Participation in Wisconsin apprenticeships is at a record high, according to a new report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
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The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ made a variety of changes to the federal student loan system. Two changes — the elimination of the Grad PLUS loan program and a lifetime loan cap of $200,000 — leaves medical students well short of the estimated cost of medical school in Wisconsin.
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Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil was met by a hostile audience attempting to shout him down Thursday evening during his first town hall gathering since the passage of President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill Act."
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The Upper Midwest was contending with the worst air quality in the country Thursday. And, for much of the day, Milwaukee had the worst air quality of any major U.S. city, according to a ranking from IQ Air.
The post Wisconsin air quality among nation’s worst as Canadian wildfire smoke spreads appeared first on WPR.
More than a dozen residents spoke out against the plans during a public hearing Monday, raising concerns about the impact of data centers on the environment.
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Madison resident and wildlife photographer Alan Ginsberg has been chronicling a sandhill crane family that's adopted a goose as one of its own to the delight of neighbors and a growing fan base.
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Spooner, Wisconsin is not only up north – it’s up near the top of John and Emmy’s “love it here” list! It could be Spooner’s fascinating railroad past, or the […]
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System president Layla Merrifield discusses tech schools’ reliance on federal funding and the value of the adult education programs they provide.
The post Federal funds released to Wisconsin Technical College System after initial freeze appeared first on WPR.
We celebrate the Holi Festival of Colors at the Monk Botanical Gardens in Wausau.
The post Wisconsin Life:Holi Festival of Colors in Wausau appeared first on WPR.
U.S. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, left, and the top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, at a committee markup on Thursday, July 31, 2025. (Photos from committee webcast)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations Thursday largely rejected Trump administration proposals to slash funding for education programs, medical research grants, health initiatives and Ukraine security assistance.
Instead, senators from both parties agreed to increase spending in the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending bill for fiscal year 2026, as well as the Defense bill, and rebuked the White House’s move to dismantle the Department of Education.
The pushback against President Donald Trump was significant as Congress heads toward a possible standoff and partial government shutdown when the fiscal year expires on Sept. 30.
In response to the Trump administration’s separate cancellation of grants and freezing of funds approved by Congress, senators also included language in the Labor-HHS-Education spending bill to create deadlines for formula grants to be released to states on time.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said the bill to fund the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education “prioritizes funding to make Americans healthier and supports life-saving medical research through targeted funding.”
The measure provides $116.6 billion for HHS, an increase of $446 million in discretionary funding over the previous fiscal year. Included is a $150 million increase for cancer research and a $100 million increase for Alzheimer’s disease research, as well as a ban on an administration cap on indirect costs at the National Institutes of Health, according to a summary from Democrats. The cap on how much NIH pays research universities and medical schools for indirect costs is the subject of a permanent injunction in an ongoing lawsuit.
Trump’s budget proposal also cut funding for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to $4.2 billion, but senators voted to instead allocate $9.1 billion for the agency.
Also included is $8.8 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant and nearly $12.4 billion for Head Start.
The top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, said that while the bill rejects many of the funding cuts from the Trump administration, it’s “only half of the equation.”
“We have an administration right now that is intent on ignoring Congress, breaking the law, and doing everything it can without any transparency, to dismantle programs and agencies that help families,” she said. “There is no magic bullet that will change that unfortunate reality.”
Murray also expressed her disappointment that the bill did not fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Trump sent what is known as a rescissions request to Congress, approved by both chambers, that yanked $1.1 billion in previously approved funding over the next two years for the agency, which funds NPR and PBS.
The Labor-HHS-Education spending bill for fiscal year 2026 passed out of the Senate committee with a bipartisan 26-3 vote.
Senators also passed the Defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2026 on a 26-3 vote.
The bill text tightens requirements so that Education Department staffing levels must be sufficient to carry out the agency’s missions, and its work cannot be outsourced to other agencies or departments to fulfill statutory responsibilities, according to Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the spending panel dealing with Labor-HHS-Education spending.
The agency saw a reduction in force, or RIF, earlier this year that gutted more than 1,300 employees and hit wide swaths of the department. The Supreme Court cleared the way earlier in July for the agency to temporarily proceed with those mass layoffs.
The bill also provides $5.78 billion for School Improvement Programs — which support before- and after-school programs, rural education, STEM education and college and career counseling, among other initiatives.
Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request had called for $12 billion in spending cuts at the Education Department but the committee allocated $79 billion in discretionary funding.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon defended Trump’s sweeping proposals while appearing in June before the Senate Labor-HHS-Education subcommittee.
During Thursday’s markup, Murray called the president’s proposal to defund the Department of Education “absurd.”
“I still hope we can do more when it comes to demanding accountability, transparency, and that this administration actually follows our laws,” Murray said. “We all know President Trump cannot dismantle the Department of Education or ship education programs to other agencies. Authorizing laws prevent that.”
The agency has witnessed a dizzying array of cuts and changes since Trump took office, as he and his administration look to dramatically overhaul the federal role in education and dismantle the department.
The bill maintains the same maximum annual award for the Pell Grant from the previous award year at $7,395. The government subsidy helps low-income students pay for college.
Trump’s budget request had called for cutting nearly $1,700 from the maximum award.
Baldwin said the overall bill is a “compromise.” She pointed to how Republicans and Democrats agreed to increase funds for the 988 Suicide hotline by $2 million and by another $20 million for substance abuse recovery.
The spending bill will also provide $1.6 billion for State Opioid Response grants, which is a formula-based grant for states to address the opioid crisis.
Senators rejected the Trump administration’s request to cut National Institutes of Health research by 40% and instead included a more than $400 million bump in funding for a total of $48.7 billion.
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff said that he was grateful that the committee worked on a bipartisan basis to reject major Trump cuts for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in his home state.
“I made (it) very clear that I would not accept the destruction of the CDC,” Ossoff said. “I am grateful that Republicans and Democrats on this committee are coming together to defend this vital institution based in the state of Georgia.”
Advocates for medical research praised the legislation.
“Chair Collins and Vice Chair Murray deserve special recognition for their leadership in making this a priority. Thousands of ACS CAN volunteers from across the country have been writing to their lawmakers on this issue and it’s deeply encouraging to see their voices have been heard loud and clear,” Lisa Lacasse, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said in a statement.
Trump’s budget request also proposed $4.6 billion in spending cuts at the Department of Labor.
The spending bill also maintains funding for Job Corps, a residential career training program for young adults, at $1.76 billion.
Trump’s budget request sought to eliminate the program entirely.
The administration says the program is “financially unsustainable, has an exorbitant perparticipant cost, risks the safety of young adults, and has often made participants worse off,” according to a summary of the budget request.
The spending bill also includes $15 billion for the Social Security Administration, an increase of $100 million from the president’s budget request, to address staffing shortages.
The administration also proposed the elimination of AmeriCorps.
However, senators kept funding for AmeriCorps for fiscal year 2026 at $1.25 billion.
The Defense appropriations spending bill for fiscal year 2026 that senators worked on represented an increase from the president’s budget request.
“I think not only the prior administration, but this administration as well, have underestimated the level of challenge that we have,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, chairman of the Defense appropriations panel.
The Kentucky Republican said the bill provides $851.9 billion for fiscal year 2026.
He said the topline is higher than the president’s budget request because “we cannot seriously address these challenges while artificially constraining our resources” — challenges such as the war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East.
The bill also rejects the Trump administration’s effort to slash funding to aid Ukraine in its war against Russia.
“Shutting off engagement with Ukraine would undermine our military’s efforts to prepare for the modern battlefield,” McConnell said.
During the markup of the defense spending bill, Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, introduced an amendment to require the Department of Homeland Security to reimburse costs to the Department of Defense for immigration enforcement.
As the Trump administration aims to carry out its plans for mass deportation of people without permanent legal status, it’s intertwined the U.S. military and immigration enforcement, ranging from deploying the National Guard to quell immigration protests in Los Angeles to housing immigrants on the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba military base.
Durbin said that so far, DHS has cost the Defense Department $900 million, from personnel costs to housing immigrants on military bases.
Durbin said the cost to house 180 people on Guantanamo Bay cost the Department of Defense $40 million over three months.
His amendment failed on a 14-15 vote.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, pictured July 31, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Judges on the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit questioned the legality of President Donald Trump’s sweeping emergency tariffs Thursday as the White House pushes on with its Aug. 1 deadline for import taxes at levels not seen since the 1930s.
The case originated from consolidated lawsuits brought by a handful of business owners and a dozen Democratic state attorneys general who argued the president does not have the authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.
Through nearly two hours of questioning Thursday, the 11-judge panel probed whether the president could use IEEPA authority to set tariffs without approval from Congress.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Brett Shumate argued the law is “one of the most powerful tools” to protect the economy and national security during emergencies.
Oregon Solicitor General Benjamin Gutman, who argued on behalf of the Democratic states challenging the tariffs, maintained Trump’s reason behind declaring the unilateral emergency tariffs — U.S. trade deficits with other nations — did not actually merit a national emergency.
Trump became the first president to trigger tariffs under the 1977 law when in February and March he ordered punitive import taxes on products from Canada, Mexico and China after declaring illegal fentanyl smuggling from those countries a national emergency.
The president took his tariffs worldwide in an April executive order that declared trade deficits an emergency and slapped what he described as “reciprocal” import taxes on nearly all foreign goods.
In late May, the U.S. Court of International Trade sided with Democratic attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon, as well as the business owners from across the country, including in New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.
Judges on the panel grilled Shumate about how IEEPA grants the authority to impose tariffs.
“A major concern that I have is IEEPA doesn’t even mention the word tariffs,” said Judge Jimmie V. Reyna, adding that Congress “certainly was aware about tariffs” when it wrote the law.
Existing laws already create “a highly structured … framework” for tariffs, said Reyna, who was appointed to the bench in 2011 by President Barack Obama. “You would agree with me that those statutes do pertain to tariffs?”
“Correct,” replied Shumate, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Division.
Pressed again by Reyna on “tariff” not appearing in the statute, Shumate said “I don’t think that’s unusual.”
“There are at least two examples of statutes that authorize tariffs that don’t use the word ‘tariff’ — Sections 232c and 122, which authorize the president to restrict imports,” Shumate said.
Judge Leonard P. Stark, who was appointed in 2022 by President Joe Biden, jumped in with skepticism.
“Both of those are part of the code that deals expressly with customs and duties, unlike IEEPA, which is not in that chapter,” Stark said.
The panel also quizzed legal counsel for the businesses and states, including on the weight and content of Trump’s emergency declaration that launched his April 2 “Liberation Day” tariffs.
The states ignored arguments in Trump’s executive order that an emergency existed because of a hollow manufacturing base, a threat to national security, supply-chain disruptions and other issues, Judge Richard G. Taranto said to Gutman, of Oregon.
“Your arguments in your brief to us are devoted to the more narrow question of trade deficits alone as not amounting to unusual and extraordinary threat,” Taranto, who was appointed by Obama in 2013, said.
Gutman replied that all other matters the order cites are related to trade deficits.
“You can look at the executive order itself, the justification, the unusual and extraordinary threat that it is identifying, is what it calls persistent trade deficits,” he said. “Everything else that’s discussed there is either mentioned as a cause or an effect.”
Stark followed up with, “Is that the only fair reading of the executive orders, though? Can it be read as there are some recent consequences, some recent effects of the long and persistent trade deficit that now are unusual and extraordinary?”
Gutman said those effects are mentioned “in about a sentence in the executive order.”
Chief Judge Kimberly A. Moore fact-checked that answer.
The executive order “goes on for paragraph after paragraph,” Moore said, mentioning production capacity, military equipment, national security concerns and other threats to the U.S. economy, she said.
“How could you stand here and say to me that the president said it’s all about the deficit, and it’s one throwaway sentence at most in this whole order about the rest of these things constituting a threat?” Moore, who was appointed by George W. Bush, asked.
After back and forth, Gutman said, “I will walk back that it was a single sentence. But I think if you read this, the fairest reading of this executive order is that it is about the large and persistent trade deficits.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said after oral arguments the U.S. Department of Justice had a “monster flop” during the arguments when at one point Shumate told Moore that the court did not have authority to review the tariffs.
“I think for those in the audience today, they are concerned when the federal government comes in and says that (judges) have absolutely no role to review what the president does under IEEPA. You actually heard laughter in the room,” Rayfield said.
During the White House daily briefing following the arguments, press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended tariffs as a success, citing that the duties have raised $150 billion in revenue since Trump took office.
“Those revenues will skyrocket even further, starting tomorrow, when new reciprocal tariff rates take effect,” Leavitt said.
Tariffs are paid to the U.S. government by American businesses and individuals who purchase foreign goods.
The case against Trump’s sweeping emergency tariffs has attracted support from various points on the political spectrum.
Democratic members of Congress filed an amicus brief on behalf of the state attorneys general and small businesses arguing the president’s import taxes under IEEPA usurped Congress’ tariff powers and violated the Constitution.
Congress has “explicitly and specifically” delegated tariff-raising powers to the president, but not under IEEPA, according to the lawmakers.
“Unmoored from the structural safeguards Congress built into actual tariff statutes, the President’s unlawful ‘emergency’ tariffs under IEEPA have led to chaos and uncertainty,” the lawmakers wrote.
The libertarian CATO Institute also filed an amicus brief raising several issues with Trump’s emergency tariffs, including that IEEPA contains “no textual support for tariff authority” and that it violates tariff power granted to Congress in the Constitution.
Brent Skorup, legal fellow at the CATO Institute, said it’s hard to predict the outcome of the case and whether a longstanding judicial branch deference to the executive branch will “win out” over a recent trend of skepticism of the president’s plans.
“In some ways I think this case has many analogies to President Biden’s attempt to forgive student loans,” he said in an interview with States Newsroom. “I mean, almost an identical issue — a vague statute, a president using it in a way that had never been used before for an economically major event.”
Economists are cautioning that the costs of the tariffs will fall on the shoulders of U.S. consumers.
The Yale Budget Lab’s most recent estimate shows the overall average effective tariff rate is 18.4%, the highest since 1933. The analysis, released Wednesday, included Trump’s latest trade announcement that he will impose a 25% duty on goods from India.
The overall price level and distributional effects of the tariffs are projected to cost American households roughly $2,400 in 2025 dollars, Budget Lab projected.
The analysis shows tariffs are expected to disproportionately affect clothing and textiles, with the prices of shoes increasing by 40% in the short run.
The Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank that advocates for lower taxes, found that Trump’s Aug. 1 tariff regime will affect nearly 75% of imported foods, with products from the European Union seeing the worst of it.
The five food imports that would be most affected, barring any deal changes, include liqueurs and spirits, baked goods, coffee, fish and beer, according to the foundation’s July 28 review.
Economists and some lawmakers also warn that Trump’s constantly evolving tariff policy is perpetuating an air of uncertainty for businesses.
Sameera Fazili, the deputy director of the National Economic Council during the Biden administration, said the rapid changes are “undermining our economy.”
“You can see it in CEO surveys, where the Conference Board CEO Sentiment Survey for Q2 reported that a quarter of CEOs now plan to cut back on capital investments,” Fazili, now a senior fellow at the liberal think tank the Roosevelt Institute, said Tuesday during a press call organized by the Economic Speakers Bureau.
The same can be said for mid-sized and small businesses, said Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
“When I go home, I’ve yet to come across a businessman or -woman who says, ‘Oh, I love the tariffs.’ It’s the opposite,” Paul said at an event Wednesday at the CATO Institute.
Of the court case, Paul said he thinks the administration is “going to lose.”
“I think there’s a constitutional reason against it,” he said. “And I think there’s, in addition, a statutory reason they may fail.”
Frederick Prehn, seen during a 2021 meeting of the Natural Resources Board. (Screenshot/Wisconsin DNR)
The Wisconsin District I Court of Appeals ruled against former state Natural Resources Board Chair Frederick Prehn this week in a case over a public records request filed while Prehn was refusing to vacate his seat on the board.
Prehn, a Wausau dentist, was appointed to the NRB by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker to a term that was supposed to expire in May 2021. Despite his term’s expiration, Prehn announced he would refuse to step down, preventing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers from appointing his replacement and flipping ideological control of the board, which sets policy for the Department of Natural Resources.
Emails obtained through public records requests showed that Prehn was working with legislative Republicans to remain in his seat and maintain influence over state policies on controversial issues such as wolf hunting and water quality standards.
Prehn ultimately remained on the board for 20 months past the expiration of his term.
While he was refusing to leave, Midwest Environmental Advocates filed a public records request seeking all communications Prehn made about his refusal to leave — including emails and text messages made on public and personal devices or accounts. Through the DNR, Prehn turned over emails relevant to request but not text messages. A second records request by MEA to another Republican member of the board showed that Prehn had been texting about his decision.
MEA sued in Dane County Circuit Court to have those text messages released. The circuit court found that Prehn had improperly withheld the text messages and a schedule was set for him to turn over those records.
MEA filed a motion requesting that Prehn pay damages and attorney’s fees. The circuit court denied that motion under a 2022 state Supreme Court decision which found if a government agency voluntarily turns over records while a lawsuit for those records is pending, the government does not have to pay attorney’s fees to the requesting party.
That decision, Friends of Frame Park v. Waukesha, has drawn criticism from legislators from both parties and a bill to negate the decision has been working its way through the Legislature.
On Tuesday, the appeals court ruled that Prehn’s text messages count as public records and therefore should have been turned over under the state’s open records law. The court majority rejected Prehn’s contention that the texts were about his “purely personal” decision to remain in office. The court also overturned the circuit court decision not to award MEA attorney’s fees.
“This decision is a win for the people of Wisconsin. It strengthens our democracy by ensuring that government officials conduct their business with openness and transparency,” MEA attorney Adam Voskuil said. “Had Prehn’s arguments been accepted, the public records law and our state’s commitment to open government would have been significantly weakened.”
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The stormwater pond at the Emerald Sky Dairy in St. Croix County that was polluted after a 2016 manure spill. A new survey finds that waste produced in the St. Croix River watershed is as much as if more than 3 million people lived there. (Wisconsin DNR photo)
The waste produced by livestock in the St. Croix River watershed is equivalent to 3.25 million more people living in the region, according to a study conducted by a retired University of Iowa professor on behalf of local clean water activists.
The study, conducted by Dr. Chris Jones, who studied water quality and agriculture at Iowa, totals the number of beef cattle, dairy cows, hogs, chickens and turkeys across the river’s watershed in Minnesota and Wisconsin, calculates the amount of waste those animals excrete in terms of nitrogen, phosphorus and solids. It also projects how many humans it would take to produce that much waste.
“Some of these nutrients from the manure get into our streams, we know that,” says Jones, who has authored a book about the effect of factory hog farming on the water in his home state. “And so, since the waste is not treated, and since the distribution of it on the fields is not very regulated … this volume of waste certainly makes the river and its tributaries more vulnerable to nutrient groups.”
In recent years, western Wisconsin has become the site of the state’s most intense fights over factory farming. Most of the state’s largest farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), have been in the eastern part of the state. But large agricultural companies have been working to expand factory farming operations across western Wisconsin’s Driftless Region and the St. Croix watershed.
That effort to expand has sparked a growth in local opposition. A number of communities have worked to pass local ordinances regulating how and when a factory farm can be built or expanded within their borders. Industry groups have filed lawsuits to block those efforts.
Community members have also worked to stop or change permitting decisions by the state Department of Natural Resources for the expansion of factory farms.
“I think it’s very important for citizens to realize that the counties and other local governments retain some power in being able to zone their land for the construction of these CAFOs because, as I said in Iowa, when the counties lost control, that’s when the big expansion occurred,” Jones says.
Despite local opposition, CAFOs have continued to grow, causing increased amounts of nutrients in the local water systems. Runoff and manure spills have caused massive fish kills in local streams, beaches have regularly been closed due to excessively high levels of pollutants and the groundwater — the sources of drinking water for most rural residents — has been found to contain high levels of nitrates.
The St. Croix River has been part of the National Park System as a Wild and Scenic River since 1968 and listed as an “impaired water” by the Environmental Protection Agency since 2012.
According to Jones’ study, most of the livestock within the watershed is raised on the Wisconsin side of the border. The waste created by just the livestock in Barron County is equivalent to 1.7 million extra people. The livestock waste in St. Croix County is equivalent to 911,000 more people.
The population of Barron County is about 46,000 and of St. Croix County is about 96,000, according to U.S. Census data.
Jones says it’s within the capabilities of the regulating agencies and university systems in both Minnesota and Wisconsin to calculate the exact number of livestock the watershed is capable of enduring. He says they should do that, because the industry won’t.
“This is an approach the state should think about in regulating these areas on a watershed by watershed basis, based on what we assume they can endure,” he says. “And that ought to be done for the Saint Croix to protect it.”
He doesn’t expect the St. Croix River’s designation as a national waterway by itself to influence the agriculture industry to change its practices.
“We have evidence here in Iowa, but any special status that the streams have is not going to affect decision making on the ag side, it’s just not,” Jones says. “So the state’s got to try to get in front of this and get their arms around it, because once the horse leaves a barn, it’s too late.”
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Anne Chapman (with the microphone), research director for the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials Association, called the lack of funding “unprecedented" during a panel discussion. From left, WPEN Executive Director Heather DuBois Bourenane moderated the panel with Chapman, Julie Underwood, and Chris Thiel. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
GREEN BAY — After putting in a significant amount of time advocating for school funding during the most recent state budget cycle, public education advocates are looking towards their next effort — helping local communities show how much private school vouchers cost taxpayers.
Advocates met at Preble High School, the state’s fourth largest high school, for the Wisconsin Public Education Network’s annual summit last week, an opportunity to connect and discuss the state of school funding and an array of other issues schools face. Denise Gaumer Hutchison, northeast regional organizer for the network and mother of two Green Bay students, told the Wisconsin Examiner that the importance of advocacy and working together is “at an all time high.”
“It’s not just one type of people that are understanding that we have to have high quality public schools and we have to advocate for it now,” said Hutchison, a member of a variety of advocacy groups including Citizen Action and the League of Women Voters. “The Wisconsin State Legislature showed us that they are not advocates for public schools.”
Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly told attendees in a video message she was grateful for the partnership with WPEN and advocates during the budget cycle that concluded in early July, when Gov. Tony Evers signed the 2025-27 state budget.
“You are without question the strongest and most consistent advocates for public schools in our state. You are the link between policy and practice. You lift up what’s working and you fight for what’s needed,” Underly said. “Your voices have been loud, clear and grounded in what matters most kids, and you’ve reminded Wisconsin that public education isn’t just a line item. It’s a promise.”
The budget set state aid for districts for the next two years. To the disappointment of many, however, it included no general aid increases. Increases to the special education reimbursement rate didn’t reach the goal advocates had set.
“This is the gas you put in the tank,” Milwaukee Public Schools Legislative Policy Manager Chris Thiel said about the lack of general state aid during a panel discussion. “You can’t say the funding system is broken, if you didn’t fund it.”
Anne Chapman, research director for the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials, called the lack of funding “unprecedented.” School districts have a $325 per pupil revenue limit increase, but without state funding, school districts will have to raise property taxes to benefit from it.
Chapman noted that the state did significantly increase the special education reimbursement rate, but said the actual reimbursement would likely fall below the estimated rate of 42% in the first year and 45% in the second year.
“When you hear the governor and others say that this budget provides $1.4 billion in spendable resources for schools, that is not state money,” Chapman said. “About $577 million of that is state money. The rest is mostly going to be borne by property taxpayers.”
Thiel noted that a recent Wisconsin Policy Forum report found that the state’s national ranking for school funding has fallen from 11th place in 2002 to 26th place now.
“Were it not for local communities lifting their school districts up against these cuts from the state, we conceivably will be worse than 26th,” Thiel said, noting that increased local property taxes made the difference. “We didn’t get into this to do referenda every year, and we’ve got a really concerning situation.”
Green Bay Area Public School Board Vice President James Lyerly said at the conference that without general aid and without a 60% special education reimbursement rate from the state budget, the district will have to go to referendum again. The district currently gets funding through a 10-year operating referendum that voters approved in 2017.
“It ensures that the district will once again need to seek voter support for a referendum to replace our current $16.5 million dollar per year non-recurring operational referendum that ends in 2027,” Lyerly said. The district’s current operational and recent building referendums, including one in November 2024, have ensured “our students are able to attend schools that meet their instructional needs and provide for safe learning spaces,” he said.
“The continued underfunding of public education at the same time that there is an increased funding and expansion of unaccountable choice schools, not only creates these budget challenges, but it widens the opportunity gaps for students who rely on the comprehensive support systems that public schools provide,” Lyerly said.
The new state budget did include increases in per-pupil funding for voucher schools in Wisconsin, along with a $325 annual per-pupil revenue limit adjustment to keep parity with public schools.
Advocates are turning to transparency on the cost of the voucher schools programs as the next item on their agenda.
Green Bay recently became the first municipality in the state to add the cost of private voucher schools as a line on residents’ property tax bills.
Private school vouchers are paid out of school districts’ general state aid, and school districts have the option of raising property taxes to make up for the lost revenue. Property tax bills currently include information on the money going towards the town, the county, the technical college and local public school districts, but costs for private voucher schools are lumped in with public school costs.
A handful of Wisconsin municipalities have added inserts about voucher costs to their tax bills, but Hutchison said having it on the tax bill will be more effective at informing people, who often throw inserts away.
“[People] were totally appalled that they didn’t know that their taxes were going to support private schools and it wasn’t so much that they objected to supporting private schools, it was the lack of transparency and the knowledge they didn’t have the knowledge of where their tax dollars were going,” Hutchison said.
The proposal to add a printed line on private voucher costs was introduced by Ald. Alyssa Proffitt. The city council voted 6-6 in April, with Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich breaking the tie to approve it. The council worked with the school district administrative staff, the school board, Brown County, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue and the City Legal department to determine the legality and feasibility of adding another line to the printed city tax bill.
Genrich said at the conference that Green Bay residents will have a better understanding of how much they are paying for private schools, and he hopes the practice spreads.
“We really believe that we’ve created a template that other communities across the state of Wisconsin can use and adopt,” Genrich said at the conference. “I’ve been a supporter of this at the state level for some time. That is what we’re hoping to build towards, so we create some momentum within municipalities across the state of Wisconsin and actually get it done at the state level hopefully here in the near future.”
Genrich, a former state representative, supported a similar policy in the Wisconsin Assembly, but a bill authored by former Democratic Rep. Dana Wachs never received a public hearing. Similar bills have faced the same fate in recent years under the Republican-led Legislature.
WPEN is planning to launch an effort in the fall to help communities interested in going through a similar process.
“If the Legislature won’t support transparency on tax bills for communities, then the communities are going to support transparency on their tax bills, and it’s going to go municipality by municipality by municipality,” Hutchison, the network’s Northeast regional organizer, said in an interview. “We’re not going to wait any longer, because this has been needed for a very long time, and we have some momentum now.”
Transparency on voucher costs is essential, she said, especially as public school districts continue to rely on property taxes for funding and must seek increases by referendum.
“We have a constitutional responsibility to fund our public schools, and people think in their communities that they’re doing that,” Hutchison said. “They’ve been misled, because the private school dollars are hidden inside of the tax bill, and all we’re asking for is to be transparent so that people can make informed decisions.”
She said it can be difficult to ask taxpayers to vote to increase taxes if they don’t understand their tax bills.
“If you’re going to somebody’s door saying, ‘Hey, the Green Bay Area public school district or XYZ school district is going to referenda to help pay their bills because there’s no new money from the state of Wisconsin… and they say, ‘Look at my tax bill. Look how much money I’m paying in taxes to support schools.’ That’s not really the whole story,” Hutchison said.
“It’s a challenging conversation to have at somebody’s door. If I now can go to somebody’s door and say, ‘Did you see your latest tax bill? Did you see what percentage is being taken out and what dollar amount is being taken out of that amount to go to private schools?’ you may get somebody to say yes to increase their taxes because now they have a clearer picture of what’s really happening.”
Hutchison said WPEN has a tool kit with resources on the issue. Changing the tax bill information has to start with a resolution from the school board asking the city or the township to support the effort, she said, and it then has to get approval from the city or local government.
“We’re doing it district by district, community by community, and we’re having conversations with people that have come to us to see what we’ve done in other communities,” Hutchison said. “So we’re going to support them in how they approach this.”
Hutchison said she has been having early conversations with some communities, including having three communities reach out following the summit. One superintendent, Amy Starzecki of Superior Public Schools, thanked the Green Bay community for its work around voucher transparency at the conference, saying Superior would be looking into the issue.
The effort to publicize private voucher costs comes as caps on Wisconsin’s school voucher programs are set to lift in the 2026-27 school year. Since 2017, the cap, which limits the percentage of students in a district who can participate, has been increasing by 1% until it hit 9% this year.
“Next year, there will be no limit. Those caps come off,” said Julie Mead, a professor emerita in UW-Madison’s department of educational leadership and policy analysis, during a session titled “It’s just not fair: Unpacking Fairness from Special Education to Funding-by-Referendum to Privatization.”
Eliminating the caps could make it hard for districts to plan, Mead said.
“The ability of Green Bay superintendent to predict what’s going to happen next year in terms of the money coming in and going on and what their membership will be is going to be really, really difficult,” she said, “and it means our school districts are frankly going to be in a world of hurt.”
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