonymously report safety concerns.
The Wisconsin DOJ will also get help filling funding gaps for Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grants left by federal funding cuts.
Wisconsin’s federal allocation for VOCA grants has been cut from $40 million to $13 million. Domestic violence shelters and victim services organizations along with the state DOJ have been navigating the limited funding for over a year. The organizations that receive VOCA grants help people who are the victims of a crime by assisting them with finding housing, providing transportation to and from court appearances and navigating the criminal justice system.
The Republican-approved motion will provide $20 million to cover the federal funding loss. It will also provide $163,500 for two staff positions, which will expire in July 2027. The Wisconsin DOJ had requested an additional $66 million in the budget to make up for the funding gap.
McGuire noted the funding would be significantly less than what the state agency had requested and would essentially create a two-year program rather than an ongoing one.
“[This] maintains the Legislature’s level of input, but it doesn’t actually maintain the same level of service because of the declining revenues as a result of the federal government,” McGuire said. “While we can’t fix all the things that are the result of what the federal government is doing wrong … this is something that will have an impact on communities across the state. It’s going to have an impact on people who’ve had the worst day and the worst week in the worst month of their life. It’s gonna have an impact on people who have been harmed by violence who have been in toxic, abusive relationships. It’s going to have an impact on people who desperately need services through no fault of their own. These are really vulnerable people and they should receive our support.
Wisconsin Grants to get slight infusion, UW budget postponed
The committee did not take up the budget for the University of Wisconsin system. It’s been one of the key issues for debate as Republican lawmakers have considered cuts, while Evers and UW leaders have said the university system needs $855 million in additional funding. Evers has said that in negotiations he and lawmakers were discussing a “positive number.”
The committee did take up the Higher Educational Aids Board, which is the agency responsible for overseeing Wisconsin’s student financial aid system, investing in the Wisconsin Grant Program. The program provides grants to undergraduate Wisconsin residents enrolled at least half-time in degree or certificate programs.
The Wisconsin Grants program would receive an additional $5.6 million in 2025-26 and $11.9 million in 2026-27 under the proposal approved Friday. The UW system, private nonprofit colleges and Wisconsin Technical College System would receive equal dollar increases. It also includes a $75,000 increase for tribal college students.
Evers had proposed 20% increases for the Wisconsin Grants for the state’s public universities, private nonprofit colleges and technical colleges — a total $57.7 million investment.
The Wisconsin Technical Colleges System had requested $10.8 million in each year of the biennium, saying there has been a waitlist for the grants for the first time in 10 years and that list is projected to grow.
The committee also approved $3.5 million in 2026-27 in a supplemental appropriation for emergency medical services training costs to reimburse training and materials costs.
“Recruiting volunteer EMS personnel is a challenge all over the state of Wisconsin — certainly is in my Senate district,” Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said. “We believe that this will remove one barrier to recruitment of volunteers in our EMS units all across the state.”
Other portions of the budget approved Friday evening include:
$30 million to the Tourism Department for general marketing, and an additional $1 million in the second year of the budget, as well as about $113,000 for state arts organizations and two staff positions and funding for the Office of Outdoor Recreation. The motion includes $5 million for Taliesin Preservation Inc. for restoration projects at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin home located in Spring Green supporting private fundraising for an education center, the restoration of visitor amenities and the stabilization of some buildings.
$193,700 to the Wisconsin Elections Commission with over $150,000 of that going toward information technology costs and the remaining going towards costs for the Electronic Registration Information Center.
$20.9 million and 147 positions for 12 months of personnel related costs for a Milwaukee Type 1 facility, which is meant to serve as a portion of the replacement of youth prisons Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, which the state had been working to close for years. The 32-bed facility in Milwaukee has a planned completion date in October 2026.
The WisconsinEye endowment received $10 million to continue video coverage of the Legislature.
The committee also approved $11 million for grants to nine of Wisconsin’s 11 federally-recognized tribes. The committee has been excluding two tribes — the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa — from the grant funding for several years due to disputes over roads. The exclusion “strikes me as inappropriate,” McGuire said. He added that it’s “an insult to those people.”
Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), a member of the Joint Finance Committee, urged Republicans to work to ensure families have access to child care. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee is planning to return to its work on the state budget Friday. It will be the committee’s first meeting since early last week when work halted due to a breakdown in negotiations between Republican Senate and Assembly leaders and Gov. Tony Evers.
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said then that his caucus objected to the amount of spending being considered in the budget negotiations. Two members of his caucus — Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) and Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) — have both publicly expressed their concerns about the budget being negotiated by Evers and Republican leaders, presenting a challenge in the Senate where Republicans hold an 18-15 majority. To pass a budget without winning Democratic votes, as they did last time, Senate Republicans can only lose one vote.
Assembly Republicans have been calling this week for their Senate colleagues to come back to the negotiating table and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said he was still in conversation with Evers and, according to WisPolitics, is optimistic the budget could be completed next week. Assembly and Senate Republicans met in a joint caucus Thursday.
The committee plans Friday to take up 54 sections of the budget, including ones related to the University of Wisconsin system, the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the Department of Children and Families, Department of Health Services and the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Tourism as part of its work wrapping up the budget. The budget would then need to pass the Senate and Assembly before it could go to Evers for consideration.
Child care is a critical piece, as Evers has said he would veto the budget without investment in the state program to support child care providers known as Child Care Counts. The COVID-era program was launched using federal funds to subsidize child care facilities and help them pay staff and keep costs down for families, but the funds will run out in July and the program would end without state money. Republican lawmakers have said they oppose “writing checks out to providers.”
Democratic lawmakers joined child care providers Thursday morning to echo calls for investing state money to continue the Child Care Counts program.
Brooke Legler, co-founder of Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN), said Republican lawmakers’ proposals are inadequate to meet the crisis and Republican arguments opposing subsidies don’t make sense.
“They subsidize farmers. They subsidize the manufacturers,” Legler said. “Last [session] when they denied the funding for Child Care Counts … they gave $500 million to the Brewers, so I have an issue with them saying they can’t subsidize.”
Legler said that if lawmakers don’t make the investment in child care, they need to be voted out of the Legislature next year.
“The $480 million needs to happen, and if it doesn’t, then we need to help Sen. [Howard] Marklein and Rep. [Mark] Born find new jobs in the next election,” Legler said. “This is not OK, and we need to stop this from happening.”
Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), a member of the Joint Finance Committee, urged Republicans to work to ensure families have access to child care, saying the state’s economy relies on parents being able to work and that children are better off when they have a reliable, safe place to stay and learn.
“We cannot allow these critical centers to close their doors and opportunities to be lost to our children forever,” Johnson said. “If the families don’t have quality, dependable child care, if they have to remain at home, or even worse… these are all options that we don’t want to face… and these are all options that our children don’t deserve.
Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said her caucus is prepared to work on the state budget and she has “continually” been in conversation with Evers and is open to conversations with LeMahieu.
“As of right now, I have not heard from Sen. Devin LeMahieu yet, but my phone is on,” Hesselbein said.
When it comes to negotiations happening behind closed doors, Hesselbein said it’s “probably normal.”
“I’ve talked to other majority and minority leaders in the past, and this is kind of how it’s happened in the past,” Hesselbein said.
In order for Democrats to vote for the budget, she said, they would need to see significant investments in K-12, special education funding, child care and higher education.
“These are the three things we’ve talked about — improving lives, lowering costs for everyday people,” Hesselbein said.
The UW system with the support of Evers has requested an additional $855 million in the budget. Vos said last week his caucus was instead considering $87 million cuts to the system, though Evers recently said that they were discussing a “positive number” when it comes to the UW budget.
Democrats were critical of the K-12 budget that the committee approved earlier this month for not investing in a 60% reimbursement rate for special education and for not providing any general funding increases to schools.
Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), a member of the Joint Finance Committee, told reporters on Wednesday that a budget agreement between Evers and Republicans won’t necessarily guarantee Democratic votes.
“I think all of us are going to have to make our own decisions about whether or not the budget is one that we can support or that meets the needs of our districts, and that’s as it should be,” Roys said.
The committee will also take action on the nearly $50 million for literacy initiatives that has been stuck in a supplemental fund since 2023 and withheld by lawmakers because of a partial veto Evers exercised on a related law. The state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday the partial veto was an overstep of Evers’ powers, striking it down and restoring the language in the law passed by the Legislature. The money is set to expire and return to the state’s general fund if not released by Monday.
Assembly Republicans gathered ahead of the floor session to stress the need for bipartisan negotiations and progress on writing the state budget. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
With the state’s budget deadline less than a week away, the Wisconsin State Assembly approved a slate of bills that would create new programs but withheld funding, which Republicans said would come later. Democrats criticized Republicans, saying they couldn’t trust that the funding would actually be passed. The body also approved a pair of bills related to nuclear power and bills that will increase penalties for criminal offenses.
Assembly Republicans gathered ahead of the floor session to stress the need for bipartisan negotiations and progress on writing the state budget.
Budget negotiations fell apart last week for the second time as Senate Republicans walked away from talks with Gov. Tony Evers. Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said in a statement at the time that discussions were “heading in a direction that taxpayers cannot afford.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said during a press conference that he has been in communication with Evers, including on Tuesday morning.
Vos said the discussions about child care funding are “preliminary” with “a lot of details to be worked out.” He said Assembly Republicans remain “steadfast” in its opposition to “writing checks out to providers” but are open to working with Evers on child care.
Evers told reporters Monday he wouldn’t sign a budget if it doesn’t include money for child care.
“Republicans need to get their act together and come back and let’s finish it up,” Evers said.
Asked if he would sign a budget that doesn’t include funding for the state’s Child Care Counts program, Evers said “no.”
Evers has not vetoed a budget in full during his time in office, though he has exercised his partial veto power extensively, rejecting major tax cuts and making changes to extend increases for school revenue – to the great irritation of Republicans.
“I think in the end we’ll be able to find a consensus around that topic,” Vos said about child care funding.
Vos also said Republicans are already taking some action related to child care. Assembly Republicans have announced measures including a 15% tax credit for the business expenses at child care facilities, no-interest loans and allowing 16-year-olds to be counted as full staff as ways of addressing the crisis.
Evers said discussions about the funding for the University of Wisconsin had included “a positive number” though he wouldn’t go into details. Last week, Vos said his caucus intended to cut $87 million from the UW system.
“I know we’re going to make investments in trying to make sure that parents have access to child care, I know we’re going to make a historic investment in special ed funding and I know we’re going to do some reforms at the university. Those are all things that we would love to do as part of a bigger deal,” Vos said, adding that legislators have to make sure any plan can get through both the Assembly and the Senate and then to Evers.
Vos said the most thing thing for Assembly Republicans is getting tax cuts passed and signed by Evers, saying they have learned from previous budgets where tax cuts have been vetoed and other parts of the budget is approved. The budget committee has approved a $1.3 billion tax cut package for the budget bill already.
“It’s better for us to find a compromise,” Vos said. “We’d like to have a guarantee from Gov. Evers that we’re going to get tax cuts signed into law. In exchange, he would like a guarantee that we’re going to have some increases in investments that he cares about.”
Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said he is in communication with Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) working on figuring out when the budget committee will meet next.
“We’re hopeful our Senate colleagues will join us in the next couple of days,” Born said.
The deadline for the budget — and end of the fiscal year — is June 30.
“I think if we are actively talking about a budget in the next couple of days, we can hammer out details in a hurry. That’s the way budgets are built. If people are ready to work, we’ll get things done,” Born said.
Republicans have a slim 18-15 majority in the state Senate, which is leading to some difficulties passing a budget, as their caucus can only lose one vote and still get a budget passed without Democratic votes. Two members — Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) and Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) — have expressed concerns about the budget.
Nass laid out several “benchmarks” that would get him to vote for a budget in a press release Tuesday, including a $3.5 billion one-time tax rebate that would provide $1,600 to joint filers and $800 to individual tax filers, ensuring the new budget doesn’t create a structural deficit and making cuts of $700 million to $1 billion and no more than $1.5 billion in new bonding for buildings.
“I will not support the Vos-Evers budget proposal because it contains too much spending, special interest pork and the creation of a significant structural deficit,” Nass said. “The Vos-Evers budget plan is neither conservative nor taxpayer friendly. However, if passed it would be a big win for the politicians and lobbyists.”
Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), who is a member of the Joint Finance Committee, called Nass’ proposal “reckless” in a social media post and said Republicans are in “disarray.”
“It shows that Republicans do not care about maintaining the essential services that Wisconsinites need and want — public schools, UW, roads, healthcare,” Roys wrote. “We need a budget by June 30 or all of it is at serious risk.”
Bills passed that will rely on funding in budget
The state budget overshadowed debate about several other bills Tuesday as Democrats complained about the lack of funding included in the bills and the lack of trust they have that Republicans will release the funding.
Republicans, however, said the funding would come later in the budget. A similar argument took place in the state Senate last week.
Republicans are splitting the bills from the funding as a way of working around Evers’ veto power. Evers has objected to this. Evers’ legislative affairs director sent letters to Republican lawmakers telling them that if they want their bills to become law, the policy needs to be included in the budget, the funding needs to be attached to the bill or the bill needs to include language that states the policy only goes into effect if there is funding.
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said at the start of session Tuesday that lawmakers have yet to take meaningful action on the budget and that is unacceptable.
“I want to be very clear about what happens in Wisconsin, if we fail to pass a budget before July 1. There will be no new special education, mental health, or nutrition spending for our schools. Project positions will end overnight. There will be cuts to programs like county conservation and tourism, and much more,” Neubauer said. “There are real consequences to not passing a budget on time. It will hurt Wisconsinites, and it really is unacceptable. It does not need to be this way.”
Neubauer said that Republicans are allowing the “extremists” in their party to hold up the budget process when lawmakers should be listening to their constituents. She said the floor session is an example of Republicans ineffectiveness.
“Even as the budget process is in complete chaos, the majority is writing a series of unfunded bills to the floor that they allege would receive funding in the budget,” Neubauer said. “My biggest question right now is, what budget? Republicans do not have a plan to fund these bills. They do not have a plan for our state budget, and they don’t have a plan to move our state forward. Wisconsin deserves better.”
Unfunded bills create ‘bizarre budget’ process
One bill — AB 279 — would instruct the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) to create a talent recruitment grant program meant to lure out-of-state families to relocate to Wisconsin. It passed by voice vote.
Rep. Alex Joers (D-Middleton) said he supports the idea but is concerned about the lack of funding.
“It creates a grant program and there’s no grants, there’s no funding in this bill,” Joers said. “You all need to fund your bills.”
Bill author Rep. David Armstrong (R-Rice Lake) said his bill would help communities market themselves to people looking to relocate. He said he delivered five motions to the committee, but none were included. The committee took action on the WEDC budget earlier this month.
“They told me to get these passed through the House and through the Senate and they’ll come back and find the funding,” Armstrong said, adding that he agrees the program shouldn’t be mandated without the money.
SB 106, which the Assembly concurred in, would provide the framework for the Department of Health Services to certify psychiatric residential treatment facilities. The facilities would provide in-patient care for people under 21 and are aimed at helping keep young people in crisis stay in-state for care.
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) said it is “outrageous” that the bill doesn’t include funding.
“It’s not a workable bill if it’s not funded,” Vining said. “This is irresponsible governing. It is fiscally irresponsible. You guys have got to stop playing games.”
Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston) said the bill is critical so that young people in crisis have support from the state and their families. When it comes to funding, he said that would come later.
“It will be coming up in separate legislation as we negotiate, as this budget moves forward. We are not going to put a bill out without funding, and I don’t appreciate scare tactics like that because this won’t happen, I have a lot of budget motions, and I am working with JFC to get that accomplished,” Snyder said. “Let’s work on getting the foundation built and then finding out the cost and fund it.”
SB 108 would require DHS to develop a portal to facilitate sharing of safety plans for a minor in crisis with specific people. It passed in a voice vote.
SB 283 requires the Department of Transportation to create a public protective services hearing protection program to provide specialized hearing protection devices to law enforcement and fire departments.
Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) said the bill is really good, but won’t work without funding.
“We’ve heard that Joint Finance is going to fund something, and it doesn’t happen,” Emerson said. “$15 million for hospitals in the Chippewa Valley still sitting in Joint Finance. Money for the reading program, still sitting in Joint Finance. Money for PFAS, still sitting in Joint Finance. There’s a lot of broken trust between the people of Wisconsin and that committee, so we need to see that the funding is here. We need to see it right now. Otherwise, I don’t see how we can get a bill like this passed.”
Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha), who is a member of the Joint Finance Committee, said during debate that Republicans have “set the stage for a bizarre budget” by approaching new policy in this way. He said Republicans have previously asked Democrats to trust funding will be released as they’ve allocated funding in a roundabout way, noting that in previous budget cycles lawmakers put money in supplemental funds as a way of requiring additional approval from the budget committee before the money was released.
“I voted for a literacy bill last year — $50 million to help kids read — and that money is still sitting there… We have the ability to appropriate funds, so we could have added funding to all these bills today,” McGuire said.
McGuire said Republicans could be aiming to effectively reduce agencies’ budgets by mandating new projects without including the funding.
“There’s the possibility that this is just a secret way of cutting agencies and of robbing every other program that those agencies administer because that’s what happens if we don’t administer the funds,” McGuire said. “Those agencies have to make the choice between the program that we require them to allocate funds for and other programs… and it makes it harder for people to receive services that they already need.”
Nuclear power bills
The Assembly approved a pair of bills meant to move progress on nuclear energy in Wisconsin, which will now head to Evers’ desk for consideration.
One bill — SB 125 — would require the Public Service Commission to conduct a study to determine potential sites for a nuclear power plant.
The other — SB 124 — would create a Nuclear Power Summit Board in Wisconsin meant to host a summit in Madison to advance nuclear power and fusion energy technology and development and to showcase Wisconsin’s leadership and innovation in the nuclear industry. The summit would need to be held within the month after instruction starts at the new engineering building at UW-Madison, which is supposed to be finished in 2028. The funding for the building was approved by the Legislature and Evers in 2024.
Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde (D-Milwaukee) said he is concerned about Wisconsin’s energy, but the bills as they are are missing some steps.
“Where’s our integrated resource plan? Have we developed one? In other states, they have an integrated resource plan, which lets us know just how much carbon emitting fuel we need to be producing and let’s not produce any more than that,” Moore Omokunde said. “We need to be determining the speed of nuclear energy, the cost, the safety.”
Moore Omokunde said the state should take an “all of the above” approach and consider different types of energy including nuclear, wind and solar to allow Wisconsin to better decide its “energy future.”.
Snyder said that with technological advances, including artificial intelligence, other types of energy such as windmills and solar won’t be able to provide enough energy.
“This is something for the future. If you want the cleanest energy, you have to include nuclear,” Snyder said. “We can’t be living in the past of Chernobyl. Fear does not move us forward.”
Sortwell compared technological advances in energy production to the difference between the Flintstones and the Jetsons. He said lawmakers worked with Evers’ office and the PSC and other stakeholders on the bill. Evers had proposed including $1 million in the state budget to support a nuclear power plant feasibility study.
“The nuclear renaissance is upon us here in Wisconsin and in the United States, and it’s time for everybody else to get on board,” Sortwell said.
New and increased penalties
The Assembly also passed bills that increase — or create — criminal penalties.
Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) spoke in opposition to the slate of bills, saying they will contribute to mass incarceration in Wisconsin.
“Locking people up does not need to be the solution to every single piece of legislation,” Clancy said. “Incarceration has become this Legislature’s default response to every single claim you think is wrong in this state. It’s incredibly harmful and it doesn’t work.”
AB 26 would make it a Class H felony to threaten or commit battery against a juror or a member of a juror’s family.
While talking about this bill, Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) said he was thankful Clancy was in the “minority of the minority of the minority” on the issue. He said it would help protect family members of jurors.
“While you may as an individual juror not feel particularly at risk yourself, maybe you’re concerned about your family being threatened, and so this is making sure once again that we have a justice system that is deciding on the merits of the case,” Sortwell said.
AB 35 would change current law that says candidates can’t remove their names from ballots unless they are dead. The bill comes in reaction to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. trying unsuccessfully to remove himself from the Wisconsin presidential ballot in 2024 after he dropped out and endorsed President Donald Trump.
Under the bill, candidates withdrawing from national or statewide races would have to pay the Wisconsin Elections Commission a $1,000 fee — or $250 for a non-statewide office.
The bill would also make it a Class G felony with a maximum penalty of up to $25,000 and imprisonment for up to 10 years if someone intentionally makes or files a false statement withdrawing a person’s candidacy.
AB 53 would also make it a Class H felony to cause or threaten to cause bodily harm to a community service officer in response to an action the CSO took in an official capacity. It is currently a class A misdemeanor to cause bodily harm to another person.
AB 65 would make it a Class F felony with a maximum penalty of $25,000 and 12 years and 6 months in prison if someone intentionally enters another person’s home without consent with intent to commit battery.
The playground at Learning Ladder Preschool and Childcare center, which closed in August 2024 after over 30 years in business. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The budget process hit another roadblock as Assembly and Senate Republicans appeared to split over budget negotiations with Gov. Tony Evers — leading to the cancellation of the budget committee’s meeting Thursday and disappointment from child care advocates who had traveled to the Capitol that day.
The June 30 deadline for the 2025-27 state budget is quickly approaching and lawmakers still have major portions of the bill to put together. The GOP-led Joint Finance Committee was scheduled to continue its work by voting on sections related to child care, the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the Department of Justice as well as the capital budget. As the start time of 1 p.m. approached, a cancellation notice was released.
Legislative leaders then put out statements saying negotiations with Evers had resumed this week, but were going south again. Negotiations had previously broken down with Evers saying he had agreed to GOP tax cuts but Republicans wouldn’t make concessions on spending for education, child care and other parts of the budget. Republicans said Evers wanted to spend too much.
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said in a statement about the cancellation Thursday that negotiations between legislative leaders and Evers had been “good faith” with each party seeking “to do what’s best for the state of Wisconsin” since they restarted this week.
“However, these discussions are heading in a direction that taxpayers cannot afford,” LeMahieu said. “Senate Republicans are ready to work with the State Assembly to pass a balanced budget that cuts taxes and responsibly invests in core priorities.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) also put out a statement describing conversations over the last couple of weeks as being in good faith, saying work on a budget that “cuts taxes, puts more money into K-12 schools to stave off higher property taxes, and funds childcare and the university system in exchange for meaningful reforms” has been productive. But said Senate Republicans were the party that left the negotiations.
“We have chosen to work together so our tax reductions actually become law, schools continue to be funded, Medicaid patients continue to receive care, and road construction projects do not stop,” the Assembly lawmakers said. “This is the most conservative and the most responsible option… We hope Senate Republicans will come back to the table to finish fighting for these reforms and complete the budget on time.”
Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback wrote in a post on social media about the meeting cancellation that “ultimately, the Senate needs to decide whether they were elected to govern and get things done or not.”
Republicans have a narrow 18-15 majority in the Senate, meaning the caucus can only lose one vote if they want to pass a budget without Democratic support. Two Republicans — Sens. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) and Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) — have publicly expressed their concerns about the budget as it stands. Kapenga has said he would prefer for the state to not pass one at this point.
Nass said in a statement that Senate Republicans have been advocating for “tough but fair spending decisions” and the outline of the deal from the negotiations includes “too much spending, special interest pork and the creation of a structural deficit.” He said some legislators want to cut a “bad deal” for taxpayers.
Nass said there is “nothing preventing the Republican majority in the Legislature from passing a conservative state budget except for the lack of willingness at the highest levels in the Assembly.”
Democratic members on the Joint Finance Committee and Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove) spoke at the Learning Ladder Preschool and Childcare center in Cottage Grove Thursday morning. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Democrats said that the breakdown in communication is the result of “extremists” in the Republican caucuses controlling how they have approached the budget talks.
“Weeks ago, legislative Republicans walked away from negotiating with the governor in order to attempt to pass this budget through by again giving in to the desires of the most extreme members of their legislative caucuses, and instead they find themselves here again — unable or struggling to pass a budget and needing to talk with the governor about ways that they can finally do what Wisconsinites have been asking them to do all along,” Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) said.
When it comes to the potential for Democrats to vote for the budget, Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said Republicans need to talk to them.
“Ultimately, what we really need is for Republicans to pick up the phone for the Senate Majority Leader [LeMahieu] to decide that he is not willing to risk his majority and his more vulnerable members to kowtow to the most extreme voices… so it’s really just his willingness to pick up the phone and accept the reality of the caucus that he’s built,” Roys said.
If a new budget isn’t passed by the deadline, Wisconsin continues to operate under the current budget.
Child care advocates frustrated
Child care advocates had traveled to the state Capitol Thursday in anticipation of the meeting, including Brynne Schieffer and Erin LaBlanc of the Faith Lutheran Child Care Center located in Cameron, Wisconsin. They traveled three-and-a-half hours to Madison and said they jumped through “a lot of hoops” to make it there, including asking some of their families to keep their children home so the ratio of children to staff remained adequate.
Schieffer said they wanted to be able to advocate for the inclusion of child care investments in the budget. They support Evers’ $480 million request to continue funding the Child Care Counts program, which used federal dollars from pandemic relief to support staff wages without increasing tuition costs to parents.
“The meeting not happening — it’s definitely disappointing,” Schieffer said. “Our elected representatives [are] not doing their job. Can’t they get along? We can come in and mediate. That’s what we do.”
Schieffer said the families were supportive because they understand the stakes.
“We came down not only for us, but for them, for the child care industry,” Schieffer said.
One in four Wisconsin child care providers could close their doors if the state support for centers ends in June, according to a survey of child care providers commissioned by the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) and produced by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Child care advocates took pictures outside of the meeting room of the Joint Finance Committee after its meeting was canceled. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Schieffer said that the center would need to raise its costs by $28 per child per week to make up for a lack of Child Care Counts funding. She said that if there is funding they plan to put that in the contracts that families have.
“We need direct funding. We need to be considered on the same level as our public schools,” Schieffer said. “The direct funding comes in and goes directly towards the operation of the center, operational budget including staff wages.”
Corrine Hendrickson, owner of Corrine’s Little Explorers and co-founder of Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN) said she wanted to be available if lawmakers had any questions ahead of the meeting and because she thinks it’s important that they look at the people who are affected when they take action on the budget. She closed her center for the day to be at the Capitol and isn’t sure she’ll be able to do so again when the committee eventually takes up child care.
“It’s incomprehensible to me that they, as elected officials, can just walk away and not do their job when all kinds of… people were here to witness this, and they just can decide 30 minutes before that they don’t actually have to do their jobs,” Hendrickson said. “It’s also frustrating because these conversations should have taken place already and should be a basic agreement before they decide to schedule the hearing.”
Child care providers said Republicans’ plans so far for child care aren’t sufficient for addressing the crisis.
Assembly Republicans announced their plans on Wednesday for child care including allowing 16-and 17-year-olds to staff child care facilities as assistants and to count towards staff to child ratios, increasing the number of children that a family provider can have from 8 to 12 and creating a zero-interest loan for child care providers and a 15% tax credit for the business expenses at a child care facility. Vos had said they didn’t agree with the approach of providing money directly to centers.
Hendrickson said they are the same ideas that Republicans introduced last session.
“We came out vehemently against [those] and told them exactly why this wasn’t going to work,” Hendrickson said, adding that since then they have spoken with the lawmakers championing those proposals including Reps. Karen Hurd (R-Withee) and Joy Goeben (R-Hobart)
“It didn’t feel like they were listening. It felt like they were trying to convince us that they were correct,” Hendrickson said.
“A grant is something that you don’t have to pay back, and so you can use it to get yourself started. Because our profit is so low, there’s no way that we can take on that loan when our home is our collateral. If I take on a loan and my home is collateral and I can’t pay it back then, that means I lose my house.”
Schieffer said there are problems with the changes Republicans want to make to ratios. She said increasing the number of children per staff member could impact the quality of care and that minors don’t have the work and education experience that other staff members have.
“I work in a center where every teacher holds a degree in early childhood,” Schieffer said. “To be able to put 16-year-olds and say they can do that job without the education piece, the experience piece, life experience, I feel like that it devalues what we do.”
Democrats highlighted the strain on child care facilities — and potential closures — that could result from the end of funding for Child Care Counts and argued that the state should have some type of grant program for them at a press conference Thursday morning.
Democratic members of the Joint Finance Committee and Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove) met at the Learning Ladder Preschool and Childcare center in Cottage Grove. The facility closed in August 2024 after over 30 years in business.
“There are no tricycles in the playground. There’s no uncontrollable laughter among children, and the sweet sound of toddler feet running across the classroom is not here,” Ratcliff said while standing in a room full of bins of children’s books left over after donations and sales.
The owners wrote in a letter about the closure in August that the solution would have been “Child Care Counts” funding, fair access to 4k funding and care and consistent regulations across child care providers.
The Learning Ladder Preschool and Childcare center in Cottage Grove, which closed in August 2024 after over 30 years in business. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
“Unfortunately, our foundation has been slowly chipped away and we can no longer afford to remain open. After COVID, governmental grants and assistance programs helped prop us up for a while, but those programs have, or are about to end,” the Kudrna family wrote on Facebook at the time.
Democrats slammed Republicans for their rejections of funding for Child Care Counts.
“It is totally unacceptable that my Republican colleagues on the Joint Finance committee have, again and again, said to child care providers ‘your work doesn’t matter, it isn’t worth it,’” Roys said. “That’s what Republicans did when they stripped out the Child Care Counts funding that was keeping so many child care centers afloat and is helping bridge the gap between what parents can afford to pay and what providers need to keep the doors open in this time of high inflation and rising costs.”
Roys said lawmakers should be working on solutions that keep child care centers stable, not coming up with new proposals. Democrats on the committee said they had intended to introduce a proposal to provide grants to centers.
“New theoretical ideas that Republicans want to propose are essentially wish-casting,” she said. “We need to keep the centers that we have and the slots that we have open. We need to get more classrooms open, more early childhood educators to come back into the field.”
“To try to start something from scratch is going to take way longer, it’s going to cost way more when we could just keep what we have stable,” Roys added.
Evers had also urged investment in child care on Thursday. In coordination with the Department of Children and Families, he released a survey that found that 90% of Wisconsin residents, including those without kids, said that finding affordable, high-quality child care in the state is a problem. Over 75% of respondents said they support an increase in state funding to help.
“This is an issue that impacts everyone in Wisconsin. It’s pretty simple, and as leaders, we have an obligation to the nearly 80% of Wisconsinites who want us to do something about it and expect their elected officials to show up, act in good faith and work together across the aisle to solve problems,” Evers said. “I’m urging Republican lawmakers to join me in supporting real, meaningful investments to bolster providers, cut waitlists and lower costs for working families.”
A rally goer rolls out a scroll with the names of every school district that has gone to referendum since the last state budget. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.
Education advocates are making a push for more investment in public schools from the state as the Republican-led Joint Finance Committee plans to take up portions of the budget related to K-12 schools during its Thursday meeting.
The issue has been a top concern for Wisconsinites who came out to budget listening sessions and was one of Gov. Tony Evers’ priorities in his budget proposal. Evers proposed that the state spend an additional $3.1 billion on K-12 education. Evers and Republican leaders were negotiating on the spending for education as well as taxes and other parts of the budget until last week when negotiations reached an impasse.
Evers has said that Republicans were unwilling to compromise on his funding priorities, including making “meaningful investments for K-12 schools, to continue Child Care Counts to help lower the cost of child care for working families and to prevent further campus closures and layoffs at our UW System.” He said he was willing to support their tax proposal, which Republicans have said included income and retiree tax cuts.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said on WISN 12’s UpFront that Evers “lied” about Republicans walking away from the negotiating table.
“We’re willing to do it, just not as much as he wanted… When you read that statement, it makes it sound like we were at zero,” Vos said. “We were not at zero on any of those topics. We tried to find a way to invest in child care that actually went to the parents, and to make sure that we weren’t just having to go to a business. We tried to find a way to look at education so that money would actually go back to school districts across the state. It just wasn’t enough for what he wanted.”
Public education advocates said school districts are in dire need of a significant investment of state dollars, especially for special education. After lobbying for the last week, many are concerned that when Republicans finally announce their proposal it won’t be enough.
State Superintendent Jill Underly told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview Wednesday afternoon that she is anticipating that Republicans will put forth more short-term solutions, but she said schools and students can’t continue functioning in that way.
Underly compared the situation of education funding in Wisconsin to a road trip.
“The gas tank is nearly empty, and you’re trying to coast… you’re turning the air conditioning off… going at a lower speed limit, just to save a little fuel and the state budget every two years. I kind of look at them as like these exits to gas stations,” Underly said. “We keep passing up these opportunities to refuel. Schools are running on fumes, and we see the stress that is having an our system — the number of referendums, the anxiety around whether or not we’re going to have the referendum or not in our communities. Wisconsin public schools have been underfunded for decades.”
The one thing lawmakers must do, Underly said, is increase the special education reimbursement rate to a minimum of 60%, back to the levels of the 1990s.
“It used to be 60% but they haven’t been keeping up their promise to public schools,” Underly said. “They need to raise the special education reimbursement rate. Anything less than 60% is once again failing to meet urgent needs.”
The Wisconsin Public Education Network is encouraging advocates to show up at the committee meeting Thursday and continue pushing lawmakers and Evers to invest. Executive Director Heather DuBois Bourenane told the Examiner that she is concerned lawmakers are planning on “low balling” special education funding, even as she said she has never seen the education community so united in its insistence on one need.
“We’re familiar with the way they work in that caucus and in the Joint Finance Committee,” DuBois Bourenane said. “The pattern of the past has been to go around the state and listen to the concerns that are raised or at least get the appearance of listening, and then reject those concerns and demands and put forward a budget that fails in almost every way to prioritize the priority needs for our communities.”
While it’s unclear what Republicans will ultimately do, budget papers prepared by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau includes three options when it comes to special education reimbursement rate: the first is to raise the rate to 60% sum sufficient — as Evers has proposed; the second is to leave the rate at 31.5% sum certain by investing an additional $35.8 million and the third is to raise the rate to an estimated 35% by providing an additional $68.6 million in 2023-24 and $86.2 million in 2024-25.
The paper also includes options for investing more in the high cost of special education, which provides additional aid to reimburse 90% of the cost of educating students whose special education costs exceed $30,000 in a single year.
The School Administrators Alliance (SAA) sent an update to its members on Monday, pointing out what was in the budget papers and saying the committee “appears poised to focus spending on High-Cost Special Education Aid and the School Levy Tax Credit, rather than significantly raising the primary special education categorical aid.”
SAA Executive Director Dee Pettack said in the email that if that’s the route lawmakers take, it would “result in minimal new, spendable resources for classrooms and students.”
Public school funding was one of the top priorities mentioned by Wisconsinites at the four budget hearings held by the budget committee across the state in March.
“I just think it’s time to say enough is enough,” DuBois Bourenane said. “We’re really urging people to do whatever they can before our lawmakers vote on this budget, to say that we are really going to accept nothing less than a budget that stops this cycle of insufficient state support for priority needs and demand better.”
Pettack and leaders of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, Southeast Wisconsin School Alliance and the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance also issued a joint letter Tuesday urging the committee to “meet this moment with the urgency it requires,” adding that the budget provides the opportunity to allocate resources that will help students achieve.
The letter detailed the situation that a low special education reimbursement has placed districts in as they struggle to fund the mandated services and must fill in the gaps with funds from their general budgets.
“The lack of an adequate state reimbursement for mandated special education programs and services negatively affects all other academic programs, including career and technical education, reading interventionists, teachers and counselors, STEM, dual enrollment, music, art and more,” the organizations stated. “While small increases in special education reimbursement have been achieved in recent state budgets, costs for special education programming and services have grown much faster than those increases, leaving public schools in a stagnant situation.”
“Should we fail in this task, we are not only hurting Wisconsin’s youth today but also our chances to compete in tomorrow’s economy,” the leaders wrote.
If the proposal from Republicans isn’t adequate, Underly said Evers doesn’t have to sign the budget. Republican lawmakers have expressed confidence that they will put a budget on Evers’ desk that he will sign.
“There’s that, and then we keep negotiating. We keep things as they are right now. We keep moving forward,” Underly said. “But our schools and our kids, they can’t continue to wait for this… These are short term fixes, I think, that they keep talking about, and we can’t continue down this path. We need to fix it so that we’re setting ourselves up for success. Everything else is just really short sighted.”
WPEN and others want Evers to use his veto power should the proposal not be sufficient. DuBois Bourenane said dozens of organizations have signed on to a letter calling on Evers to reject any budget that doesn’t meet the state’s needs and priorities.
“What we want them to do is negotiate in good faith and reject any budget that doesn’t meet the needs of our kids, and just keep going back to the drawing board until you reach a bipartisan agreement that actually does meet those needs,” DuBois Bourenane said. “Gov. Evers has the power to break this cycle. He has the power of his veto pen. He has the power of his negotiating authority, and we expect him to use it right and people have got his back.”
The budget deadline is June 30. If it is not completed by then, the state continues to operate under the 2023-25 budget.
“Nobody wants [the process] to be drawn out any longer than it is,” DuBois Bourenane said. “Those are valid concerns. But the fact is we are in a really critical tension point right now, and if any people care even a little bit about this, now is the time that they should be speaking out.”
Committee Co-Chairs Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) and Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said at a press conference ahead of the meeting that they were looking forward to getting to work on the budget despite negotiations stalling and were optimistic that they could still get the budget done on time. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Committee Co-Chairs Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) and Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said at a press conference ahead of the meeting that they were looking forward to getting to work on the budget despite negotiations stalling and were optimistic that they could still get the budget done on time.
“We’ve had some good conversations in the last few weeks between the governor and the legislative leaders, and unfortunately, those, you know, conversations have stopped,” Born said.
Lawmakers and Evers announced Wednesday evening that their months-long negotiations had reached an impasse for the time being.
Republicans said they would move forward writing the budget on their own, saying the state couldn’t afford what Evers wanted, and Evers said Republicans were walking away because they refused to compromise. Evers had said he was willing to support Republican tax cut proposals that even as they were similar to proposals he previously vetoed.
“The spending really that the governor needs is just more than they can afford,” Born said Thursday, “and it’s getting to the point where it’s about 3 to 1 compared to the tax cuts that we were looking at.”
He declined to share specifics about the amounts that were being discussed.
“I don’t think we’re going to relive the conversations of the last few weeks in any details, but certainly, you know, we’ve been focused on tax cuts for retirees and the middle class,” Born said.
Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said in an email that Republicans’ “math is not remotely accurate.”
Despite the breakdown in discussions, the GOP lawmakers said they were optimistic about the potential for Evers to sign the budget they write, noting that he has signed budget bills passed by Republicans three times in his tenure as governor.
“I’m very hopeful that we will do a responsible budget that we can afford that addresses the major priorities and a lot of the priorities that I think the governor’s office has,” Marklein said. “I’m very hopeful that the governor will sign the budget.”
Democrats on the Joint Finance Committee were less optimistic about the prospect for the budget to receive support from across the aisle, saying that it likely wouldn’t adequately address the issues at the top of mind for Wisconsinites, including public K-12 education, public universities and child care.
“We’re going to see a budget that prioritizes more tax breaks for the wealthiest among us at the expense of all of the rest of us and a budget from finance that will get no Democratic votes and that will likely be vetoed by the governor,” Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said.
Roys said they didn’t know about the specifics of what Evers had agreed to.
“We can’t really speculate on that, but I can say that we absolutely support the process and the idea of collaborative, shared government,” Roys said. “We are committed to that. We have been ready from Day One to sit down with our Republic colleagues to negotiate.”
She said for now JFC Democrats will focus on providing alternatives to Republicans’ plans.
“We’re going to do our best to advocate for what Wisconsinites have said they want to need,” Roys said. “We want a lower cost for families. We want to make sure that our kids are the first priority in the budget, and we’re going to be offering the Republicans the opportunity to vote in favor of those things.”
There is less than a month until the June 30 deadline for the Legislature to pass and Evers to sign the state budget. If the budget isn’t passed on time, then state agencies continue to operate under the current funding levels.
Committee approves bonding authority for clean water fund
While negotiations have hit a wall, some committee’s actions on Thursday received bipartisan support.
The committee unanimously approved an additional $732 million in bonding authority for the Environmental Improvement Fund (EIF). The program uses a combination of federal grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s clean water and drinking water state revolving funds and matching state funds to provide subsidized loans to municipalities for drinking water, wastewater and storm water infrastructure projects.
“This is going to be very good for a lot of our local communities when it comes to clean water,” Marklein said ahead of the meeting. He noted that many communities were on a waiting list for their projects.
Demand for aid from the program increased dramatically starting in 2023, with a 154% increase in the clean water fund loan demand in 2023-24 and a 325% increase in demand for the safe drinking water loan program that year. Insufficient funding for the clean water program led to constraints in 2024-25 and left needs unmet for at least 24 projects costing around $73.9 million.
Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) said she was thrilled that lawmakers were approving money for infrastructure in the state.
“The state has over $4 billion here,” Andraca said. “A lot of that is one-time money and one-time money should be used for infrastructure — making sure that our communities are in a great position moving forward should the economy turn down.”
The action is meant to cover the next four years of state contributions to the fund.
Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) said in a statement the loans will help Wisconsin communities address aging infrastructure and water contaminants.
“With these additional funds, municipalities will be able to access low-interest loans to modernize their water systems, saving local taxpayers millions of dollars and keeping their water clean for years to come at the same time,” Wimberger said.
Peter Burress, government affairs manager for environmental nonprofit Wisconsin Conservation Voters, said including the additional revenue bonding authority in the budget is a “smart, substantive way” to make progress towards ensuring Wisconsinites have “equitable access to safe, affordable drinking water.”
“We urge every legislator to support this same investment and send it to Gov. Evers for his signature,” Burress said.
Actions on other agencies get mixed or party-line support
Republicans on the committee approved an additional $500,000 for the Medical College of Wisconsin’s North Side Milwaukee Health Centers Family Medicine Residency Program, which focuses on training family physicians with expertise and skills to provide individualized, evidence-based, culturally competent care to patients and families.
The measure also included $250,000 annually starting in 2026-27 for the Northwest Wisconsin Residency Rotation for family medicine residents. According to budget papers, starting the funding in the second year of the budget would allow time to find a hospital partner to support residents.
Democrats voted against the measure after their proposal for higher funding was shot down by Republicans. The Democrats proposal also called for funding a Comprehensive Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment Fellowship Program focusing on treating substance use disorders and anAdvancing Innovation in Residency Education project to improve the behavioral health expertise of family medicine residents.
“I hope that my colleagues are reading national news because we’re seeing lots and lots of research funding being cut,” Andraca said. “The Medical College has lost about $5 million in research grants recently, and in addition to other research programs being canceled, I don’t know who has tried to make an appointment with the primary care physician, but there’s really long wait times right now, and this program is literally designed to bring doctors into the state.”
Democrats proposed transitioning the Educational Communications Board’s Emergency Weather Warning System from relying on fees for funding to being covered by state general purpose revenue.
Andraca, in explaining the proposal, said state funding for a system like that is more important now than ever.
“We’re talking weather alerts. We’re talking about making sure that people know when there’s something heading their way. We are in a time where we need these alerts more than ever. In fact, yesterday was an unhealthy air day, and… we’re looking at drastic federal cuts,” Andraca said.
Republicans rejected the measure and instead approved a 5% increase that will be used on general program operations, transmitter operations and emergency weather warning system operations. Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) joined Republicans in favor of the motion.
The committee also took action on several other agencies with support splitting along party lines
Republicans approved a modification to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s budget, lowering it by $3.8 million, due to projections that surcharge collections appropriated to WEDC will be lower than estimated. They also rejected Democrats’ proposal to provide an additional $5 million in the opportunity attraction and promotion fund, which makes grants to attract events that will draw national exposure and drive economic development.
WEC budget on pause after DOJ letter
The committee was scheduled to take action on the Wisconsin Elections Commission budget, but delayed that after the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to the state agency accusing it of violating the Help America Vote Act. The letter threatened to withhold funding and criticized the absence of an administrative complaint process or hearings to address complaints against the Commission itself. Ann Jacobs, the commission chair, has disputed the accusations and said there is no funding for the federal government to cut.
Marklein said the state lawmakers want more information before acting on the agency’s budget.
“Out of caution, we think we’re just going to wait and see,” Marklein said. “We need to analyze this and see what implications there may be for the entire Elections Commission and what impact that may have on the budget.”
Login
