Pelican River area in Wisconsin (Jay Brittain | Courtesy of the photographer)
When Gov. Tony Evers made his 2025-27 budget proposal in February, it included an annual $100 million appropriation to fund the broadly popular Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program for another 10 years. The budget he signed after 1 a.m. Thursday included zero money for the program, which is set to lapse next summer.
While a separate piece of legislation to re-authorize the program has been introduced by Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) and Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point), the failure to provide added money in the budget has raised concerns that the program — which allows the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to provide grant funding to acquire, conserve and maintain public lands — could fail to survive the political tumult of divided government and die.
Even though the conservation of public lands is widely popular among both Democratic and Republican voters in the state, a handful of Republican legislators have grown increasingly hostile to the program, particularly since the state Supreme Court ruled last year that the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance doesn’t have the authority to hold up grants issued by the DNR through the program. Republicans complain that the acquisition of public land takes parcels off the property tax roles and prevents development projects.
The Kurtz and Testin proposal aims to reach a compromise by re-authorizing the program while adding more legislative oversight by requiring that any land purchases over $1 million be approved through legislation.
“While I recognize all that has gone into reaching this compromise budget, I must share that I am deeply disappointed that Republican leaders would not agree to reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program — even for just one more year through 2027,” Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) said in a statement. “Here’s the situation now: Knowles-Nelson reauthorization expires on June 20, 2026, giving the Legislature one year to take action before the deadline, and Republicans have indicated they will bring this back to the agenda this fall. Trust that I will keep up the pressure on Republicans and hold them to their word. I will continue to be a strong advocate for this long-standing bipartisan promise.”
The lack of stewardship program funds in the final state budget led Evers to use his partial veto authority to prevent spending money on five individual public lands projects that legislators had earmarked in the bill.
“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. “Instead of renewing the program and helping the many, the Legislature has opted to benefit the politically connected few. The Legislature must do its job and renew the Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship program.”
Timber strategic plan
The DNR budget also includes funds for a $1 million grant to the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association (GLTPA) and the Wisconsin Paper Council to craft a Forestry Industrywide Strategic Plan.
This provision was included by the Joint Committee on Finance in its late night session last Friday and has raised concerns from some environmental groups that it is a giveaway to industry groups to push for increased extraction of resources from the state’s forest lands.
“Taxpayers should not be made to underwrite private industry studies with no public benefit or input. Would they decide how to manage local, state, and federal forests in this study? Would it be published?” Andy Olsen, senior policy advocate at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said. “One million dollars is very generous with taxpayer dollars for a sketchy study with no public benefit.”
The GLTPA has been involved in efforts in Wisconsin’s Northwoods to oppose conservation projects and move local land use policies to be more pro-extraction by encouraging increased logging and the expansion of the state’s mining industry.
The association’s director, Henry Schienebeck, has been influential in Oneida County’s effort to rewrite its comprehensive plan to be friendlier to industry and worked with American Stewards of Liberty, a Texas-based right-wing anti-conservation group, to oppose land conservation such as the Pelican River Forest.
DNR spokesperson Andrea Sedlacek said the department is “monitoring this and all other relevant DNR budget motions as the process plays out” but did not yet have information on what the development of the strategic plan would look like or if other people or groups would be involved in its development.
But despite the grant being given only to industry groups, some environmental advocates say it’s a win.
Fred Clark, former executive director of Wisconsin Green Fire, said the development of such a plan is something the organization has been advocating for over the past several years. Clark pointed to a study of the health of the state’s forests Green Fire published last year and said that because the state’s paper mills have largely been shuttered, there are fewer places for the state’s foresters to bring their timber, destabilizing the industry.
Without a plan to find new uses for the state’s timber, the economics of Wisconsin’s working forest lands could change, resulting in land sales and development that results in forests being cut down to use the land for other purposes — ultimately harming the health of Wisconsin’s forests.
“The focus that we would like to see there is not necessarily on producing more timber, because we already grow a lot more timber than we harvest,” Clark said. “What we really think the state needs is a strategic focus on developing new forest products and helping expand and refine forest products markets so that we’ve got places for our wood to go.”
Clark said he foresees the development of the plan working through the state’s Council on Forestry, which includes members representing industry, environmental groups, state and federal agencies, legislators and landowners. He added that for the project to succeed it needs input from all those groups, including those with records such as the GLTPA.
“We need everybody at the table for this, and there’s a wide range of points of view in the forestry community,” Clark said. “Great Lakes Timber Professionals have been an active member of the Council on Forestry almost since day one. We won’t succeed if we don’t have a pretty strong consensus all the way from the environmental groups to groups like Great Lakes Timber Professionals. So I think there’s a lot of common ground there. The most important next step for us is to see that there’s a really broad based committee within the Council on forestry that’s helping guide this work.”
“Republicans would rather have a talking point and try to portray themselves as tough on crime, when really what they are is very stupid and wasteful on crime," Sen. Kelda Roys said. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
GOP lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee approved a proposal for the Department of Corrections that includes an additional $62.9 million in state spending in 2025-26 and $73.8 million in 2026-27 as well as 18 new staff positions. The proposal was less than a third of the $500 million corrections proposal released by Gov. Tony Evers earlier this year, which he argued was necessary to pass in full in order to accomplish the closure of the Green Bay Correctional Institution.
Evers’ plan, when released, included plans to overhaul the state’s correctional facilities, including closing GBCI, closing Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls and renovating other facilities as well as expanding earned release and taking steps to address recidivism rates.
Committee co-chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said GBCI, which was built in 1898, won’t be discussed until the committee takes up the capital budget later this week. He said the last budget helped reduce staffing shortages and that legislators want that work to continue with the portions of the budget taken up on Tuesday.
“As I’ve talked to the prisons in my district, they’re happy to see that their recruit classes are much larger, and the vacancies are about half of what they were prior to the last budget, so we think that’s working well,” Born said. “The next phase of this is to talk about the capital budget investments, which will happen on Thursday.”
The proposal passed by committee Republicans also includes additional investments in the state’s adult institutions, including $65 million across the biennium for inmate costs, $4 million for contract beds, $5 million for fuel and utilities costs and $292,600 for body cameras. Fox Lake Correctional Institution would get 2.1 million in funding and 16 health care related positions.
Democrats on the committee said the money allocated wouldn’t be enough to lay the groundwork for major reforms to Wisconsin’s correctional system, including shutting down the GBCI. They had introduced a motion that would have added $268.9 million in spending to corrections and 59 staff positions.
Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) noted that previous budgets have spent more on incarceration than on the state’s public universities, and that Republicans’ proposal is half of what Democrats wanted to spend on community reentry.
“Wisconsin is woefully behind the times when it comes to public safety reform and on criminal justice reform,” Roys said. “What’s disappointing about this is to see that we are going to continue to fall far behind. We spend so much money incarcerating people, and that means less money for all the other important things that we want to do in the state.”
Centers dedicated to community reentry will get an additional $1 million under Republican’s proposal.
The centers, Roys said, are a “proven way to reduce recidivism” meaning “reducing the crime as people move back into society.” She also added that the proposal included “no money for supported housing, which we know is one of the biggest barriers for people who are coming out of incarceration and re-entering the community.”
Roys told reporters after the meeting that the state is incarcerating too many people, and said Evers’ plan would have helped address policy changes that need to be made to progress towards closing GBCI.
“We don’t have the capacity and the programming and the staffing and the facilities to allow people to successfully reenter and we’re also taking [people] back out of the community after they’ve already re-entered for really minor technical violations. There are a lot of different things that we can safely do to help reduce and right size the prison population… The governor has proposed these things,” Roys said. “Republicans would rather have a talking point and try to portray themselves as tough on crime, when really what they are is very stupid and wasteful on crime.”
Born said the budget proposal voted on Tuesday was focused on the services already provided by the state and not inserting policy into the budget. He said the committee was doing what it needed to to invest in public safety.
“It’s super expensive, and it is what it is because it is a super important part of public safety,” Born said. “Nothing to be sad or upset about and as I would hope most folks know the discussion on the future is in the [capital budget].”
The committee also took up the budgets for district attorneys and public defenders.
The Republican proposal approved on Tuesday adds 42 new assistant district attorney positions, costing $3.5 million in 2025-26 and $2.7 million in 2026-27. The counties with the most new positions include Brown with seven new positions, Waukesha with six positions and Fond du Lac with four. Milwaukee County would get no new positions and Dane County would get one additional position.
Committee co-chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said GBCI, which was built in 1898, won’t be discussed until the committee takes up the capital budget later this week. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Roys said the motion was a “nod in the right direction” but said it was missing commensurate increases for public defenders.
“You can have prosecutors charging and charging and charging all day, but if you don’t have defense attorneys, then people are going to languish in jail,” Roys said. “These cases are going to continue to sit there and not get resolved, and we’re going to see that backlog increase.”
Roys also criticized the motion for including no new positions for Milwaukee County, the state’s most populous county, and only one new position in Dane County, the second most populous county. She also expressed concern that Republicans were not considering that federal funds that are currently supporting 30 assistant district attorneys across 28 counties are set to be expended in July.
“The loss of federal funding, I think in some counties, this is going to be very problematic,” Roys said.
“It’s like a 10% increase. What other agencies here are we giving a 10% increase?” Born said. “This is a priority. This is a key investment. I think it’s a positive thing that we were able to do there, but I’m not gonna cry over all our buddies that got ARPA money, [but] didn’t get it now.”
The positions would be anticipated to start in October.
The Republican motion also included investments of nearly $2 million in 2025-26 and nearly $4 million in 2026-27 for pay progression increase for assistant district attorney and deputy district attorneys. The State Public Defender’s office would get $1.9 million in 2025-26 and $3.8 million in 2026-27 for pay progression.
Other investments for district attorneys and public defenders included $3.5 million to upgrade the case tracking system for prosecutors and $858,400 and $922,4000 and 12.5 positions to address workload issues.
The committee also took up the portions of the budget for the Department of Military Affairs, the Public Service Commission and the budget management.
UW budget delayed as deadline approaches
The committee did not take up the budget for the University of Wisconsin system, even though it had been scheduled.
Marklein said leaders “decided not to take it up today” and the co-chairs declined to comment on rumors that lawmakers were preparing a significant cut to the system’s budget.
Roys said she had also heard that Republicans were preparing an $87 million cut to the system and said it would be a “non-starter” for Democrats on the committee.
“The university over the last generation has seen their budget shrink and shrink. They have not gotten inflationary increases, and they’ve had cuts,” said Roys, whose district includes the UW-Madison campus. “What they had asked for in this budget session would help make them whole from the cuts that they have endured over the last 15 years.”
Roys also said that she thought Republicans were having “difficulty deciding whether they want to walk the plank on making cuts to education.”
“When we do not fund public education, which is again the No. 1 thing that Wisconsinites have asked for consistently over the years, we are going to end up with a state where nobody wants to live,” Roys said. “We can fund prisons all we want, but ultimately, funding early childhood, funding education, funding higher [education] is how we make Wisconsin a great place to live.”
Marklein said he and his colleagues are trying to get the budget passed before the June 30 deadline.
Republicans will be facing a small vote margin if they try to pass the bill with only Republican support. Two members of the Senate have already expressed concerns about the budget crafted so far by the Joint Finance Committee.
Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) said that he sees three options: accepting Evers’ budget, approving the one being drafted by the Joint Finance Committee or leaving the current budget in place.
“Unless something improves, I am going with option #3,” Kapenga wrote.
Kapenga said the JFC budget so far includes “unnecessary spending without any reforms that would improve the budget process or dig into wasteful spending currently in place” and said that it would be a major risk to send the budget to Evers because the state Supreme Court hasn’t curbed his veto power.
Kapenga said letting the current budget stand would mean “the lowest spending increase in a decade” and would “have no veto pen risk.”
Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) had already encouraged the state Legislature last month to either pass no new budget or “a very small mini-budget.” He has a history of voting against the state budget.
Joint Finance Co-Chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said at a press conference ahead of the meeting that he would tell advocates who wanted the 60% rate that the state budget has to be “right-sized” and “affordable.” (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
After many delays, the Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee met Thursday evening to approve its plan for K-12 education spending that included a 5% increase to special education funding for schools and its $1.3 billion tax plan that targets retirees and middle-income earners.
Lawmakers on the powerful budget-writing committee went back and forth for nearly three hours about the plans with Republicans saying they made significant investments in education and would help Wisconsinites while Democrats argued the state should do more for schools.
Over $220 million for special education, no additional general aid for schools
The committee approved a total of about $336 million total in new general purpose revenue for Wisconsin’s K-12 schools — only about 10% of Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed $3.1 billion in new spending.
Special education costs will receive the majority of the allocation with an additional $220 million that will be split between the general special education reimbursement and a subset of high-cost special education services.
The special education reimbursement funding includes $77.2 million in the first year of the budget, which will bring the rate at which the state reimburses school districts to an estimated 35%, and $151 million in the second year bringing the rate to an estimated 37.5%. It’s well below the $1.13 billion or 60% reimbursement for special education that Evers had proposed and that advocates had said was essential to place school districts back on a sustainable funding path.
Education advocates spent the last week lobbying for the additional funding — and warning lawmakers about the financial strain on districts and the resources the students could lose. Ahead of the meeting Thursday, Democrats and a coalition of Wisconsin parents of students with disabilities spoke to the urgent need for additional investment in the state’s general special education reimbursement rate.
“Everywhere we’ve gone in the state of Wisconsin, whether it’s rural school districts, urban school districts, whether it’s school districts that have passed referendums and those that haven’t, they all say the same thing — 60% primary special education funding is absolutely necessary for our schools to succeed,” Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) said at the press conference. “You can see that we have had a cycle of referendum throughout Wisconsin, and that cycle has to end.”
Ahead of the meeting Thursday, Democrats and a coalition of Wisconsin parents of students with disabilities spoke to the urgent need for additional investment in the state’s general special education reimbursement rate. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The special education reimbursement peaked at 70% in 1973, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. After falling to a low of 24.9% in 2015-16, the state’s share of special education costs has been incrementally increasing with some fluctuations.
The Republican proposal represents, at maximum, about a 5% increase to the current rate by the second year. According to budget papers prepared by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the investment lawmakers made last session was meant to bring the rate to 33.3%, but because it is a sum certain rate — meaning there was only a set amount of money set aside, regardless of expanding costs — the actual rates have been 32.4% in 2023-24 and an estimated 32.1% for 2024-25.
Joint Finance Co-Chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said at a press conference ahead of the meeting that he would tell advocates who wanted the 60% rate that the state budget has to be “right-sized” and “affordable.”
“The governor’s budget has always [had] reckless spending that the state can’t afford, and so we’re choosing to make key investments and priorities, and these investments today will be some of … the largest investments you’ll see in the budget,” Born said.
The committee also added $54.5 million to bring the additional reimbursement rate for a small number of high-cost special education services to 50% in the first year of the budget and 90% in the second year. The high-cost special education program provides additional aid when costs exceed $30,000 for a single student in one year. According to DPI, in 2025 only 3% of students with disabilities fell in the high-cost special education category.
In 2024-25, the program only received $14.5 million from the state. Evers had proposed the state invest an additional $18.5 million.
Republicans on the committee insisted that they were trying to compromise and making a significant investment in schools — noting that education likely will continue being the state’s top expenditure in the budget. Meanwhile, Democrats spoke extensively about the need for higher rates of investment, read messages from superintendents and students in their districts and said Republicans were not doing what people asked for.
“High needs special education funding only reaches about 3% of Wisconsin’s special education students,” Rep. Deb Andraca said. “You’re getting a couple good talking points, but you’re not going to get the kinds of public schools that Wisconsin kids deserve.”
During the committee meeting, Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin) criticized Democrats for saying they would vote against the proposals. He said Democrats would vote against any proposal if it isn’t what they want.
“If we all voted no, we would return to base funding, which was good enough by the way for the governor last budget because he signed it,” Bradley said. “There would be no increases, but instead we’ve introduced a motion which will increase funding.”
McGuire responded by saying he wouldn’t vote for a proposal that is “condemning the state to continuing the cycle of referendum,” which he said Republicans are doing by minimally increasing the special education reimbursement rate and not investing any additional money in general aid.
“Wisconsinites across the state are having to choose between raising their own property taxes” and the schools, McGuire said.
The Kenosha School District, which is in McGuire’s legislative district, recently failed to pass referendum to help reduce a budget deficit. School leaders had said a significant increase in the special education reimbursement would prevent the district from having to seek a referendum again.
“They had a $19 million budget gap, and if this state went to 60% special education funding, you know roughly where we promised we would be, that would’ve gone down to $6 million,” McGuire said, “…$13 million of those dollars are our responsibility. That’s been our failing, and we should live up to that.”
“What are we arguing about? We’re putting more money in,” Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) said.“I would think that when this gets to his desk, Evers would sign this because it is a bigger increase than any of what he proposed while he was state superintendent.”
McGuire said the investment in the high-cost special education is also good, but only applies to a small number of schools and students.
“You know, what would benefit all school districts in the state and will benefit all students who need special education? The primary special education reimbursement rate, which you put at 37.5[%], but everyone says should be at 60[%].” McGuire said. “I don’t think this is your intention, but I don’t believe that we should be exchanging children who need our assistance for other children who need our assistance. Why can’t we just help all of the kids who need our help?”
Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) said that the increase for high-cost special education will have a significant impact on some schools, especially smaller ones, and students, even if it’s not many of them.
“To get 90% for them is huge for any of our rural districts. One child, which deserves an education, can break the bank for our small districts,” Kurtz said. “Is it perfect? No, it’s not perfect, but we have to stay within our means.”
Committee co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) echoed Kurtz’s comments saying that there will be “a lot of districts that are going to be awful happy about that.”
“They’ve been worried about sometimes, a student moves into the district, and it’s of incredibly high, high needs,” Marklein said.
The committee also declined to include additional general aid for school districts. Republicans on the committee said there was already a $325 per pupil increase to districts’ revenue limits built into the budget from last session due to Evers’ partial veto. The increase gives districts the option to raise property taxes, though it doesn’t require them to, and does not include state funding for the increase.
Sen. Romaine Quinn (R-Birchwood) told lawmakers not to forget about the increase, saying the “insulting part about that is that everyone gets it.
There are schools that don’t need that,” Quinn said. “72% of my districts spend less than [the schools of] my Democratic colleagues on this panel.”
School Administrators Alliance Executive Director Dee Pettack, Wisconsin Association of School Boards Executive Director Dan Rossmiller, Southeast Wisconsin School Alliance Executive Director Cathy Olig and Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance Executive Director Jeff Eide said in a joint letter reacting to the proposal that lawmakers failed to hear the voices school leaders, parents and community and business leaders.
“While the $325 revenue limit authority exists, it is not funded by the state. Instead, it is entirely borne by local property taxpayers. In addition, school districts will not see the requested support in special education,” the leaders stated. “Because of the lack of state support in these two critical areas, school districts will be left with no choice but to ask their local taxpayers to step up and shoulder the costs locally, regardless of their ability to pay.”
The leaders said the state was investing minimally and school districts will continue to struggle to fund mandated primary special education programs.
State Superintendent Jill Underly called the Republicans’ proposal “irresponsible” in a statement Friday and said it “puts politics ahead of kids and disregards educators and public schools when they need support the most.”
“Our public schools desperately need and deserve funding that is flexible, spendable and predictable,” Underly said. “This budget fails to deliver on all three. Once again, those in power had an opportunity to do right by Wisconsin’s children — and once again, they turned their backs on them.”
The committee also approved $30 million for the state’s choice school programs, $20 million for mental health services in school, $250,000 for robotics league grants, $750,000 for a single school, the Lakeland STAR Academy (a provision that Evers vetoed last session), $100,000 for Special Olympics Wisconsin, $3 million for public library system aid, $500,000 for recovery high schools and $500,000 for Wisconsin Reading Corps.
Over $1 billion in tax cuts
Republican lawmakers also approved tax cuts of about $1.3 billion for the budget Thursday evening after 8 p.m., including changes to the income tax brackets and a cut for retirees in Wisconsin.
Born and Marklein said the cuts would help retirees and other Wisconsinites afford to stay in the state.
“These are average, hard-working people in our state that will benefit from our tax cut,” Marklein said.
The income tax change will allow more people to qualify for the second tax bracket with a rate of 4.4% by raising the qualifying maximum income to $50,480 for single filers, $67,300 for joint filers and $33,650 for married-separate filers. This will reduce the state’s revenues by $323 million in 2025-26 and $320 million in 2026-27.
People currently eligible for the second tax bracket include: single filers making between $14,680 and $29,370, joint filers making between $19,580 and $39,150 and married separate filers making between $9,790 and $19,580.
Wisconsin Republicans have been seeking another significant tax cut since the last budget cycle when Evers vetoed their proposals. After the rejection, Republicans started to narrow their tax cuts proposals to focus on retirees and a couple of other groups with the hope of getting Evers’ approval. When negotiations on this year’s budget reached an impasse, Evers had said he was willing to support Republicans’ tax goals, but he wanted agreements from them, too.
The proposal also includes an exclusion from income taxes for retirees that would reduce the state’s revenues by $395 million in 2025-26 and $300 million in 2026-27.
“This isn’t a high-income oriented kind of thing,” Marklein said during the meeting. “It just helps a lot of average people in the state of Wisconsin, so it’s very good tax policy.”
Democrats appeared unimpressed with the tax proposal.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau told lawmakers that the income tax change would lead to about a maximum impact of $253 annually for married joint filers, $190 annually for single filers and $127 for married separate filers.
“So roughly $5 a week for a married couple,” McGuire said.
McGuire said that Democrats just have the perspective that Wisconsin could invest more in the priorities that residents have been expressing.
“We heard from a lot of people about what they need,” McGuire said in reference to school districts. “We also know that as they’ve been attempting to get those funds they’ve had to go to referendums across the state, and… we think that’s harming communities and making it more difficult for people. As a perspective, we believe that that’s a good place to invest in dollars.”
Tech colleges
The committee also voted to provide additional funding for the Wisconsin technical colleges, though it is, again, significantly less than what was requested by Evers and by the system.
The proposal will provide an additional $13 million to the system. This includes $7 million in general aid for the system of 16 technical colleges, $2 million in aid meant for grants for artificial intelligence, $3 million for grants for textbooks and nearly $30,000 to support the operations of the system.
Evers had proposed the state provide the system with $45 million in general aid
Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) said the differences between Evers’ proposals and what Republicans offered were stark.
“We hear my GOP colleagues talk about worker training all the time and this is their opportunity to make sure that our technical colleges have the resources that they need to make sure that we are training an adequate workforce,” Johnson said, noting that the state could be short by 1,000 nurses (many of whom start their education in technical colleges) by 2030. “I’ve never had an employer complain about having an educated workforce, not once, but I have heard employers say that Wisconsin lacks the skill sets and educational skills they need. It seems my Republican colleagues are more concerned with starving our institutions of higher education, rather than making sure they have the resources they need.”
Testin said the proposal was not a cut and that Republicans were investing in technical colleges.
“We see there’s value in our technical colleges because they are working with the business community … getting students through the door quicker with less debt,” Testin said. “Any conversations that this is a cut is just unrealistic. These are critical investments in the technical system.”
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