During its final planned floor session this week, the Wisconsin State Assembly passed a constitutional amendment proposal that would limit the executive partial veto power and a bill to eliminate the school revenue limit increases that are the result of Gov. Tony Evers’ 400-year veto. 

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said it was the “wrong decision” for lawmakers to finish their work in February and “take quite a long vacation.” 

“There is a lot left on the table for us to address but we all know that an arbitrary deadline has been set for us to go home,” Neubauer said. “Thankfully, it does seem like the tide is turning in this body and one day things will be different and operate under a different framework that is focused on people rather than politics and power.” 

Neubauer mentioned the passage of the postpartum Medicaid extension bill and the breast cancer screening bills that are now on their way to Gov. Tony Evers. 

The session wrap-up will free Assembly lawmakers up to campaign for reelection, and the body could look much different next session as some longtime lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), are retiring. Under newly competitive maps, the balance of power in both the Assembly and Senate is up for grabs.

“We have a lot left to accomplish this session. There is still time for us to act on funding our public schools, protecting our rights and freedoms, lowering costs and helping Wisconsinites make ends meet,” Neubauer said. “This is the moment to act boldly and do the right thing for the people of Wisconsin.” 

Vos told WISN-12 on Friday that leaders and Gov. Tony Evers had not yet reached a deal on how to use the state’s projected $2.5 budget surplus. The leaders have been negotiating on ways to ease property taxes and provide funding to schools.

“We’re going to figure a way to get it done,” Vos said, adding that he wants the money to “go back to the people” while Evers wants additional investments. “The middle ground is a little of each.”

“We’ll probably have to come back in a special session or extraordinary session, something like that,” he said. 

Lawmakers passed proposals that were introduced in reaction to the veto as well as bills to ban phones in school, regulate app and social media companies and to provide state money towards “Trump accounts.” 

Fight over partial veto

The Assembly passed two proposals that took aim at the partial veto Evers used when he signed the 2023 state budget that extended an annual $325 per-pupil school revenue limit increase for 400 years. Evers, who recently defended the veto in his State of the State address, said he wanted to provide school districts with a consistent way to raise revenue in the absence of reliable state funding increases. 

The Assembly also approved in a 54-41 vote along party lines a third constitutional amendment to go before voters later this year. 

The amendments will go before Wisconsin voters in November. Two others, including one to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs from state and local governments and one to prohibit the state from ordering the closure of places of worship during a state of emergency, passed the state Legislature earlier this year. 

Constitutional amendment proposals have to pass the state Legislature in two consecutive legislative sessions before they go to voters. If approved, SJR 116 would prohibit partial vetoes from raising or creating any taxes or fees. 

Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) introduced the amendment proposal  after Evers’ veto. 

“You never know for sure who’s going to be the next governor,” Nedweski said on the Assembly floor Thursday. “Choose wisely on this.” 

The Assembly also concurred in a bill that would outright eliminate the annual $325 per pupil revenue limit increases that are the result of the partial veto. The vote on SB 389 was 54-40 and it sends the bill to Evers, who is likely to veto it. 

Despite its likely rejection, Republican lawmakers still made the case for why Evers should sign the bill into law.

Rep. Karen Hurd (R-Withee) read a letter from superintendents on the professional advisory committee for the Cooperative Educational Service Agency 10, which serves parts of northwestern Wisconsin, urging Evers to reverse his veto. They argued in part that  $325 per pupil is not an increase that allows schools to keep pace with the rate of inflation, doesn’t fix chronic underfunding of special education funding and puts it all on property taxpayers.

The superintendents said that they thought the veto could impede reform of school funding in Wisconsin. 

The veto doesn’t stop lawmakers from being able to put more state funding into schools, but Republican lawmakers have refused to do so. During the state budget process, Republican lawmakers angered by the veto opted not to provide any increase in general school aid in the 2025-26 or 2026-27 fiscal years. School advocates said the decision would only further exacerbate the funding issues they face, especially since their decision on whether to use the additional $325 increase would rely only on property tax increases. 

“Every year we put together a budget, a budget that has to be sustainable. There may be a year that we could put more aid into schools than $325 per student. We have to look at that each year,” Hurd said. “We are people that are trying to fund the schools in every way that we can, but when it is set at $325 per year for the next 400 years, then that opportunity for us to work within the budget and increase it has been ripped away.”

Democrats said that before taking away authority from schools, lawmakers should consider improving the state’s system for funding schools. Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) said that the annual school revenue limit increase is the “only predictable source of revenue” for  Wisconsin public schools.

“We should not close public schools,” he said, alluding to Republican lawmakers who have proposed consolidating school districts as a way of helping with funding challenges. “We should fund them.”

Rep. Angelina Cruz (D-Racine) said the GOP bill does not answer the question of how to fund schools and provide relief to property taxpayers

“The answer is to reconnect school funding to inflation. The answer is to increase state aid so local property taxes are not the backstop. The answer is to modernize the formula to reflect demographic realities. The answer is to fulfill our constitutional obligation to fully fund public schools,” Cruz said. 

AB 460 would allow siblings of students in the state’s school voucher program to qualify for participation even if their family no longer meets the family income requirements. It passed on a voice vote. It now goes to the state Senate.

“I’m not going to do anything that further exacerbates the zeroing out of the state’s resources on public schools or expands privatization on the Wisconsin taxpayers dime, particularly Wisconsin property taxpayers dime,” Phelps said. “Unfortunately, this bill proposes removing income caps  on the students that Wisconsin property taxpayers would be funding to attend private schools.”

Cell phone ban, online regulations

AB 948 would require school districts to adopt policies that prohibit the use of cell phones for the entire school days, taking a step further than the recent law signed by Evers that bans phones during class. It passed via voice vote and will now go to the Senate.

Rep. Alex Joers (D-Waunakee) said he would support the bill but thought it was the “easy way out,” saying he wasn’t sure with advancing technologies in the future that to “blanketly ban things” would be an effective solution.

Rep. Alex Penterman (R-Hustisford), who has worked as a substitute teacher, said students in middle and high school can become a “social piranha” if they don’t have the latest smartphone. 

Rep. Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls) said the bill would encourage students to engage with each other and bring back “loud lunches” where “kids aren’t on the phones but instead negotiations are happening between peanut butter and jelly and grilled cheese and not Snapchat. We need to go back to kids making their after school plans while they’re eating their lunches instead of bullying each other online.”

Goeben said her bills would support the “God-given constitutional right of parents to protect and guide their children, not tech platforms.” 

The Assembly also passed a set of bills meant to put regulations on apps and social media companies that are intended to give parents more oversight over their children’s activity.

Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) said the bills were aimed at protecting children in “digital world that was not built with their safety in mind.”

“We’re living in an age of online predatory behavior, instant access and algorithm driven exposure. Children are encountering explicit material at younger and younger ages and many parents feel that they are fighting a losing battle.” 

“We cannot pretend that warning labels will solve every problem but we can insist on honesty and accountability from those who profit from this content.” 

AB 961 passed 61-34. It would would require digital distributors of media to display prominent “explicit content” warning labels on material that “predominantly appeals to the prurient, shameful, or morbid interest of children,” “is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable for children” and “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, scientific or educational value for children.” 

The bill calls for the warning label to be displayed on the front page of digital platforms, the label would need to appear for at least 10 seconds or until a user acknowledges the warning.

AB 962 passed 58-37. It would require app developers and app stores to verify the age of users and get parental consent before children are able to download or purchase apps or make in-store purchases. Accounts belonging to a minor would have to be affiliated with an account owned by a parent.

AB 963 passed 60-35. It would require social media platforms that bring in more than $1 billion in revenue per year to take several steps, including estimating the age of users and for minors,  setting their privacy to the most private settings, turning off addictive features and prohibiting profile-based, paid commercial advertising in their feeds. 

Trump accounts

The Assembly also approved bills to provide state funds to the “Trump accounts” program. 

The federal tax and spending bill signed into law by President Donald Trump last year included a measure to allow parents to create dedicated “Trump accounts” similar to IRA accounts, for their children. Parents of babies born between Jan. 1, 2025 through the end of 2028 and who are U.S. citizens with a valid Social Security number will be eligible to have $1,000 deposited in the account from the federal government. 

AB 996 would provide a state match for the accounts. AB 997 includes the $60 million in annual funding for the 2025-27 budget cycle for proposal. Both passed 62-35 with eight Democrats joining Republicans in favor.

“People are not saving at the right pace for retirement,” said the author of both bills, Rep. Elijah Behnke (R- Town of Chase). “The reason this is the best possible policy is because you’re investing in your kids’ future.” 

Joers said the money should be invested in other priorities that could help children and parents more and expressed concerns about the federal program not being up and running yet.

“I think that we need to do a lot better for our kids and our parents,” Joers said. “This bill takes money that we should be giving to our children and our parents right now and instead takes it and gives it to a federal program that has not even been set up yet. I know the president wandered around stage with Nicki Minaj, but this program has not started yet.” 

“Kids need this money now, not 18 years from now. They need it now in their schools they need this money. Let’s keep the promise that we made in our budget to fund special education reimbursement.”

“Immoral conduct” investigations

The Assembly also approved two additional bills that were introduced after an investigation by the CapTimes that found there were over 200 investigations into teacher licenses due to allegations of sexual misconduct or grooming from 2018 to 2023. 

The bills seek to provide new rules on how “immoral conduct” investigations are conducted.

AB 1003, which passed on a voice vote, would prohibit the Department of Public Instruction from ending an investigation into a license holder accused of immoral conduct without a determination on whether there should be a license revocation or termination. The prohibition wouldn’t apply if a licensee permanently surrenders the licenses and waives their rights to a future appeal. 

AB 1004, which passed 87-8, prohibits public and private schools from entering agreements that would suppress information on the immoral conduct of an employee, would affect the report of immoral conduct by an employer or employees or require an education employer to expunge information about allegations of findings or immoral conduct. 

Other bills on the issue that have passed the Assembly or Senate include one to create a “grooming” crime in Wisconsin, one to ensure school districts have policies on appropriate communications and one to require DPI to maintain an online licensing portal that is searchable by the public at no cost. 

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Before Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) announced his retirement Thursday, it was obvious something had changed. The longest serving speaker in Wisconsin history, known for keeping Assembly Republicans on a tight leash, slipped out of a caucus meeting late Wednesday night. Capitol reporter Baylor Spears tracked him down at a fundraiser at the Madison Club, where, she reported, Vos told her his caucus was meeting without him. Later that evening, Assembly Republicans announced that Vos had suddenly dropped his yearslong opposition to letting Wisconsin expand postpartum Medicaid coverage for new mothers for one year. Vos’ last-minute change of heart allowed eight Republicans facing competitive reelection races to hold a late-night press conference proclaiming the news that they planned to pass postpartum coverage, along with another measure extending life-saving breast-cancer screenings that Vos was suddenly permitting to come up for a vote. Vos himself didn’t bother to attend. 

With both Vos and Gov. Tony Evers retiring, the two most powerful politicians in the state — and the often dysfunctional dynamic between them — are going away. It’s the end of an era characterized by toxic partisanship, although probably not the last we’ll see of divided government in our 50/50 state. 

Still, as Vos relaxes his grip, Wisconsin Republicans are starting to wrap their heads around the new reality that they no longer hold complete control over what was once, effectively, a one-party state. 

New, fairer voting maps have already eroded gerrymandered GOP supermajorities in the Legislature that previously endured even when Democrats won every statewide race. In the upcoming November elections, the new maps will, for the first time, take full effect.

The creation of more competitive districts has not immediately ushered in an atmosphere of productive bipartisanship in the Capitol. But it did cause enough of a thaw that Wisconsin could finally join the other 48 states that have already expanded postpartum Medicaid. Republicans running in newly competitive districts can campaign on this bit of belated progress. Two cheers for Wisconsin! We’re 49th!

At the Vos-less press conference Wednesday night, Republicans gave emotional testimony about “the women who need this protection.” They thanked the speaker for finally listening to their pleas. Then, instead of reaching across the aisle, they delivered a scorching rebuke to Democrats who had been pushing for months for a vote on both of the women’s health bills they were celebrating. When the bills were not scheduled, Democrats vowed to bring them up as amendments to other bills, holding up action on the floor and threatening to put their GOP colleagues in the embarrassing position of having to vote down their efforts.

“I’m very angry at what happened today — very angry,” Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston) said. “I talked to my Democratic colleagues and told them that I was close, that it was going to get done, but then they throw this crap at us today. It almost blew it up.”

By speaking up, Democrats nearly ruined Republicans’ efforts to gain support within their own caucus, according to Snyder. That analysis caused Democratic Minority Leader Greta Neubauer to roll her eyes. “It seems that the bills are going to the floor after years of Rep. Pat Snyder telling us that these bills were going to be passed and them not being passed, so it does seem like our actions made a difference today,” Neubauer said. 

Partisan habits die hard. For much of the most recent legislative session, Republicans formed a Sorehead Caucus whose sole aims were rehashing grievances about their loss of power and trying in vain to recreate the dominance they enjoyed when they controlled every branch of government. 

Back in 2018, when Evers won the first time, breaking the GOP stranglehold by beating former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, Republicans held a lame duck session to claw back the incoming governor’s powers. Eight years later, as Evers is about to leave office at the end of his second term, they’re still at it. Motivated by spite over Evers’ line-item veto extending their modest, two-year increase in school revenue limits for the next 400 years, they have insisted on starving school districts of state funds, punishing not only Wisconsin schoolchildren but also the property taxpayers who, in the absence of state funding, are forced to pick up the tab. 

In a similarly spiteful vein, Republicans just killed off the popular, bipartisan Knowles Nelson stewardship program, setting up the 36-year-old land conservation effort to die this summer. Over and over in hearings on whether to renew the program or drastically cut it back, Republicans cited a state Supreme Court decision that held they cannot anonymously veto individual conservation projects. GOP legislators said the decision — written by the most conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court — left them no option but to gut the program just to show who’s boss. 

As Henry Redman reports, a handful of conservation-minded Republicans could have joined forces with Democrats to save the program, but Republican bill authors insisted on negotiating only within their own caucus, ignoring Democratic efforts to make a deal and instead trying to please the program’s far-right enemies by making deeper and deeper cuts before finally giving up and letting the program lapse.

This style of governing — a hangover from the Walker era — might satisfy certain politicians’ hunger for power, but it’s ill-suited to getting anything productive done for the people who live in the state.

Let’s hope Vos’ departure marks the end of the petty partisanship that has blocked progress in Wisconsin for far too long.

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State Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) argues in opposition to a bill that would repeal a 2023 partial veto by Gov. Tony Evers that extended an annual $325 per-pupil increase in public school revenue limits by 400 years. (Screenshot/WisEye)

The Legislature’s powerful budget committee voted on party lines Tuesday to endorse a bill repealing Gov. Tony Evers’ 2023 partial veto that enables Wisconsin public school districts to raise their revenue limits by $325 per pupil per  year for the next four centuries.

The measure was the only legislation to get any significant debate during the two-hour session of the Joint Finance Committee, even as its outcome was a foregone conclusion: an 11-4 vote with only Republican support.

The state Senate version of the bill, SB 389, has already passed that chamber on a party-line 18-15 vote. The Assembly version is AB 391.

The finance committee weighed in on the bill — along with the rest of nearly two dozen items it voted on Tuesday — under the Legislature’s rule requiring the panel to consider any legislation that appropriates money, provides for revenue or relates to taxation.

The committee’s action clears the bill for the Assembly floor, where it is likely to pass on a party-line vote before going to Evers to be vetoed.

In the 2023-25 Wisconsin budget, lawmakers agreed to increase schools’ revenue limits for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years by $325 per pupil each year.

In signing the budget Evers used his partial veto power to strike two digits and a dash from the years, extending the annual revenue limit increases through 2425. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in April 2025 that the maneuver was within Evers’ partial veto powers. The change didn’t funnel more money to schools automatically, but instead raised the annual ceiling in how much revenue they are allowed to collect.

The 2025-27 state budget approved in July 2025 did not include any general aid increase, so property taxes are the only source school districts have to pay for the additional $325 per pupil they were authorized to receive by Evers’ 2023 veto. The  increase is not automatic; school budgets are controlled by individual school boards.

At a media session before Tuesday’s meeting and during the debate, the Joint Finance Committee’s co-chair, state Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam), blamed Evers’ 2023 veto for property tax hikes around the state.

Past state budgets have increased school aid, sometimes with “record levels, massive increases,” Born said shortly before the committee’s vote.

But Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said that after adjusting those increases for rising costs, per-pupil funding is $3,400 below what it was in 2009. “We’re actually giving them less money in inflation-adjusted terms,” Roys said.

Democrats pointed to the spate of school funding referendum questions over the last two years in which school district voters have agreed to raise their own property taxes to cover funding gaps.

“Referendums were never meant to fund the core operations of our schools,” said Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee). “Yet we see districts year after year leaning more on referendums.”

Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) told Republican lawmakers that they could have prevented property tax hikes if they had increased general state aid to public schools in the current budget. By not doing so, “you chose to put that pressure on property taxpayers,” he said.

Tax credits after stillbirths

The only other item that produced any debate Tuesday was SB 379/AB 373, creating a state income tax credit for the parents of a stillborn child. As originally created the legislation called for the tax credit — $2,000 for a couple filing jointly or $1,000 for each parent if filing separately or if they are unmarried.

As originally drafted the legislation calls for a refundable tax credit. A taxpayer whose total income tax liability is less than the amount of the credit would get a direct payment for the balance of the credit that exceeds their tax bill.

For example, a person who qualifies for a $1,000 credit but whose state income tax bill is $600 would get a check for the additional $400.

Finance Committee co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) introduced an amendment Tuesday that would make the tax credit non-refundable. For a person with a tax bill of $600, the $1,000 credit would only be worth $600, while a person with a tax bill of $1,500 would get the full $1000 credit, reducing their tax bill to $500.

“It’s very expensive in this country to go through labor, delivery and postpartum, and when someone has a stillborn baby they still have all these expenses,” Roys said. “When you say you’re not making this credit refundable, you’re hurting the lowest-income people.”

The amendment would save the state $200,000, changing the tax credit’s cost from $600,000 to $400,000, a Legislative Fiscal Bureau analyst told Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay). That would “make it less useful,” Andraca said.

While the amendment passed 11-4, with all the Democrats on the panel voting against it, the amended legislation passed on a unanimous 15-0 vote.

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In the Wisconsin Senate’s last floor session of 2025, lawmakers debated and voted on bills that appear destined for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ veto pen. 

One of the bills, which passed the Republican-led Assembly in September and is on its way to Evers’ desk, would prohibit public funds from being used to provide health care to undocumented immigrants. Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, the bill’s Senate author, argued it would protect Wisconsin taxpayers, citing Democratic states like Illinois where enrollment and costs of a health care program for noncitizens far exceeded initial estimates. 

But several Senate Democrats lambasted the proposal as a “heartless” attempt by GOP lawmakers to gain political points with their base with 2026 elections around the corner. Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, hinted at its likely future in the governor’s office. 

“It’s going to be vetoed,” Carpenter said. 

Plenty of bills in the nearly eight years of Wisconsin’s split government have passed through the Republican-controlled Assembly and Senate before receiving a veto from the governor. Evers vetoed a record 126 bills during the 2021-22 legislative session ahead of his reelection campaign and 72 bills during the 2023-24 session. The governor has vetoed 15 bills so far in 2025, not including partial vetoes in the state budget, according to a Wisconsin Watch review of veto messages. The number is certain to rise, though whether it will approach the record is far from clear.

A few Senate Democrats seeking higher office in 2026 said some recent legislation that is unlikely to make it past Evers, from a repeal of the creative veto that raises school revenue limits for the next 400 years to a bill exempting certain procedures from the definition of abortion, looks like political messaging opportunities to ding Democrats. They anticipate more of those proposals to come up next year. 

“For the last eight years we’ve had divided government, but we’ve had a heavily gerrymandered Legislature,” said Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, who is among at least seven candidates running for governor in 2026 and voted against those bills on the floor. “For Republicans in the Legislature, there has been no cost and everything to gain from pursuing the most radical and extreme proposals in their party.” 

Evers is not seeking a third term as governor in 2026 and is entering the final year of his current term, which no longer makes him vulnerable to political fallout from vetoing bills. But legislative Democrats, particularly in the Senate where the party hopes to win the majority in 2026, can be forced into difficult decisions in their chambers where Republicans control which bills get votes on the Senate and Assembly floors. 

“It was all this political gamesmanship of trying to get points towards their own base and/or put me or others, not just me, into a position to have to make that tough vote,” said Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick, of the bill banning public dollars spent on health care for undocumented immigrants. Smith, who is seeking reelection in his western Wisconsin district next year, holds the main Senate seat Republicans are targeting in 2026. He voted against the bill.

Smith said the immigration bill saw “a lot of discussion” in the Senate Democratic Caucus ahead of the floor session on Nov. 18, particularly on where Smith would vote given the attention on his seat. The bill passed the chamber on a vote of 21-12 with Democratic support from Sen. Sarah Keyeski, D-Lodi; Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-Onalaska; and Sen. Jamie Wall, D-Green Bay, who are not up for reelection next year but represent more conservative parts of the state. 

“Many people thought the easy vote would be to just vote with the Republicans because it’s not going to be signed,” Smith said. “But I’ve still got to go back and explain it to my voters.” 

A spokesperson for Majority Leader Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch about how Senate Republicans consider what bills advance to the Senate floor. Neither did a spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

In a social media post after the Senate session, Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, listed “all the things WI Senate Democrats voted against,” which included “prohibiting illegal aliens from getting taxpayer-funded healthcare.” 

Scott Kelly, Wanggaard’s chief of staff, said a potential veto or putting Democrats on the record on certain issues largely doesn’t influence the legislation their office pursues.

“Our job is to pass bills that we think are good ideas that should be law,” Kelly said. “Whether other people support or veto them is not my issue. The fact that Democrats think this is a political ‘gotcha,’ well, that just shows they know it’s an idea that the public supports.”

Not all of the bills on the Senate floor on Nov. 18 seemed aimed at election messaging. The chamber unanimously approved a bill to extend tax credits for businesses that hire a third party to build workforce housing or establish a child care program. In October, senators voted 32-1 to pass a bipartisan bill requiring insurance companies to cover cancer screenings for women with dense breast tissue who are at an increased risk of breast cancer. The Republican-authored bill has yet to move in the Assembly despite bipartisan support from lawmakers there as well.

Assembly Democrats last week criticized Vos and Assembly Majority Leader Rep. Tyler August, R-Walworth, for blocking a vote on Senate Bill 23, a bipartisan bill to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage to new Wisconsin moms. Assembly Minority Leader Rep. Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, in a press conference at the Capitol called the move “pathetic.”

But health care is a top issue for Democratic voters and less so for Republicans, according to the Marquette University Law School Poll conducted in October. Illegal immigration and border security are the top issue for Republican voters in Wisconsin. About 75% of GOP voters said they were “very concerned” about the issue heading into 2026, though only 16% of Democrats and 31% of immigrants said the same.  

Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center and political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said political messaging votes can have impacts on elections, especially in what will be some of the close Senate races in 2026.

“It’s kind of a messaging opportunity, not really a policymaking opportunity. It’s also maybe a way for Republicans to let off some steam,” Burden said. “They have divisions within their own caucuses. They have disagreements between the Republicans in the Assembly, Republicans in the Senate. They can never seem to get on the same page with a lot of these things, and there are often a few members who are holding up bills. So, when they can find agreement and push something through in both chambers and get near unanimous support from their caucuses, that’s a victory in itself and maybe helps build some morale or solidarity within the party.”

Here’s why Wisconsin Republican lawmakers pass bills they know Gov. Tony Evers will veto is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Gov. Tony Evers’ 2023 partial veto increased K-12 public school districts’ revenue fundraising limits by $325 per student each year until 2425, but that doesn’t guarantee property tax increases each year.

Revenue limits set how much a district can increase funding through a combination of property taxes and general state aid. School districts could raise property taxes in order to reach the maximum revenue, or the Legislature and governor could provide more general aid through the biennial budget. The average limit across districts last year was $13,363.

This year, the Republican-controlled Legislature kept general state aid flat. School boards can raise property taxes up to their allowed maximum funding in their annual budgets.

In future budgets, the Legislature and governor could provide enough state aid to cover the limit increase in whole or even exceed it, which would force districts to reduce property taxes. They also could repeal the 400-year revenue limit provision.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Watch Interview with Sarah Shaw, deputy research director for the Wisconsin Policy Forum
• PBS Wisconsin: Partial veto by Evers to extend school funding boost by 400 years upsets opponents
• Legislative Fiscal Bureau: School District Revenue Limits and Referenda

Does Gov. Tony Evers’ 2023 budget veto increase property taxes each year for the next 400 years? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.