U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 3, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Top Democrats in Congress are asking the Government Accountability Office to open an investigation into whether the Trump administration violated federal law by freezing funding for several programs.
Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, ranking members on the House and Senate Budget committees, wrote in a two-page letter sent Monday to the government watchdog organization that certain actions appear to have violated the Impoundment Control Act.
“Unilaterally impounding funds is illegal, and Donald Trump and Russ Vought are trying to gut the federal government piece by piece,” Merkley wrote in a statement accompanying the letter. “GAO must get to the bottom of this and reiterate to the administration that Congress has the power of the purse, not Trump and Vought.”
The Senate voted along party lines earlier this year to confirm Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget, which has wide-reaching authority over decisions within the executive branch
A Government Accountability Office spokesperson told States Newsroom the agency is working through its process to determine whether it will launch an investigation based on the letter.
GAO, the spokesperson said, also has ongoing work related to the ICA.
OMB authority
Boyle wrote in a statement that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to determine when and where the federal government spends money.
“The administration’s withholding of critical investments harms American communities that rely on these funds for jobs, economic stability, and essential infrastructure,” Boyle wrote. “Robust congressional oversight, alongside litigation, is vital to protecting the interests of the American people.”
The Impoundment Control Act, enacted in the 1970s, bars presidents from not spending the money that Congress has appropriated. Vought has said repeatedly he believes the law is unconstitutional and that presidents have this authority.
Several lawsuits have been filed over the Trump administration opting not to spend federal money, some of which have blocked the actions from taking effect while the cases proceed through the federal courts.
The Boyle-Merkley letter alleges the Trump administration has run afoul of the law on several occasions, including on his first day in office when he ordered a pause on foreign development assistance as well as funding in the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law.
The two ask GAO to also look into the Trump administration’s decision to halt military aid to Ukraine for about a week in March, writing they are “concerned this pause may have been an illegal impoundment with negative foreign policy and national security implications.”
“The Constitution grants the President no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation,” Boyle and Merkley wrote in the letter. “Instead, Congress has vested the President with strictly circumscribed authority to impound or withhold budget authority only in limited circumstances as expressly provided in the Impoundment Control Act.
“The executive branch may withhold amounts from obligation only if the President transmits a special message to Congress that includes the amount of budget authority proposed for withholding and the reason for the proposal (2 U.S.C. §§ 683–684).”
What can GAO do?
During the first Trump administration, the GAO found the Office of Management and Budget violated the Impoundment Control Act when it halted assistance to Ukraine.
“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” GAO wrote in the report. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA.”
The GAO writes on its website that the ICA “authorizes the head of GAO, known as the Comptroller General, to file a lawsuit if the President illegally impounds funds.”
Comptroller General Gene Dodaro testified before Congress earlier this year that he plans to do just that if the independent agency finds violations of the ICA.
“We’re going to make these decisions as fast as possible,” Dodaro said, according to a news report. “I fully intend to carry out our responsibilities under the Impoundment Control Act expeditiously and thoroughly . . . I’ll do it as quickly as I can, but we need to be careful and thorough, because the next step for us is to go to court ourselves. If we say there’s been impoundment and money isn’t released in a certain period of time, we have to go to court.”
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., speaks to reporters during a press conference inside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, March 27, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The top Republican and top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee sent the Trump administration a joint letter on Thursday, telling the Office of Management and Budget it’s on thin ice with the panel.
The dispute has to do with how the White House is implementing the stopgap spending law that Congress approved earlier this month, which funds the federal government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash, wrote in the two-page letter that the way OMB is approaching a section on emergency designations is in sharp contrast to how other administrations have implemented it.
“This (or substantially similar) language has been used in appropriations legislation for decades, and it has always been interpreted to give the President a binary choice: He must concur with all or none of Congress’s emergency designations,” Collins and Murray wrote. “Just as the President does not have a line-item veto, he does not have the ability to pick and choose which emergency spending to designate.
“This interpretation is consistent with congressional intent and is the most logical and consistent reading of the law.”
The two wrote the Trump administration’s new “piecemeal approach” raises questions about whether emergency funding, including $8 billion in housing assistance, will be available as Congress intended.
Collins and Murray appeared to imply that OMB not correcting course on the emergency designation would strain the working relationship between the Appropriations Committee and the Trump administration.
The two will need to work together in the months ahead to draft the dozen appropriations bills for fiscal year 2026, which is slated to begin Oct. 1.
“We are concerned that sudden changes to OMB’s interpretation of long-standing statutory provisions could be disruptive to the appropriations process and make it more difficult for the Appropriations Committee to work in a collaborative fashion with the Administration to advance priorities on behalf of the American people,” they wrote. “Collaboration will become even more challenging when the Committee is first informed of such developments through the press, rather than notified through official channels, as was the case here.”
A federal appeals court on March 27, 2025, denied a request from the Trump administration to overturn a lower court’s preliminary injunction, which has so far blocked the White House budget office from implementing a freeze on grants and loans. Shown is Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 15, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied a request from the Trump administration to overturn a lower court’s preliminary injunction, which has so far blocked the White House budget office from implementing a freeze on trillions in grants and loans.
The 48-page opinion from the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals’ three-judge panel said the Department of Justice failed to show that the federal government would “be irreparably injured absent a stay,” or that a stay of the lower court’s ruling pending appeal would serve the “public interest.”
The ruling came from Chief Judge David Barron, Judge Lara Montecalvo and Judge Julie Rikelman. President Barack Obama nominated Barron, while President Joe Biden appointed Montecalvo and Rikelman.
The case began in late January when the Office of Management and Budget issued a two-page memo that led to widespread confusion about the proposed freeze on grants and loans from numerous federal departments and agencies.
This latter case, filed by Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia, is the one that worked its way to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.
The attorneys general who brought that case represent Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
The Department of Justice’s appeal in the attorneys general case followed Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island issuing a preliminary injunction in early March.
There is also a preliminary injunction in the other case, issued by District Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia in late February.
Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said she thought there were “worthy” projects in the proposal but criticized the $3.85 billion in bonding to pay for the projects. Gov. Tony Evers delivers his seventh State of the State address while standing in front of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Felzkowski. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner
The State Building Commission is not recommending Gov. Tony Evers’ $4.1 billion capital projects proposal to the budget committee after Republican lawmakers voted against doing so saying that it wasn’t realistic and wasn’t created in a bipartisan manner.
The State Building Commission is made up of eight members including Evers, four Republican lawmakers, two Democratic lawmakers and one citizen member appointed to the body by Evers. The votes on each section of the capital projects budget was split down the middle, with Republicans all opposed. The outcome was expected as Republicans have said they plan to create their own proposal.
Evers’ proposal includes nearly $1.6 billion in projects for the University of Wisconsin System, $634 million to the Department of Corrections, $195 million for health facilities, $170 million for Department of Veterans Affairs’ projects, $164 million in projects requested for the Department of Natural Resources and investments in other areas.
Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said she thought there were “worthy” projects in the proposal but criticized the $3.85 billion in bonding to pay for the projects.
“This is more new bonding in this capital budget than the last five capital budgets combined, and I think to get to a more appropriate level, further discussion is needed,” Felzkowski said. “We need to hear from stakeholders and the public and that just hasn’t happened.”
Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) said that he thinks lawmakers and Evers will be able to find some agreement, but argued that “shoehorning” money at the moment for projects will “limit the ability to have some of those discussions, or in some cases might prejudice the [Joint Finance] Committee against whatever we might do here.”
Evers’ ambitious proposal for reforming the state’s prisons would include infrastructure upgrades and capital improvements to Waupun Correctional Institution, Lincoln Hills School, Stanley Correctional Institution, Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center and John C. Burke Correctional Center. The projects are planned to be carried out one after the other and culminate in the closing of the Green Bay Correctional Institution.
Felzkowski said she was “very saddened” about the corrections proposal and called it a “missed opportunity” for a bipartisan solution.
“There’s quite a few of us in this Legislature who have worked diligently for corrections reform, and so much of the DOC capital budget rests on the changes to policy around corrections reform,” Felzkowski told Evers. Republican lawmakers have expressed opposition to proposals in the corrections budget that would increase early release.
“We could have been brought in earlier to discuss the changes or even when you had brought in a consultant around corrections, I would have loved to have been able to work with them and to help bring my side of the aisle into the reform process,” Felzkowski said.
The Joint Finance Committee, which is responsible for writing the budget, will kick off its work next week with briefings from the University of Wisconsin System and the Department of Corrections. Public listening sessions will then take place starting next week with lawmakers traveling to Kaukauna on April 2 and West Allis on April 4.
Gov. Tony Evers said Monday the state needs to approve projects as costs could rise due to President Donald Trump's tariffs. Here, Evers is shown speaking to reporters last week. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers announced a $4.1 billion capital budget proposal on Monday that would include new buildings at University of Wisconsin campuses and for prison building overhaul.
Evers said in a statement the investment would be critical to addressing Wisconsin’s aging infrastructure and to “build for our state’s future.”
“We can’t afford to kick the can down the road on key infrastructure projects across our state, most especially as the cost of building materials may only get more expensive with each day of delay due to potential tariff taxes and trade wars,” Evers said.
President Donald Trump’s plans of implementing tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China, which have been delayed multiple times, are expected to put added stress on the construction industry as the costs of raw materials, including steel, aluminum and cement could grow.
“We must take the important steps necessary to invest in building a 21st-century infrastructure, workforce, and economy,” Evers said. “I am hopeful that these recommendations will receive bipartisan support to get these projects done that communities across our state are depending on.”
The State Building Commission — which is made up of eight members including Evers, four Republican lawmakers, two Democratic lawmakers and one citizen member — will meet on March 25 to vote on the capital budget recommendations. It’s likely his proposal will be blocked by Republican lawmakers, who have done so in previous budgets, to allow the Republican lawmakers who are a majority on the Joint Finance Committee to create their own proposal.
During the last budget session, Evers proposed a $3.8 billion proposal that was cut down to $2.69 billion.
In a joint statement Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) called Evers’ plan “another example of his irresponsible spending.” They said Republicans would “craft a responsible capital budget that Wisconsin can afford.”
“It will balance the needs of our state with sound fiscal responsibility. We must ensure that our operating budget and capital budget will work together to fund the priorities of the state. Legislative Republicans will work to right-size these proposals and craft a budget Wisconsin can be proud of,” the lawmakers said.
One of the largest parts of Evers’ plan — nearly $1.6 billion — would be for the University of Wisconsin System. His recommendation is 90% of the $1.78 billion that was requested from UW and would go towards an array of projects across UW campuses.
UW System President Jay Rothman said in a statement the plan would provide “key funding necessary for building repairs and renovations as well as critical new projects that modernize classroom and research facilities” and ensure the state is “continuing to build opportunities for future generations of students.”
One large project includes $292 million for the demolition and replacement of the Mosse Humanities Building at UW-Madison by February 2031. The building was constructed in 1966 and opened in 1968 and has recently suffered from structural and environmental deficiencies, including asbestos, putting students at risk.
“The building is well past its expected useful life, with a significantly deteriorated building envelope and exterior window/wall system, uncorrectable humidification conditions and insufficient environmental controls,” the proposal states.
The plan would also include $293 million for new residence halls at UW-Madison.
UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said in a statement that the proposal recognizes the “infrastructure improvements that are critical to maintaining UW–Madison’s competitive edge in education and research.”
“We are grateful for the governor’s commitment to investing in essential projects that will ensure the state’s flagship will continue to meet the needs of our state and its workforce. We also deeply appreciate the continued advocacy on our behalf from the Universities of Wisconsin and the Board of Regents,” Mnookin said.
Evers’ proposal would also dedicate $194 million for UW-La Crosse to complete its Prairie Springs Science Center and demolishing Cowley Hall, which lacks fire suppression, has failing mechanical systems and doesn’t meet modern science and research needs.
The first phase of this project was completed in the summer of 2018, but the second part needs to be approved. New building additions would include instructional and research laboratories with associated support spaces, classrooms, greenhouse, observatory, specimen museum and animal care facility, which is meant to help support STEM education and workforce development.
The plan also includes $189 million for UW-Milwaukee to renovate the Northwest Quadrant complex for its College of Health Sciences. The project, which has been needed for years, was not included in Evers’ budget last session.
UW-Oshkosh would get $137 million for the Polk Learning Commons — a project that would include the demolition of its library facility, which was constructed in 1962, and replacing it with a new facility.
Whether lawmakers will be supportive of projects for UW system schools is unclear. During the last budget cycle, Republican lawmakers withheld funding for building projects to use in negotiations over diversity, equity and inclusion on campus. Major projects, including an engineering building at UW-Madison, were only approved after the UW system agreed to change certain policies related to DEI.
Evers’ plan would also dedicate $634 million to the Department of Corrections for his proposed “domino” prison reform plan and other projects. This would include infrastructure upgrades and capital improvements to Waupun Correctional Institution, Lincoln Hills School, Stanley Correctional Institution, Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center and John C. Burke Correctional Center. In addition, the improvements would enable the final part of the proposal, which is closing the Green Bay Correctional Institution.
Other projects in the proposal include:
$195 million for health facilities, including $44 million for renovating the food service building at Central Wisconsin Center, $55 million for upgrading utility infrastructure at the Mendota Mental Health Institute and $61 million for similar upgrades at Winnebago Mental Health Institute.
$170 million for Department of Veterans Affairs’ projects, including $101 million for food service and laundry facilities at Wisconsin Veterans Home at King.
$164 million in projects requested for the Department of Natural Resources to invest in Wisconsin’s state parks and forests and fund bridge replacements, trail upgrades and fire response ranger stations upgrades.
$40 million for elevator and fiber and cable upgrades at the Wisconsin State Capitol
$36.6 million, which is only about 20% of the requested funds, for the Department of Military Affairs.
Nearly $22 million for State Fair Park.
$25 million for planning, design, and sitework at the Milwaukee County Courthouse Complex. County Executive David Crowley said in a statement that the public safety building is “crumbling, inefficient and poses significant risks to community safety” and that it must be removed and replaced.
Gov. Tony Evers delivers his state budget address on Feb. 18, 2025. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Policy Forum cautions state lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers to consider the state’s past financial hardships when writing the next state budget in a new brief released Friday.
The report considers the state’s current financial position, Evers’ budget proposal, potential wants from Republican lawmakers and outside factors, including federal funding uncertainty, to explore questions lawmakers may consider in the coming months. And it suggests the state could be nearing a dramatic turn in its fortunes.
Evers introduced a vast budget proposal last month, and the process is now in the hands of lawmakers, who are likely to throw out Evers’ version, host public hearings and then write their own proposal. Lawmakers will then need to pass the bill in the Senate and Assembly before it goes to Evers, who will either sign it as is, sign it with partial vetoes or veto the whole bill.
“Throughout the 2000s, the state carried almost no reserves, leaving it exposed to the terrible fury of the Great Recession,” the report states. “Most of today’s lawmakers were not in their current offices during that dark time, and did not face the multi-billion-dollar shortfalls that had to be bridged in both 2009 and 2011 at great cost and sacrifice by taxpayers, schools, local governments and public workers.”
The report notes that “prudent decisions” by Republican and Democratic leaders have helped bolster the state’s finances and put Wisconsin in a position to “weather a recession much more effectively.”
By the end of the current budget, the state’s budget surplus will have gone from $7.1 billion to $ 4.3 billion, and Republicans and Democrats are both looking at the remaining surplus to fund their priorities for the next budget. The state also has a $1.9 billion rainy day fund. The report noted that this balance is greater than the state had throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s.
Gov. Tony Evers has introduced a budget that would increase state spending by 19% to fund increased investments in K-12 education, health care, child care and transportation. It would cut taxes for low- and middle-income residents and raise them on the state’s highest earners.
The spending would be paid for using the budget surplus, federal funds and revenues from raising taxes on the wealthiest Wisconsin residents. Evers’ proposal would leave the state with $646 million. Evers has said he’s reserved that amount due to potential uncertainty about federal money, though he recently questioned whether that is enough.
“If adopted, Evers’ plan would leave the state with a two-year structural deficit of roughly $4 billion,” the report states. “This would make it difficult to balance the 2027-29 budget, even if the economy remains strong and does not succumb to recent drops in the stock market and consumer sentiment.”
Legislature’s contrasting priorities
The final budget will likely look vastly different.
Republican lawmakers have said that they are likely to throw out Evers’ entire proposal, and that they want to use the budget surplus to prioritize widespread tax cuts and one-time projects. Lawmakers said they may propose their tax cut plans to Evers ahead of the budget in a separate bill, which they want him to sign before the budget as a whole. Last session, Evers vetoed GOP proposals that would have cut income taxes by over $1 billion a year.
“The state’s main fund is now spending more than it takes in, and its budget reserves, while sizable, are shrinking,” the report states. “Meanwhile, the Democratic governor and GOP Legislature are eying the state’s reserves and offering tax and spending plans that would deplete it and potentially leave the state with future budget gaps.”
The report notes that bipartisan compromise will be necessary to find a balance among varying priorities.
“Elected officials will have to consider the advantages of retaining [the state’s] fiscal safeguards and weigh those concerns against priorities such as investing in education and holding down increases in local property taxes,” the report states. “At the moment, the two sides appear sharply divided, but it is worth remembering that they have overcome such obstacles in the past and may yet do so again.”
The report considers the uncertainty for federal money given actions in Washington by President Donald Trump and the Republican majority in Congress to cut federal spending.
Evers’ budget leans in part on $18 billion in federal funding for programs including Medicaid, research and financial aid at UW schools and transportation projects.
The report says two objectives — preserving state funds and using state revenues to replace federal funds that are lost — “might come into tension with one another, since state spending now to make up for any cuts would leave less of a financial cushion for the state in the future.”
School spending, child care
The report also considers the growing number of school referendum votes across the state and ways to slow them, and it says lawmakers will want to ask how “aggressively” they want to act in response to that trend. Evers has proposed tying revenue limits to inflation, increasing state per-pupil aid and special education funding.
“If all of these increases came to fruition, they would likely curb referenda and property tax increases,” the report states. “However, they would also sharply increase state spending and are unlikely to pass the Legislature as written.”
It also touches on the challenges facing the child care industry. Evers is proposing dedicating $480 million to invest in the industry to continue the Child Care Counts program, which provides money to child care providers to help them meet costs but will run out by July.
The report cites tens of thousands of parents unable to find care as well as large numbers of centers unable to fill all their openings for care for lack of staff.
“We highlight these sobering figures not to advocate for or against such an investment but to note that child care accounts for a sizable chunk of the overall economy. To make an impact on child care costs, access, and quality that families in particular would notice, policymakers would have to free up substantial resources within the state budget from one of a limited number of revenue options,” the report states.
Other potential avenues to address the child care industry’s needs include using the TANF block grant to tap federal funds, implementing a mechanism to split child care costs among families, employers and the state, and enacting tax incentives.
The report also considers Evers’ $500 million prison reform proposal to close Lincoln Hills School for boys and Copper Lake School for girls, renovate Waupun Correctional Institution and close Green Bay Correctional Institution. It notes that even if Evers’ plan was approved there could be some challenges to implementation given that rates of reconviction and re-arrest haven’t changed significantly.
“The governor’s ‘domino’ plan also requires many steps to fall into place correctly in order to reshape the state’s correctional system,” the report states. “If any step fails, the state’s prisons could remain overcrowded with even less time to find a solution.”
The report expects the budget will draw on the budget surplus in light of the state’s ongoing challenges. It cautions, however, that “taxpayers have good reason to watch both sides in this process carefully to ensure the final budget does not erode too many of the state’s hard-won financial gains.”
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers still wants certain powers restored to his office.
In his executive budget proposal, Evers last month proposed repealing a series of controversial laws that were approved in a 2018 “lame-duck” session after he defeated his Republican predecessor Gov. Scott Walker, but before he took office. The laws stripped the governor and attorney general of certain powers and instead gave them to the Legislature.
He’s called for repealing the laws in all four of his proposed budgets.
One law Evers targeted, for example, specifies that when the state Senate rejects the governor’s nominees for state government positions, the governor may not reappoint that person to the same position. The law clarifies what “with the advice and consent of the Senate” means in other parts of state law. Evers’ proposal to cut the statute prompted outrage from one Republican senator last week.
“What’s the point of advice and consent of the Senate if the person can serve after being rejected by the Senate?” Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, said in a statement. “Can you imagine the uproar from Gov. Evers and Democrats if President Trump or former Gov. Walker did this?”
“This is a repeal of the 2018 lame-duck provisions Republicans passed because you were mad about losing to a Democrat,” Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback fired back on social media.
The statute is just one of many approved by GOP lawmakers over six years ago as they moved to swiftly strip powers from the incoming governor and attorney general, sending fast-tracked bills to Walker’s desk during his final weeks in office.
Among those last-minute changes was a move to block governors from re-nominating political appointees who are rejected by the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans. More than 180 of Evers’ appointees have yet to be confirmed by the Senate. Republicans have fired 21 of his picks since he took office in 2019, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau. Evers has tried to repeal the Senate advice and consent law in all four of his budget proposals.
Attorney General Josh Kaul, whose authority was also hampered by the laws, has challenged the lame-duck laws for years. In 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s then-conservative majority upheld the GOP’s last-minute legislation. But now, with a 4-3 liberal majority, Kaul has asked the court to decide whether one of the laws — granting the GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee the ability to reject settlements reached by the Department of Justice in certain civil lawsuits — is constitutional.
While these legal challenges have persisted for nearly six years, Evers has attempted to repeal lame-duck laws via another route: his state budget proposals.
“This is why you read the actual language of the budget,” Wanggaard said. “Trying to sneak this through is exactly why Republicans start from scratch in the budget.”
Evers has attempted in all four of his budget proposals to repeal a lame-duck law that gave the speaker of the Assembly, the Senate majority leader and the co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization — positions held by Republicans for more than a decade — the power to authorize legal representation for lawmakers, allowing them to hire counsel outside of the DOJ.
In all four budgets, Evers has also proposed striking down a lame-duck statute that requires at least 70% of the funding for certain highway projects to come from the federal government each year. If the Department of Transportation is unable to meet this, the law allows the department to propose an alternate funding plan that must be approved by the GOP-controlled JFC.
The governor also proposed overturning a statute in all four budget proposals requiring the Department of Health Services to obtain legislative authorization before submitting requests for federal waivers or pilot programs. It also requires DHS to submit plans and progress reports to the JFC for approval, additionally granting the committee the power to reduce DHS funding or positions for noncompliance.
In each budget proposal, Evers has also tried to overturn other lame-duckstatutes that grant Republican-controlled legislative committees greater power, such as approving Capitol security changes and new enterprise zones.
Republican lawmakers have rejected the governor’s efforts in the previous three budget cycles. That will likely be the case again this year.
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Gov. Tony Evers speaks to a group in Port Washington on Tuesday, Feb. 25, about highlights in his proposal for the state's 2025-27 budget. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
PORT WASHINGTON — Holding forth for a crowd of more than two dozen people gathered upstairs from a local coffee shop, Gov. Tony Evers recapped his budget pitch Tuesday for a friendly audience.
The governor highlighted his proposals to hold down or cut taxes for the middle class, increase school funding with particular attention to special education, and make a sustained investment in child care providers.
Evers is touting his budget for providing $2 billion “in tax relief — and it’s all everyday stuff,” he said.
Boosting state investment in public education and in shared revenue with local governments, he added, will in turn make it possible for school districts and municipalities to hold the line on property taxes.
Evers also made a pitch — to willing ears — for the budget’s $480 million in child care support.
“That is something that, if you agree with me, you really have to work on this issue,” he said.
The governor’s 2025-27 budget is replete with big proposals, just like each one he’s proposed since taking office in 2019, including provisions for new agencies and vows to invest in sectors that have long complained of underfunding.
And as with each of Evers’ budgets, the Republican leaders of the state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee dismissed the governor’s proposals the night he announced them and promised to follow up by stripping all of them from the budget draft on the first day of deliberations. Every biennium since Evers was elected in 2018, they have then built the budget “from the base” — in other words, from the spending plan as enacted in the last budget cycle.
Last week they announced minutes after Evers’ budget address they would follow the familiar script.
Reaching out to voters, supporters
Tuesday’s round table with local officials, small business owners, teachers and residents of the Ozaukee County city was the second in a series that Evers began on Monday with stops in Wausau and Superior.
Evers opened the session with a brief account of his recent visit to Washington, D.C., where he and other governors met with President Donald Trump, and where “people are on pins and needles” amid the drastic changes taking place in the federal government since Trump took office.
The governor emphasized the impending tariffs Trump has vowed to impose — 25% on goods from Canada and Mexico, among others — are “going to be a big deal,” potentially costing the average Wisconsin consumer $1,200 a year.
With that image as the scene setter, Evers went down a partial list of his budget’s tax proposals. He’s proposed eliminating the sales tax on medicine, utility bills, and cash tips for workers such as restaurant servers and others who are paid gratuities. Tips added to a credit card payment would not be included.
Part of the budget’s claim to $2 billion in tax relief reflects putting more state funds into education, shifting the burden for funding schools off local taxpayers.
“We will be investing heavily in public education, and that includes about $3.15 billion for K-12 schools, $800 million for University of Wisconsin System and a $60 million increase in the technical college system,” Evers said. The K-12 education money includes increasing the state’s share of special education funding, now about 30%, to 60%.
His proposal also would nearly double the personal exemption under the state income tax to $1,200 from $700. For low- and moderate-income state residents who qualify, the state would increase the earned income tax credit. Additional tax relief is aimed at veterans and surviving spouses.
Referring to a recent blockage in federal funding thathit Head Start providers across Wisconsin and nationwide before payments resumed, Evers questioned whether the 60-year-old federal child care and early education program for low-income families might meet an early demise.
“I’m not sure Head Start will survive the federal government” under the Trump administration, Evers said. “And that would cause things to be much, much more difficult” when it comes to child care.
Child care: ‘We’re going to lose providers’
Evers recapped how federal pandemic relief funds enabled Wisconsin to bolster child care providers under the Child Care Counts program. The monthly payments enabled providers to increase wages for child care workers without raising the fees parents pay for child care, but the last payments will end this summer.
“That money is gone, and now we have an industry that is struggling,” Evers said. “If we don’t do something proactive to support them — directly support them — we’re going to lose providers.”
But so far, he added, “I’m not sure the other side gets it.”
Laura Klingelhoets, who owns and is administrator of a child care center in the community of Belgium about 10 miles north of Port Washington, said staffing remains her biggest challenge.
Klingelhoets recalled a recent conversation with a father. His teenage children “can go to work,” he told her. “My toddler cannot go to work. I need the help now — and I need you to stay open.”
Bob Steffes, vice president and general manager at Allen Edmonds, the high-end shoe manufacturer that has its factory in Port Washington, offered Evers one example of how the struggle for child care hits employers: “We lose about 30% of our female [employees] that get pregnant,” he said.
Dana Glasstein teaches English as a second language and said she has seen “a lot of interrupted learning” for students who miss classes or put off taking them because they can’t get needed child care.
Klingelhoets said she’s had conversations with legislators on the Joint Finance Committee. “I have been very respectful in some of that lobbying,” she said, “but I have been told right to my face that women should not work — they belong at home, and child care isn’t a necessity in our state.”
School funding, lead pipes
Evers’ plan to increase the state’s contribution for special education would add “almost $3 million in our general fund for schools,” said Michael McMahon, superintendent of the Port Washington-Saukville School District. The district will hold a referendum April 1, asking voters to increase their property taxes to fund a new elementary school, replacing one built 70 years ago, McMahon said. The $59.4 million ask also includes money for deferred maintenance.
“We’ve been taking care of our facilities,” McMahon said. “We just have had to defer that to make sure we’re putting teachers in front of kids and keeping programming.”
Provisions in Evers’ budget proposal would replace sources of lead, from old paint in buildings to lead water pipes. It contains $100 million for renovations removing lead paint in schools, home and child care centers, $7 million to replace lead water lines for home-based child care providers, and $200 million to replace homeowners’ lead service lines.
In Port Washington about 800 lead water service lines need to be replaced, said Dan Buchler, the city’s water utility director. At $7,000 a line, the cost is the responsibility of property owners.
“We’re putting a huge burden on them,” Buchler said. “Just because you live in a house that has a lead line, you didn’t put that line in the ground. It’s not your fault.”
Urging voters to prevail on their lawmakers
Meeting with voters and urging them to let lawmakers know their concerns has been a standard political tactic for the Democratic governor as he’s confronted Republican majorities in both chambers of the Legislature.
“We need to have people engage with the [budget] bill,” Evers said in a brief interview after the session. “It’s important that people understand that.”
How this year’s budget deliberations unfold could offer a glimpse into the impact of the new legislative maps enacted in 2024 that are more evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats and resulted in a smaller gap between the parties in both houses after the November election.
“Some of Evers’ proposals frequently poll quite well, but a statewide audience has generally been irrelevant to the majority of GOP legislators who represent solidly red districts,” said John D. Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette University who has analyzed poll results and the state’s legislative maps, in an email message.
“However, since the 2024 redistricting, Republicans from safe districts no longer make up a majority of either chamber,” Johnson said. Evers may be “hoping that the Republicans representing swing seats will feel pressure to support popular policies he proposes.” Or perhaps, he added, Evers’ tactic could simply be “a rhetorical move made with an eye to the general election in 2026.”
The same dynamic works the other way, Johnson noted: “Of course, the flip side of this is that Republican legislators regularly try to pass bills they believe to be popular but which they know Evers will veto.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) speaks at a WisPolitics event. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) criticized much of Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal on Tuesday, saying Republicans wouldn’t get behind the spending increases and taxation proposals. He said Republican lawmakers are starting the process of coming up with their own proposals, including for a broad tax cut plan.
Evers’ 2025-27 state budget proposal dedicates $4 billion to K-12 and higher education, cuts nearly $2 billion in taxes and raises income taxes for the state’s wealthiest residents. Evers said during a Wisconsin Counties Association conference on Tuesday that his proposal was “realistic” and that he hopes the Legislature will agree.
Vos said the plan was unrealistic, however, because it would increase state spending by about 20% and included plans to raise taxes. He also complained Evers presented his plans without speaking with lawmakers first.
Wisconsin has an estimated budget surplus of about $4 billion. Democrats are seeking greater investments in the state’s public services while Republicans want to limit state spending.
Vos told the audience at the WisPolitics event people are thinking about the budget surplus the wrong way.
“People believe we have this huge surplus, which is true on one-time money, but we have very little money for the government to be able to expand or increase funding for programs,” Vos said.
Wants broad tax cuts
Vos said the last state budget was “really disappointing” because Republicans met Evers’ goals by increasing spending on education, but Evers vetoed most of Republicans’ tax cut proposals. In the upcoming session, Republicans will seek to focus on using the budget surplus for cutting taxes.
Evers proposed an array of tax cuts in his budget including eliminating taxes on cash tips, sales taxes on electricity and gas for Wisconsin homes and on over-the-counter medications. Vos compared tax cuts to “chocolate cake,” saying they are all good. However, he said his caucus will likely look at doing broader tax cuts and that he wants cuts that “people can actually feel.”
“My preference is something that is ongoing and meaningful to families,” Vos said.
Vos said that lawmakers will work to pass a tax cut bill package before the end of the budget process.
“Hopefully that’ll get signed, but if not, unfortunately, the budget will probably have to wait until we can find consensus on that tax cut,” Vos told reporters after the event.
Evers also proposed a new tax bracket with a marginal rate of 9.8% for the state’s wealthiest residents — those making above $1 million for single filers and married joint filers. The current top tax bracket has a 7.65% rate and applies to single filers making $315,310 and joint filers making $420,420.
Vos said Republicans would not support increasing taxes.
Continued no on Medicaid expansion (even postpartum)
Evers for his fourth budget in a row proposed that Wisconsin join the 40 other states in the country that have taken the federal Medicaid expansion, which ensures coverage for people making up to 138% of the federal poverty line. One difference in this budget cycle, however, is that the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers are seeking to cut Medicaid funding in order to help pay for tax cuts. The new reality, Vos said, appears to validate his ongoing opposition to accepting the federal Medicaid expansion.
“Thank goodness we never expanded Medicaid,” Vos said.
Vos said he would prefer block grants from the federal government, and that it would be better for Wisconsin to get 90% of the money from the federal government without “strings attached” than to get 100% of the money and have to follow federal guidelines for how to spend it.
Vos was also critical of expanding postpartum Medicaid to cover new mothers for the first year after giving birth, casting doubt on a Republican-backed bill that supports Wisconsin joining the 48 other states that have done this. Currently, Wisconsin only covers up to 60 days after birth for eligible mothers.
Evers included the extension in his budget proposal and a Republican-authored bill that would extend coverage has 23 Senate cosponsors and 67 Assembly cosponsors.
Despite the widespread bipartisan support for extending postpartum Medicaid, Vos said he was not the only person in his caucus who opposes expanding coverage. He said it doesn’t make sense to expand Medicaid coverage because those with incomes up to 100% of the federal poverty line can still keep coverage after the 60 days and those who could lose coverage could seek coverage through Obamacare.
“I am not the only person in the Legislature who is opposed to it. Many Republicans are opposed to expanding welfare, it’s just they are more than happy to let me stand in front of the arrows,” Vos said.
Calls language changes ‘dystopian’
Vos also critiqued changes to the state budget proposed by Evers that would update language to be gender neutral.
The proposal would change certain words like “father” to “parent” and “husband” to “spouse.” Another section that is about artificial insemination would change “the husband of the mother” to “the spouse of the inseminated person.”
Republicans have locked on the latter phrase to claim that Evers is trying to erase mothers and fathers.
Evers told reporters Monday that the changes were made to ensure with “legal certainty that moms are able to get the care they need,” noting that same sex couples could have been excluded from coverage under the old language. He accused Republicans of lying about the issue.
“I didn’t know that Republicans were against IVF, but apparently they are because that is what it’s about,” Evers said.
Vos said the change was “dystopian” and said the changes don’t fix any issue and Evers was just coming up with an explanation. He later told reporters that the language made the state a “national embarrassment.”
Prison reform
Vos also complained about Evers’ process for coming up with a plan to reform the state’s prisons, saying he should have included lawmakers in developing it.
The proposed plan, which would cost over $500 million, would make wide changes to many of the state’s facilities including transitioning Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth correctional facilities into adult facilities, updating Waupun Correctional Institution, the state’s oldest prison, and eventually closing Green Bay Correctional Institution.
Vos said it’s known that lawmakers have had an interest in the issue and questioned why they weren’t consulted in developing the plan.
“He chose not to do that because he has one way of operating, which is his way or the highway. Those of us that have some interest in corrections reform will get together and come up with our own package and present it to the governor and say, ‘Here it is,’” Vos said.
DPI and Supreme Court elections
Vos also weighed in on Wisconsin’s upcoming spring elections.
State Superintendent Jill Underly, the Democratic-backed candidate, is running for a second term in office against education consultant Brittany Kinser, the Republican-backed candidate.
Vos said that Kinser is “the best candidate” because she supports school choice and appears willing to work with the Legislature. He added that he isn’t sure whether he has ever met with Underly. He also criticized Underly for changes to the evaluation of Wisconsin’s standardized test scores.
He described the recent February primary as “low profile” and said that with a “different electorate” at polls in April, Kinser likely has a chance to win.
The higher profile spring election is for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The technically nonpartisan race pits Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate against Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate.
Vos said he thinks that the race will be about the candidates, but it is “possible” that the race could be a referendum on Trump. He noted that Democrats are seeking to turn out voters who agree with them and billionaire Elon Musk and Trump are trying to bring out Republicans in the race. A group tied to Musk canceled a social media ad this week that featured a photo of the wrong Susan Crawford.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers unveiled his 2025-27 biennial budget proposal last week — a two-year plan totaling nearly $119 billion compared to the $100 billion budget currently on the books.
Republicans lawmakers who control the powerful budget writing committee immediately vowed to throw out the governor’s spending plan this spring. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said Evers’ proposals are “dead on arrival.”
Many of the governor’s recommendations have been reviewed and rejected by GOP lawmakers in previous budgets, like his plans to expand Medicaid or legalize marijuana.
But in this year’s budget address, he introduced several new items. Here are four examples from the governor’s fourth state budget proposal.
No tax on cash tips
“No tax on tips” quickly became a Republican mantra on the 2024 campaign trail after it was heavily touted by President Donald Trump. But Democrats have followed suit, coming out in support of the popular policy.
For the first time, Evers is seeking to eliminate income taxes on cash tips in the budget, a proposal that mirrors a Republican-authored bill in the Legislature. The plan would reduce state revenue by just under $7 million annually — a paltry amount compared to the roughly $11 billion in individual income tax the state expects to collect each year.
“Interesting. @GovEvers wants to eliminate tax on tips (great idea, swear I heard it somewhere before) but not a single Democrat co-sponsored the bill that Sen. (Andre) Jacque and I authored to create tax exemption for tips. I’m glad we can count on Evers’ support,” state Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, wrote on X.
Service industry workers might shrug when they discover that the tax exemption would only apply to tips left in cash and would not exempt the majority of tips, which are left on a credit card. But that’s not the only reason why Jason Stein, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, says the proposal would have little impact.
“Many of the lower wage workers who receive tips may not have to pay any state income taxes as it is,” Stein told Wisconsin Watch. “There are other policies like the earned income tax credit that would benefit low-wage workers…they’re more industry-neutral. They’re profession-neutral.”
Free college tuition for Native American students
In another new proposal, Evers recommended providing full tuition waivers for any student who is a Wisconsin resident, a citizen of any of the state’s 11 federally recognized tribal nations and enrolled at a Universities of Wisconsin System or Wisconsin Technical College System school. The governor’s office could not confirm the cost of this specific proposal, but noted it is part of a $129 million effort to increase affordability in the UW System over the next two years.
The proposal mirrors the Wisconsin Tribal Education Promise already in place at UW-Madison, which covers all educational costs for Native students who are citizens of a tribal nation. That program began last fall, is not tied to household income and is funded in part by philanthropy rather than state funds.
The program was announced in December 2023, shortly after Universities of Wisconsin regents struck a deal with Republican lawmakers to end diversity hires across their campuses in exchange for previously approved employee raises and project funding. Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said the program is a testament to the university’s commitment to diversity.
Universities in other states have launched similar initiatives in recent years, granting in-state tuition for Native students.
Auditing health insurance companies
Evers wants Wisconsin to be the first state in the nation to audit insurance companies that frequently deny health care claims. But the details of this plan, such as how frequently an insurance company would have to deny claims to be audited, are slim.
“If an insurance company is going to deny your health care claim, they should have a darn good reason for it. It’s frustrating when your claim gets denied and it doesn’t seem like anyone can give you a good reason why,” Evers said. “If an insurance company is denying Wisconsinites’ claims too often, we’re going to audit them. Pretty simple.”
The plan would cost $500,000 in program revenue, potentially from new fines, for two full-time positions over the next two years “to establish a framework for auditing high rates of health insurance claim denials among insurers offering plans in the state over which the office has regulatory authority.”
The new office would set the percentage of claim denials that would warrant an audit. The office would then enforce “corrective action” through fines or forfeitures.
New tax bracket for millionaires
Evers is also seeking new ways to increase state revenue. This includes his plan to “ensure millionaires and billionaires in Wisconsin pay their fair share” through a new individual tax bracket of 9.8% that would apply to income for single and married joint filers above $1 million. For married couples filing separately, income above $500,000 would also fall under this tax bracket.
The new tax is estimated to generate nearly $1.3 billion over the next two years.
The current top income tax rate is 7.65%, covering married joint filers with an income above $420,420 and individuals with an income above $315,310.
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Gov. Tony Evers delivers his 2025 state budget address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers unveiled a sweeping 2025-27 state budget proposal Tuesday evening that would come at the cost of $55.5 billion in state funds across the biennium — an increase of about 18%. The proposal lays out many priorities including investments in education and initiatives to protect the environment, tax relief for middle class Wisconsinites, tax hikes for the wealthy Wisconsinites and expansion of Medicaid access.
Evers’ address was his fourth budget address since taking office in 2019 and comes at the beginning of a state budget cycle when Wisconsin is expected to end the 2023-25 biennium with $4.3 billion in its general fund. The state had a record-high balance of $1.9 billion in its rainy day fund at the end of fiscal year 2023-24.
Altogether, with federal and other revenue, the state would have an operating budget of $119 billion over the next two years under Evers’ proposal and a total increase of about 20%. In addition to the funding, Evers’ budget would add about 880 state positions with federal funds for a total of about 75,613 state employees by July 2026. It would also add 1,302 positions, a total 36,766 positions, using state funds.
During his approximately 40-minute address to the state Senate and Assembly, Evers laid out major parts of the proposal to the standing applause of Democratic lawmakers and the seated stares of Republican lawmakers.
“The budget I’m proposing balances our priorities of investing in our kids and needs that have long been neglected while providing real and sustainable tax relief and saving where we can,” Evers said during his address. He declared that the budget would be the most “pro-kid” budget in state history.
Towards the end of his speech, Evers called on lawmakers to focus on “doing what’s best for our kids, delivering real solutions for real problems Wisconsinites face every day and doing the right thing.”
Republican lawmakers, however, said that most of Evers’ budget proposal would be “dead-on-arrival” and criticized him for trying to increase spending and grow the size of government.
Environment and water quality
Evers proposed more than $300 million towards eliminating lead from service lines, bubblers, schools, homes and child care centers. He also called for the state to invest $145 million towards combating PFAS contamination statewide and providing emergency resources, including bottled water for communities affected by water contamination.
The state allocated $125 million towards the effort in the last budget, but lawmakers and Evers never agreed on a bill that would allow the money to be used, so it remains unused.
“Addressing PFAS and other contaminants grows harder and more expensive with each day of delay,” Evers said. “Republicans and Democrats have to work together to finally get something done on this issue.”
Evers also proposed dedicating $100 million annually towards reauthorizing the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program for an additional 10 years — a total $1 billion investment aimed at supporting projects that improve the state’s water quality, protect key habitats and support investments in state and local parks and other public lands.
Adds $4 billion for K-12 and higher education
Building on his declaration in January of 2025 as ‘The Year of the Kid,’ Evers announced a vast education budget proposal that would invest $856 million for the University of Wisconsin System, nearly $60 million for the technical colleges and $3.15 billion in K-12 education across the state.
“Every Wisconsin kid should have access to a high-quality public education from early childhood to our K-12 schools to our higher education institutions,” Evers said. “I’m urging the Legislature to do what’s best for our kids by approving significant investments in public education at every level in Wisconsin.”
Evers acknowledged recent actions from the Trump administration and federal lawmakers affecting higher education. Most recently, the administration told universities to get rid of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives or risk losing funding. Universities, including UW-Madison, have also been grappling with the potential impacts of cuts to research funding.
“Politicians in Washington don’t know a darn thing about what’s going on at campuses across Wisconsin,” Evers said. “They don’t understand that our UW System has been part of Wisconsin since we first became a state — it’s enshrined in our state constitution. They don’t know how important our UW System has been to our state’s success or how important it is for our future.”
Evers’ UW System proposal would be one of the largest investments in the system in state history. He said the reinvestment in the UW System is necessary due to impacts of attacks and disinvestment over the last many years and the ongoing challenges that the state’s 13 campuses are facing.
“UW is facing campus closures and program cuts, students are facing tuition increases, and faculty and staff are facing layoffs, and with new federal efforts to cut higher education funding, things for UW could get a whole lot worse,” Evers said. “It’s up to us — each of us, together — to invest in our UW System, to defend it and to protect its promise for future generations.”
Some of the funding would include $128 million for financial aid; $308 million to support expanding access to schools through dual enrollment, direct admissions and transfer pathways; $56 million to support recruiting and retaining educators and staff; $22 million to support mental health services; $104 million to invest in innovative technologies and $166 million to increase wages.
He called on lawmakers and elected officials to help increase funding for public education, saying that many of them benefited from it when they were younger.
“Don’t tell our kids they don’t deserve to have the same opportunity you did,” Evers said.
Evers’ largest education investment proposal would be to the state’s K-12 schools, and he argued that the investments are necessary to help address student outcomes.
“I know some legislators have tried using student outcomes to argue against investing in our kids and our schools. Folks, you’ve got it backwards,” Evers said. “The outcomes we’re seeing are exactly why we must do more to do what’s best for our kids.”
The budget proposal includes $212 million towards raising per-pupil funding by $108 across the biennium, with additional support for economically disadvantaged students. He also wants to link the state’s per pupil revenue limits for school districts to inflation starting in fiscal year 2025-26. His budget projects that the change would raise limits by $334 per pupil in 2025-26 and $345 per pupil in 2026-27.
Evers called on lawmakers to approve his $147 million plan to provide free school meals to students, his nearly $300 million plan to invest in mental health support in schools and to ensure clean drinking water in schools.
“If the state isn’t committed to meeting our kids’ basic needs, then we can’t have serious conversations about improving outcomes,” Evers said. “It’s that simple.”
Evers also called for investing $80 million to support new literacy initiatives in the state, including literacy coaches and tutoring, that are meant to help improve reading scores statewide.
The proposed funding would include the $50 million to support a new literacy law enacted in the 2023-25 budget cycle, but after disagreements over implementation and a veto by Evers, most of the money remains stuck and unused. If it isn’t released by the end of the fiscal year in June, it will lapse back into the state’s general purpose revenue.
Evers also proposed dedicating $1.1 billion towards raising the state’s special education reimbursement to 60%. The current rate is about 30% for public schools.
The governor said the current system for funding schools isn’t working and called attention to the trend of districts asking taxpayers to raise their property taxes through referendum measures so schools can cover operational and building costs.
“This system isn’t sustainable — it creates winners and losers, haves and have-nots, but referendums are not inevitable,” Evers said. “Wisconsinites wouldn’t have to raise their own property taxes to keep school lights on and doors open if this Legislature invested in K-12 education from the get-go.”
Evers’ budget proposal also calls for making changes to Wisconsin’s voucher programs including the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the Racine Parental Choice Program and the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program.
He wants to freeze the number of slots available to students, a proposal that comes as the caps on enrollment are slated to come off in 2026. He also wants to require participating schools to license educators by July 2028 and to require schools to allow students participating in the Special Needs Scholarship Programs to opt out of religious activities at written request. Evers also proposes putting the cost of Wisconsin’s voucher programs on people’s property tax bills.
Evers also wants to support the child care industry by investing $440 million in state funds to subsidize providers with the Child Care Counts program.
$2 billion in tax relief, raising taxes for wealthiest
Evers called for nearly $2 billion in tax relief and for raising taxes on the wealthiest Wisconsinites.
Part of the relief would be targeted at trying to limit further property tax increases. Property tax burdens across the state have grown in recent years in part because schools and local governments have turned to referendums as a way of securing funding.
“My budget would create a new incentive for local governments to freeze their local property taxes. If local governments agree not to raise local property taxes, they’ll get a direct payment from the state,” Evers said. “This will ensure local partners can still afford to pay for basic and unique local needs alike without property taxes going up.”
Under his proposal, about $1 billion would be directed towards aid for local governments that pause property taxes and direct property tax credits to taxpayers over the biennium.
His proposal would also increase the school levy tax credit by $375 million across the biennium.
Evers is also proposing eliminating taxes on tips — similar to a recent proposal from Republican lawmakers — and eliminating sales tax on electricity and gas for Wisconsin homes and on over-the-counter medications.
“Working to prevent property tax increases is a key part of my plan to lower costs for working families, but we can do more to reduce everyday, out-of-pocket costs for folks across our state,” Evers said.
One major proposal that went unmentioned in Evers’ speech would create a new, higher income tax bracket for high-income residents. The administration’s budget brief said the measure would “ensure millionaires and billionaires in Wisconsin pay their fair share.
Evers’ proposal calls for a new individual tax income tax bracket with a marginal rate of 9.8 % on taxable income above $1 million for single filers and married joint filers, and above $500,000 for married taxpayers who file separately. The current top tax bracket has a 7.65% rate and applies to single filers making $315,310 and joint filers making $420,420.
The proposal would bring Wisconsin an additional $719 million in the first year of the biennium and $578 million in the second.
Expand access to health care
Evers called for his fourth budget in a row to expand Medicaid to cover people up to 138% of the federal poverty level — a proposal that would expand eligibility to approximately 95,800 low-income individuals and allow the state to save $1.9 billion in state money and receive an additional $2.5 billion in federal funds over the biennium.
“Health care should not be a privilege afforded only to the healthy and the wealthy,” Evers said.
Wisconsin is one of 10 states to not expand Medicaid, according to KFF.
The budget also includes a proposal to extend Medicaid coverage for postpartum mothers to a year after the birth of a child. Wisconsin is one of two states that haven’t accepted the federal expansion.
“Nothing against Arkansas, but come on, folks. I’ve proposed this in every budget I’ve introduced as governor. There’s also a bipartisan bill to get it done that almost 90 legislators support,” Evers said. “One legislator should not be able to single-handedly obstruct a bill that’s supported by a supermajority of the Legislature.”
The comments got some of the loudest cheers from Democrats during the whole night.
Evers was alluding to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), who held the policy up last session after the proposal passed the Senate and has said this session that he doesn’t support expanding “welfare” in response to questions about the policy. A bill that would accomplish this, with 23 Senate cosponsors and 67 Assembly cosponsors, recently received a hearing in the state Senate.
Evers also is proposing making Wisconsin the first state to start auditing insurance companies over denying health care claims. The state would provide a corrective action plan for insurers found to have too high denial rates. The plan would also create a “Public Intervenor Office” that would focus on helping Wisconsinites who have claims denied.
The governor said the measure would increase accountability and transparency for health insurance companies.
“If an insurance company is going to deny your health care claim, they should have a darn good reason for it. It’s frustrating when your claim gets denied and it doesn’t seem like anyone can give you a good reason why,” Evers said.
Preparing for Trump administration, potential tariffs
Evers’ budget would leave the state with about $646.3 million at the end of June 2026. Evers said this would be to ensure the state remains in a good financial position into the future and because of the unpredictability of the Trump administration.
“We must continue our work to be reasonable and pragmatic. The needless chaos caused by the federal government in recent weeks has already made preparing a state budget that much more difficult,” Evers said. “We prepared for the worst: popular programs that kids, families, schools, veterans, seniors and communities rely upon every day being drastically cut; resources and investments that Wisconsin is counting on and budgeted for, suddenly stalled or gutted; trade wars with Wisconsin’s largest export partners hurting our ag industries and our economy; costs for working families skyrocketing to the point they can’t make ends meet.”
Evers said that with the unpredictability, it wouldn’t have “been wise or responsible” to spend everything.
Evers also took aim at the Trump administration and the potential impact a trade war and tariffs could have on agriculture one of Wisconsin’s ’s largest industries.
The state, according to the USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture, has 58,521 farms with 13.7 million acres producing $16.7 billion in agricultural products.
Trump threatened to place 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada in January, then paused implementing them for a month. While it was unclear which items would be included, fresh produce could be one category of goods.
“Wisconsin is on its way to becoming a top 10 state for ag exports — we can’t afford to lose our momentum because of tariff wars in Washington,” Evers said.
To help blunt impacts should the tariffs return, Evers proposed creating an agriculture economist position in the state government to help farmers navigate market disruptions and volatility caused by tariffs. He also wants to increase investments in the Wisconsin Initiative for Ag Exports and invest $50 million in the Agricultural Roads Improvement Program, which was created in the last budget to enhance roads, bridges and culverts in rural communities.
Lawmakers’ reaction
With Evers’ budget proposal introduced, the Republican-led Legislature’s 16-member Joint Finance Committee will go to work writing the state budget. The committee will hold some public hearings in the coming weeks.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says Evers’ budget is “dead on arrival.” (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
GOP leaders were quick to throw cold water on Evers’ plan. “We are not going to let Wisconsin become Tim Walz’s Minnesota,” Vos said after the address.
JFC Co-Chair Sen. Howard Marklein said all the policy changes that Evers included would be stripped out and the next budget will be built from the current state budget, “the base.”
“We’re going back to base like we have for the last several budgets. We’re going to build a budget that’s fair, that’s sustainable into the future and doesn’t impact our businesses and our families adversely,” Marklein said.
Marklein also emphasized that the budget surplus is “largely one-time money” and said it should be used to support one-time spending, not ongoing programs.
JFC Co-chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said that Evers budget was “bloated” and included “reckless spending.”
“Just finding ways to grow the government, making up all sorts of new agencies or sub-agencies or offices again tonight,” Born said. “We know we have to toss it to the side.”
Born said that instead, Republicans will focus on finding ways to shrink the size of government and find ways to support families and businesses “without the heavy hand of government.”
Republicans reiterated their intention to cut taxes, which they’ve repeatedly called a major priority.
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said at a GOP press conference that the budget surplus only exists because Evers rejected the majority of their tax cut proposals last session. He called Evers’ tax relief proposals “gimmicky.”
“What we’re going to do is provide broad-based tax cuts to all taxpayers in Wisconsin, and that’s what we’re going to do before we send a budget to him,” LeMahieu said.
Vos and LeMahieu both said that President Donald Trump winning Wisconsin in November is a sign that voters don’t want increased government spending.
“Wisconsin voted for Donald Trump and his agenda to cut spending and find inefficiency in government,” Vos said. “Giving a 20% increase to the bureaucracy is the exact opposite of what people voted for.”
Vos said that Republicans would unveil specific tax cut proposals in the coming weeks.
In contrast to Republicans’ scorn, Democratic lawmakers called on their colleagues to get on board with Evers’ budget.
Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said in a statement that the budget proposal would help “lower everyday costs for working people and improve the lives of residents across our state” and said it would do what is best for kids.
The budget, Hesselbein said, showed Evers’ “commonsense and comprehensive leadership on issues that matter to working people and families.”
“I hope my Republican colleagues put partisanship aside and do what is best for our state,” Hesselbein said.
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) called the proposal “ambitious” and said it would “move our state forward, deliver good things for the people of Wisconsin and set our state up for long-term success.”
Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday decried what he called “irresponsible decisions in Washington” and “needless chaos,” saying his new two-year spending proposal was designed to prepare for drastic cuts from the federal government.
Evers released his budget as he considers seeking a third term in the battleground state that President Donald Trump narrowly won in November.
Evers’ budget is more of a wish list than a roadmap of what will actually become law. Republicans who control the Legislature promised to kill most of his proposals, as they have done on his three previous budgets, before passing it later this year.
“With so much happening in Washington that’s reckless and partisan, in Wisconsin we must continue our work to be reasonable and pragmatic,” Evers told the Legislature and other guests.
He urged lawmakers to leave $500 million available to respond to situations caused by federal decisions.
Here are highlights of Evers’ $119 billion two-year budget, which would increase spending by more than 20%:
Pushing back against Trump on tariffs, higher education
Evers said that Trump’s tariffs — or import taxes — could spark trade wars with Wisconsin’s largest exporters and hurt the state’s $116 billion agriculture industry.
“I’m really concerned President Trump’s 25% tariff tax will not only hurt our farmers, ag industries and our economy but that it will cause prices to go up on everything from gas to groceries,” Evers said.
Evers’ plan calls for creating a new agriculture economist position in state government to help farmers navigate market disruptions caused by tariffs. He’s also calling for increasing funding to help farmers find and increase markets for their products.
Tariffs are just one issue where Evers has fought back against the Trump agenda.
Evers also previously called for a bipartisan solution to immigration, while criticizing Trump’s move to deport people in the country illegally.
And Evers proposed the highest increase in Universities of Wisconsin funding in state history, citing concerns about federal cuts.
“Politicians in Washington don’t know a darn thing about what’s going on at campuses across Wisconsin,” Evers said. “They don’t know how important our UW System has been to our state’s success or how important it is for our future.”
Evers taps into the Republican priority of cutting taxes
Evers has clashed with Republicans over tax cuts in the past, gutting a $3.5 billion tax cut in the last budget, while approving a $2 billion tax cut in 2021. In his new budget, Evers called for cutting a variety of income, sales and property taxes by nearly $2 billion, while increasing the income tax on millionaires by $1.3 billion.
Republicans will almost certainly kill any tax increase. They have said they want to use the state’s entire $4 billion surplus on cutting taxes.
The Evers plan includes eliminating the income tax on tips and doing away with the sales tax on over-the-counter medications. He also proposed reducing income taxes for the middle class and creating a new incentive for local governments not to increase property taxes.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu discounted Evers’ tax cuts as “gimmicky,” called the budget “irresponsible” and said the GOP will deliver an alternative broad tax cut proposal soon.
Fighting water pollution caused by ‘forever chemicals’
Evers and Republicans have long been at odds over how to battle PFAS pollution, even as numerous Wisconsin communities struggle with contamination from the so-called forever chemicals and are forced to drink only bottled water.
Evers is calling for spending $145 million to fight the pollution through additional testing to find the pollution and researching ways to combat it.
PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are man-made chemicals that don’t easily break down in nature. The chemicals have been linked to health problems including low birth weight, cancer and liver disease and have been shown to make vaccines less effective.
Republicans unlikely to go along with Democratic plan
Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said most of Evers’ plan was “dead on arrival” and said the GOP would start from scratch. Republicans have repeatedly rejected his calls to expand Medicaid and legalize recreational marijuana. They are also unlikely to increase funding for K-12 schools and the Universities of Wisconsin budget as much as Evers wants.
Evers also proposed making Wisconsin the first state in the country to audit insurance companies over denying health care claims.
However, Republicans did not summarily reject another major Evers proposal to close the 127-year-old prison in Green Bay as part of a massive overhaul of the state’s correctional system.
Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this report.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers unveiled his 2025-27 biennial state budget proposal. The nearly year-long process is now picking up speed, but the next two-year budget is still far from being finalized.
Over the next few months, the Legislature’s powerful Joint Finance Committee, controlled by Republicans, will make significant changes to Evers’ proposals before approving a final budget bill. During this time, the politically divided executive and legislative branches will wrestle over funding for public schools, child care, higher education, Medicaid expansion and much more.
Another budget surplus expected
Wisconsin ended its 2024 fiscal year with a more-than-expected $4.6 billion budget surplus and is on pace to end the current fiscal year with a $4.2 billion surplus. Republicans want to reduce the surplus by passing income tax cuts before the budget debate begins, while Democrats are urging more funding for things like K-12 education.
The Legislature must pass a budget signed by the governor every two years in order to use up state revenues for government operations. A budget period begins on July 1 of each odd-numbered year and concludes on June 30 of the next odd-numbered year. The last two-year budget totaled nearly $100 billion.
Here’s what this hectic process will look like:
The process involves three main entities that work to both create and pass the budget: the governor, the Legislature and state agencies.
State agencies like the Department of Public Instruction and the Department of Natural Resources calculate their financial needs for the upcoming cycle and submit formal funding requests, which were due to the State Budget Office back in September. The Department of Administration then analyzes and compiles the requests for the governor.
The governor then spends months crafting an executive budget proposal based on these requests, and community listening sessions are held across the state in December. On Tuesday he will give his budget address, which he is legally required to deliver to the new Legislature. Proposed funding for state agencies will be made available.
Soon after that — likely in March — Evers will reveal his capital budget proposal, which includes spending plans for long-term projects like new UW System buildings.
Then, the Joint Finance Committee will review and revise Evers’ budget. Under a divided government since 2019, the committee has scrapped the governor’s proposals and written its own. In 2023, GOP lawmakers began this process by stripping nearly 550 of his proposals.
Lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee typically hold their own community listening sessions in April. The committee typically completes its revisions by the end of May.
Then, lawmakers in both houses of the Legislature — the Republican-controlled Senate and Assembly — have until the end of the fiscal year on June 30 to pass the budget before it heads to Evers’ desk for signing. Here, he can use his controversial partial veto power to remove specific appropriations from the budget bill, also allowing him to delete large sections of language and manipulate words or numbers.
In 2023, Evers made national headlines after he manipulated punctuation in the Legislature’s budget to extend school funding for 402 years. A case challenging the partial veto is pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In the meantime, Republican lawmakers have introduced a constitutional amendment that would strip away the governor’s partial veto power.
If the budget is not signed into law by July 1, the state will continue to operate under the previous budget passed in 2023 until the new one is signed.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Khalyl Mosley listens closely as Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers reads “The Rabbit Listens” when he visited Acelero Learning in Racine, one of three Head Start child care providers he toured in Wisconsin Monday, February 10.(Photo by Mark Hertzberg for Racine County Eye/republished by permission. Not available for republication.)
RACINE — Governor Tony Evers visited Acelero Learning, a Head Start program in Racine, on Monday, observing classrooms and meeting with staff while raising concerns about the potential consequences of federal funding cuts to early childhood education.
His visit was the last of a statewide swing to highlight the importance of the state’s Child Care Counts program and the vital role that affordable child care plays in Wisconsin’s economy.
Evers’ visit followed a week in which a number of Wisconsin Head Start programs reported they were unable to collect grant funds they had been awarded from the federal payment system. Head Start provides early education and child care for children from low-income families, many of whom are working.
On Monday, Jenny Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, said programs that made draws from the federal portal last week that were not fulfilled have now received their funding. “We are waiting to see how things go this week,” Mauer told the Wisconsin Examiner.
During his Racine visit, Evers stressed that programs like Head Start are essential not just for children’s development but also for keeping families economically secure. He warned that without reliable funding, both child care staff and the families they serve could face serious economic hardship.
“This program has been here for 60 years, and there is bipartisan agreement that it’s needed and it works,” Evers told Acelero Learning staff after his tour of the facility. “But there’s no guarantee it’s going to be here much longer if Congress doesn’t act. We’re already seeing delays and funding freezes as they try to decide whether the program works — it does.”
Staff at Acelero Learning shared with Evers how federal funding has helped them recover from pandemic-related setbacks. Initially forced to reduce classroom capacity and staff, the program was able to reopen classrooms and raise wages with federal support.
Still, the threat of further cuts looms large. Federal funding made it possible to pay infant and toddler teachers livable wages, which has been crucial for attracting and retaining qualified candidates.
A growing crisis for families and the economy
The potential closure of Head Start programs could have far-reaching economic consequences. Thousands of child care staff could lose their jobs, while parents—especially those in low-income households—may be forced to leave the workforce if they have to pay for the rising cost of full-pay child care.
Evers framed the issue as both an economic and social crisis, pointing out that child care is often the deciding factor for families with two working parents.
“If mom and dad both want to work, they need reliable, affordable child care. Otherwise, someone is staying home, and that hurts families and businesses,” Evers said.
Economic implications of losing Head Start
A recent report from ReadyNation found that nearly a quarter of parents who lost access to steady child care were fired from their jobs as a result. In rural areas, where Head Start programs represent a significant portion of child care options, the situation is even more dire.
Job loss for child care staff: Head Start programs employ thousands of teachers, aides, and support staff. If the program is defunded, staff could find positions with local school districts, but many could face permanent job loss, further weakening the already fragile child care workforce.
Reduced workforce participation: Parents who rely on affordable child care to stay employed could face having to leave their jobs if they can’t afford full-pay child care, leading to reduced family income and increased financial strain.
A survey by ReadyNation found that 23% of parents reported being fired from their jobs due to the lack of stable child care options.
Increased financial burden on families: Without subsidized care, families could see child care expenses consume a significant portion of their income.
In some areas, Jeff Pertl noted during the governor’s visit, child care costs already represent up to 24% of the median household income, making it difficult for families to manage other essential expenses like rent and food. Pertl is secretary-designess of the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families.
Disproportionate impact on rural communities: A report from the Center for American Progress lists rural Head Start programs as up to 22% of the overall child care supply in rural areas. Losing these programs would worsen an already severe shortage and stifle economic growth.
Slowed economic growth: With fewer parents able to work, local businesses may face a shortage of employees, further slowing regional economic growth.
The loss of reliable child care disrupts productivity, as parents are forced to juggle work and child care or drop out of the workforce entirely.
Wider social impact on children: Beyond economics, cutting Head Start would reduce access to early learning opportunities for tens of thousands of children. These early experiences are crucial for long-term educational success and overall development.
Tanya Wooden from the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association points to the science to support why early childhood education is so important. “Nearly 80% of brain development happens before the age of three, so supporting early childhood education now tells the story for later,” she said. “What do you want the future to look like?”
Evers talks about limited state options
When asked whether the state could reallocate federal funds to fill gaps if Head Start funding disappears, Evers said Wisconsin’s pandemic relief funds have already been exhausted.
“We don’t have any extra federal funds left from the pandemic to shift toward these programs,” he explained. “It’s on Congress to act. They own this issue.”
He encouraged Wisconsin residents to hold their congressional representatives accountable, particularly Republican lawmakers.
“We have several Republican members of Congress in this state. They need to do their jobs and ensure that programs like Head Start continue.”
Pertl joined Evers in calling for swift action, emphasizing the potential fallout if Congress fails to act.
“If Congress defunds Head Start, tens of thousands of children across Wisconsin will lose their child care,” Pertl said. “This crisis is already severe, and that would pour gasoline on the fire. We can’t let that happen.”
Securing Wisconsin’s future
Despite the uncertainty at the federal level, Evers reaffirmed his commitment to supporting early childhood education in Wisconsin.
He has proposed a $480 million budget for the Child Care Counts program over the next two years to stabilize the sector and support working families.
“This is our future,” Evers said. “We can’t abandon 60 years of quality early education. We’re going to have to fight for it every day, but it’s worth it — for the kids, for families, and for our state’s economy.”
Erik Gunn of the Wisconsin Examiner contributed to this report.
Reports republished from Racine County Eye are not available for republishing elsewhere.
Cows at a Dunn County dairy farm. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers announced Wednesday that he’s proposing to spend $80 million through the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) in his 2025-27 state budget to support farmers and Wisconsin’s agricultural industry.
The proposal includes increases in current funding as well as new programs to increase farm efficiency, connect producers with markets and support conservation efforts.
“Our farmers, farm families, and producers have been the backbone of our state for generations,” Evers said in a statement. “Whether it’s been supporting the future research and workforce this industry needs to keep up with the demands of the 21st Century, ensuring rural communities have good roads, broadband, and water infrastructure to be successful, or fighting to make sure farmers have the support and mental health resources they need, I’m proud of our work to support Wisconsin farmers and farm families over the past six years. Our next state budget will continue to build upon our efforts to invest in our farmers, producers, and agricultural industries.”
Evers’ proposal includes spending $15 million to relaunch the Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easements (PACE) Program, initially created in 2009, to help communities keep agricultural land in the hands of working farms.
After a study committee worked before this year’s legislative session on addressing crop damage caused by sandhill cranes — a problem estimated to damage more than $1 million of Wisconsin corn each year — Evers proposed spending $3.7 million to reimburse farmers for up to 50% of the cost of purchasing seed treatment that discourages birds from eating the seeds.
The budget proposal also includes a $30 million appropriation for a program that helps local food banks acquire food from local producers and another $28 million for conservation programs, including $12.7 million for staff in county conservation offices, $10 million for the Soil and Water Resource Management program and an increase of $1 million for the the Producer-Led Watershed Protection Grant Program.
Also on Wednesday, Evers and DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski announced $1 million in grant awards through the producer-led watershed protection program, which helps farmers find ways they can increase water quality.
“The producer-led watershed protection grant program is just one of the tools in the toolbox for Wisconsin producers,” Romanski said. “Farmers are stewards of the land and water and understand the importance of innovation on the farm. It is great to see this program and farmer-led groups being supported, and I applaud the Governor’s leadership on increasing the funding for this valuable program.”
Heather Murray, flanked by state Rep. Alex Joers, left, speaks to reporters about Gov. Tony Evers' budget proposal for $500 million to support child care providers. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
Lawmakers, child care providers and families — and some of their kids — spread out through the state Capitol Tuesday, hoping to persuade lawmakers to support a $500 million state investment in child care in the budget proposal that Gov. Tony Evers will unveil later in February.
“This needs to happen now and it needs to be sustained,” said State Rep. Alex Joers (D-Middleton) at a news conference Tuesday morning in the Wisconsin Assembly parlor.
Heather Murray operates a child care center in Waunakee, north of Madison, that has a licensed capacity for 60 children, but she’s kept the enrollment at half that number because she cannot hire enough child care teachers.
“When I decided to start a center in my community, my goal was to make sure families could go to work and leave their children in a setting where they knew their child would be nurtured, educated and cared for during the most vulnerable time in their lives,” Murray said. “To provide these quality experiences for children, I need staff.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wisconsin was able to use federal funds from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to pay child care providers monthly stipends that helped them bolster wages for employees without having to raise the fees they charge parents.
The Child Care Counts funds, originally $20 million a month, were cut to half that amount in mid-2023. When the Republican majority in the state Legislature declined to pick up the tab for continuing the program in the 2023-25 state budget, Evers, a Democrat, reallocated some federal funds to extend the subsidy program through June 2025.
Murray said Child Care Counts allowed her to increase pay for child care teachers, but she has been unable to afford health benefits for her staff. When the state subsidy was cut in half, she said, she had to raise tuition 9%. Two families left her center because they couldn’t afford the higher rate.
“If these investments for early education do not remain in the governor’s budget, there’s a possibility I will need to raise my tuition by $65 per week per child, to keep my doors open and pay my staff the wages they are currently getting,” Murray said, adding that in surveys, Wisconsin providers have said they will have to raise their fees without government support.
“If providers keep raising tuition, the average working family will be priced out of child care in the state,” Murray said.
Split up into five groups of four each, Murray, parents and the children that accompanied them went to visit the offices of legislators, focusing on the 16 members of the powerful Joint Finance Committee, where the state budget will be written in late spring and early summer.
None of the committee’s Republican members made themselves available, Murray said in an interview a few hours later, although the group had an enjoyable conversation with two of the four Democrats on the committee. The children distributed placards that said “Invest in Us.”
A PFAS advisory sign along Starkweather Creek. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday announced a $145 million budget proposal to address PFAS pollution across the state, an amount that more than doubles the money set aside in the last state budget to address the problem.
In the 2023-25 budget, Evers and lawmakers set aside $125 million in a trust fund to be spent on PFAS remediation, but the governor and Republicans in the Legislature failed to reach an agreement on a bill that would get the money out the door.
Communitiesacross the state have been affected by water contaminated with PFAS, a family of man-made compounds known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down easily in the environment. PFAS have been used to manufacture household goods such as non-stick pans, fast food wrappers and certain types of firefighting foam.
Clean water advocates saw the $125 million appropriation set aside two years ago as a good first step for addressing the problem. Democrats and advocates turned against a bill authored by a group of Green Bay-area Republicans, including Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto), because they believed it would allow polluters to receive funds through its innocent landowner grant program and let them off the hook for damage they caused.
As the debate over that bill took place through much of the last legislative session, residents of communities harmed by PFAS pollution complained that the bill did nothing to address the state’s lack of a standard for the acceptable level of PFAS in groundwater — the source of drinking water for the large portion of residents who use private drinking wells. The state has passed standards for PFAS in surface water and municipal water systems, but a previous effort to set a groundwater standard was halted by Republican appointees on the state Natural Resources Board in 2022.
Another proposed rule from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to set a groundwater standard has stalled because it is estimated to cost more than $10 million to implement. Under a state law known as the REINS Act, any administrative rule with an estimated cost over $10 million must be approved by the full Legislature.
That proposed rule is set to expire March 12, which would require the DNR to start the years-long rulemaking process over again. On Tuesday, Evers announced he has approved a new rulemaking effort to set a groundwater standard.
Under Evers’ budget proposal, the $145 million would be used to create a grant program for municipal water systems addressing PFAS pollution, helping private well owners sample and test their wells for the chemicals, research the destruction and disposal of the chemicals, provide grants to local businesses to reduce or eliminate their use of PFAS and provide bottled water to affected communities. The proposal, according to a news release, would also “protect innocent landowners like farmers who unknowingly spread biosolids containing PFAS,” an issue that Wimberger has cited as his motivation for his inclusion of the language that Democrats objected to in his previous bill.
In a news release, Wimberger responded to Evers’ proposal, saying the governor had finally come around to his view on the innocent landowner provisions while complaining Evers had not provided a counter-proposal to last year’s failed bill.
“It seems Governor Evers has come around to my position and supports my bill that he vetoed last year,” Wimberger said. “His proposals today are an admission of what I’ve been saying for years: we can’t just write the DNR a check for $125 million to fight this problem. We need a strong legal framework to fight PFAS contamination, including language protecting innocent landowners from being treated like polluters. However, I’ve been waiting for months for the Governor to clarify his definition of an ‘innocent landowner,’ and he has refused to respond to my requests. This delay is holding up meaningful solutions to PFAS problems affecting communities across our state. I find myself sitting at the table waiting to have a meaningful conversation on how we can pass a bill to fight PFAS in Wisconsin, and I hope the Governor will join us there soon.”
The language of Evers’ proposal isn’t yet public so it’s unclear how his definition of innocent landowners differs from Wimberger’s bill, but Erik Kanter, government relations director for Clean Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner that exempting farmers who spread PFAS-contaminated biosolids from being held responsible for PFAS pollution was something that had been talked about among lawmakers and interest groups. He added that Clean Wisconsin couldn’t support a PFAS bill unless the innocent landowner definition is narrowed.
Evers said he also wants to expand eligibility for the state’s well compensation grant program, which helps fund the addition of treatment systems or replacement of private wells. The program currently does not apply to private wells used for drinking water. He also said he wants to pass a bill that would exempt the proposed groundwater standard from the REINS Act requirements and prohibit the spreading of biosolids that exceed certain PFAS levels.
“Whether it’s kids in the classroom, families at home, or our farmers and agricultural industries, Wisconsinites’ health and well-being depend on access to clean, safe water,” Evers said in a statement. “Folks should be able to trust that the water coming from their tap is safe, but we know that’s not the case for far too many families and communities. We have a responsibility to ensure Wisconsinites have access to safe, clean drinking water no matter where they live in our state.”
The governor called on lawmakers not to repeat past delays.
“This is an urgent issue, and we cannot afford more years of inaction and obstruction,” Evers said. “I urge Republicans and Democrats to work together to do what’s best for our kids and Wisconsin’s families by investing in critical efforts to improve water quality and get contaminants out of our water in our next state budget.”
Evers’ full budget proposal is set to be released Feb. 18.
Children, parents and child care workers take part in a 2023 demonstration urging lawmakers to include money in the state budget to support child care. Gov. Tony Evers' request was denied that year, but advocates and the governor are trying again. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Child care advocates and Gov. Tony Evers are campaigning once again for a significant infusion of state money to bolster child care, a little more than a year after their last attempt ended in deadlock.
“The cost of putting two young kids in child care costs more than the average rent or mortgage in Wisconsin and exceeds the annual cost of tuition to send two students to the University of Wisconsin-Madison,” Evers told lawmakers in his State of the State message Wednesday evening.
Evers is calling on state lawmakers to put $500 million in the 2025-27 budget “aimed at lowering child care costs, supporting this critical industry, and investing in employer-sponsored child care.”
The governor’s proposal would use state money to renew and make permanent a child care subsidy that began during the COVID-19 pandemic with federal funds. A previous attempt to extend the support ended in a deadlock in late 2023. Without it, however, providers say they will remain in a crisis that has been building over the last year.
A September 2024report by the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty for the state Department of Children and Families found that nearly 60% of providers surveyed said they were caring for fewer children than their capacity allowed. Almost half of those said they weren’t able to take more kids because they lacked staff.
The survey found that if child care providers were able to hire enough educators to fill their empty rooms, at least 33,000 more children in Wisconsin could get child care.
Federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds supported Wisconsin’s Child Care Counts program from 2020 through 2023, granting $20 million a month in subsidies that providers used to raise wages and keep staff without hiking the fees they charged parents.
Evers pressed the Legislature to continue the subsidy program with state funds in the 2023-25 state budget, but the Republican majority rejected their appeals. Evers renewed the proposal along with several others in a special session later in 2023, but the legislators rebuffed him a second time.
Evers subsequentlycobbled together $170 million from other unspent federal funds for a scaled-down version of Child Care Counts that will soon run out.
Ruth Schmidt, executive director, Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. (Courtesy WECA)
“When Child Care Counts was reduced we saw child care tuition increase by almost 15%,” Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA), said in an interview Thursday.
For families whose incomes qualify them for the state’s Wisconsin Shares child care subsidy program, the tuition increases meant that their subsidy would only pay 50% of the market price for child care instead of 75%, Schmidt said, increasing the corresponding copayment for parents.
Without a renewal of Child Care Counts or the equivalent, “some programs may be able to stay open by raising tuition, and some families may be able to afford it,” Schmidt said. “Some programs may raise tuition and lose families, because they’re tapped out.”
During a panel discussion in the Capitol Thursday with lawmakers, providers and parents, Corrine Hendrickson, a New Glarus provider, said that some providers have closed after raising their rates because they’ve lost parents who can no longer afford their services.
“Until we act, we’re going to continue to shed programs,” said Hendrickson, a cofounder of WECAN, an advocacy group for providers and parents. The name stands for Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed.
Providers say that as rates go up, child care is getting out of reach for people who aren’t well-off.
From left, Corrine Hendrickson and Brooke Legler take part in a panel discussion on child care and the 2025-27 Wisconsin state budget in the state Capitol on Thursday (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
“If we invest in our child care system, it will not be a system just for the wealthy any more,” said Brooke Legler, co-owner of a New Glarus child care center, WECAN’s other cofounder and a panel participant.
Child care providers play an important role in young children’s brain development and in helping them learn social skills, Legler and Hendrickson said. For that reason, at state-licensed child care centers teachers must meet certain educational requirements.
“This is not a field where you just want a warm body,” said Legler.
Average wages for child care workers with a high school diploma are 40% less than the average wage for all Wisconsin high school graduates, according to data collected by the Wisconsin Economic Development Commission (WEDC). Early child care workers with a master’s degree have an average salary of less than $36,000 a year, less than half the average for all master’s degree holders in the state.
To hire and keep qualified child care workers requires paying them “living wages,” Legler said. “We need to treat this field with the respect it deserves.”
Participants in the Capitol panel said that despite the failure to enact a support program in 2023, they believe the case is even stronger this year and with this budget.
“This is one of the most challenging policy problems in our state,” said panel participant Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison). “But we know what to do.”
This week, the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association launched a new division focused on policy research and engagement. Schmidt said that was made possible by the organization’s success at raising private support for the new operation.
It was also aimed at ensuring a bright line between that work and the federally funded services that WECA offers child care providers around the state, assisting with licensure, training and other operational requirements, she said.
The new policy arm is preparing research to further document the condition that the child care sector is in.
“First and foremost, I think everyone in the Legislature, the governor’s office and organizations that are working on this issue understand that there’s no backup plan for Child Care Counts,” Schmidt said.
The forthcoming reports from the new policy arm will further underscore the case, she added: “It’s more compelling this time around than it was when we were doing this a year and a half ago now.”
While 2024 may have stolen the show as a pivotal election year, the excitement doesn’t end in 2025. That’s right, it’s a state budget year!
Major funding decisions for health care, public schools and universities, the environment, roads and more will be made in the 2025-27 biennial budget. Not only that — a politically divided Legislature and governor must reach an agreement on spending, which totaled nearly $100 billion in the last two-year budget.
Wisconsin Watch will break it down here in our new series: Budget Bites.
This series will regularly appear in Forward, our Monday morning newsletter. We are excited to provide updates on what’s happening with the state budget as it makes its way through the Legislature. Our reporters will also cover key budget items like public education, child care and housing, and we will be looking to hear from those most affected by these issues.
State agencies have already submitted their funding requests, and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has finished hosting budget listening sessions across the state. His executive budget proposal will make its debut on Feb. 18. The Republican-controlled Legislature will then review it and make significant changes before Evers signs a final budget bill into law, typically within a few days of the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.
Wisconsin ended its 2024 fiscal year with a more-than-expected $4.6 billion budget surplus. Republicans want to reduce the surplus by passing income tax cuts before the budget debate begins, while Democrats are urging more funding for things like K-12 education.
We will be watching the battle over public education funding, which constitutes a third of the state’s general fund budget. Wisconsin held a record number of school referendums this year. Districts, public officials, local taxpayers and public school advocates are speaking out, calling for increases in state aid after approving $4.4 billion in property tax hikes so their local schools can continue to cover operating costs, as well as large projects.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have told Wisconsin Watch that voters aren’t happy about having to increase their own property taxes. But Republican lawmakers have stood their ground in support of private school vouchers and have criticized state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly’s $4 billion ask for public school funding in the upcoming budget. The state Supreme Court will decide whether an Evers veto in the previous budget that guaranteed $325 per pupil annual revenue limit increases for 400 years will stand, which could influence the debate.
Another topic we’re monitoring is child care. A Wisconsin Department of Children and Families child care survey found last year that almost 60% of providers in Wisconsin have unused classroom capacity due to staff shortages. Providers report that if they were able to operate at full capacity, they could accept up to 33,000 more children. The state is losing hundreds of child care providers every year, according to DCF.
In 2023, the powerful Joint Finance Committee, which will review and likely rewrite most of Evers’ budget proposal, voted to end funding for the Child Care Counts program — a pandemic-era subsidy program.
Homelessness is also a growing problem all across Wisconsin, especially in rural areas. It can be largely attributed to rising housing costs following the pandemic and a lack of affordable housing units. Annual homeless counts conducted in January show that the state’s homeless population has increased every year since 2021.
Evers’ previous attempts to fund emergency shelter and housing grants, case management services and workforce housing grants in the state budget have been nixed by Republican lawmakers.
There are likely more battles coming over higher education funding after last year’s restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion hiring. Wisconsin remains an outlier on Medicaid expansion, particularly postpartum coverage. Transportation funding continues to be a challenge as more fuel-efficient vehicles use a system built around the gas tax. Republicans have signaled opposition to the land stewardship program after the Supreme Court limited the finance committee’s power to block purchases. And the state prison system has been plagued by understaffing, inmate deaths, alleged corruption and a problematic juvenile facility.
That’s just a small taste of what’s coming in the budget this year.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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