The Joint Finance Committee convened at 10:17 p.m. Friday — over 12 hours after it was originally scheduled. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Joint Finance Committee convened at 10:17 p.m. Friday — over 12 hours after it was originally scheduled — to vote on a fraction of the budget areas it had originally planned and to release part of the literacy funding that is set to expire next week.  

Legislative leaders have been working behind closed doors over the last week to negotiate with Gov. Tony Evers and work out the details of the state budget as the end of the fiscal year approaches next week. 

Areas of the budget still left to take up are at the center of negotiations including the University of Wisconsin system, where Republicans have considered cuts, and the Department of Children and Families, which is responsible for the state’s Child Care Counts program. Evers has said he would veto a budget without funding for the program, which will run out of federal money soon. The committee also still needs to take up the Department of Health Services, the Department of Transportation, the capital budget and more. 

The committee co-chairs did not take questions from reporters ahead of the meeting, but as the meeting started Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said the other agencies “will be taken up at a later date.” He didn’t specify when that would be.

The budget committee did approve the budget for several state agencies including the Department of Natural Resources, part of the Department of Justice, the Higher Education Aids Board, the Department of Administration and the Tourism Department. Each action the committee did take passed along partisan lines.

Portion of $50 million for literacy released

The committee voted unanimously to release $9 million of the nearly $50 million left in funding for literacy initiatives that was first allocated in the 2023-25 state budget. The majority of the money has been withheld by lawmakers since 2023 and is slated to lapse back into the state’s general fund if not released by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

Lawmakers said action on the other $40 million will be taken soon. 

“This has taken a long time to get here. One of the things that this bill was originally about was to make it so that kids could read. We want to help kids read. We want to give schools the tools to be able to do that,” Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) said. “Unfortunately, it’s taken this Legislature a tremendous amount of time to allocate the funds for that, and ultimately, that’s simply not acceptable.” 

Born said he is glad lawmakers were releasing part of the money Friday and would have further motions on it in the future. He also said the delay on the funding was Evers’ fault. Lawmakers were holding the funding back due to a partial veto Evers exercised on a bill related to the literacy funding. The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday that partial veto was  unconstitutional and restored the original language of the law.

“We’re glad that justice has been done, and we’re here now with the proper accounts and able to do these two separate motions here in the next couple of days in the committee to get this program that was a bipartisan program moving along,” Born said. 

Certain projects funded in DNR budget, Knowles-Nelson not 

Noticeably missing from the Republicans’ Department of Natural Resource motion was funding for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program, which allows the agency to fund the purchase of public land and upkeep of recreational areas.

Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) said lawmakers were missing an opportunity by not funding the program in the budget. 

“There’s a lot of individual pet projects in here that seem to be of interest to individual legislators, but there aren’t a lot of park projects that are of interest to Wisconsinites, particularly Knowles-Nelson,” Andraca said.

The committee approved funding in the budget for an array of projects including $42 million to help with modernization of the Rothschild Dam, $500,000 to go towards the repair of a retaining wall for the Wisconsin Rapids Riverbank project, $2.2 million environmental remediation and redevelopment of Lake Vista Park in Oak Creek, $70,000 for a dredging project in Manitowoc River in the Town of Brillion, $1.75 million for dredging the Deerskin River and $100,000 for assistance with highway flooding in the Town of Norway in Racine County. 

Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc), who is the author of a bill to keep the program going, said lawmakers are working to ensure it handles the program in the best way, which is part of why the funding is not in the budget as of now. 

“We actually have until 30th of June of 2026 to work on this. It’s something that Sen. [Patrick] Testin and I have been working on along with our staff over the last six months. It’s something that is a bipartisan effort. We’ve met with so many different stakeholders, so many different groups, so many fellow legislators on getting this done,” Kurtz said. “We are committed to get it done.” 

Kurtz said that the hearing on the bill was “good” and there will be “a lot more coming up in the future” when it comes to Knowles-Nelson. 

The committee also approved raising nonresident vehicle admission sticker fees, nonresident campsite fees and campsite electricity fees. 

Office of School Safety, VOCA grants get state funding

The Department of Justice’s Office of School Safety will get 13 permanent staff positions and $1.57 million to continue its work. That’s about $700,000 less than what the agency had requested, but is about what Evers had proposed for the office. 

The office serves as a resource for K-12 schools — helping them improve security measures by providing training on crisis prevention and response, grants for safety enhancements, threat assessment training and mental health training. It also operates the Speak Up, Speak Out tipline where students can anonymously report safety concerns.

The Wisconsin DOJ will also get help filling funding gaps for Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grants left by federal funding cuts. 

Wisconsin’s federal allocation for VOCA grants has been cut from $40 million to $13 million. Domestic violence shelters and victim services organizations along with the state DOJ have been navigating the limited funding for over a year. The organizations that receive VOCA grants help people who are the victims of a crime by assisting them with finding housing, providing transportation to and from court appearances and navigating the criminal justice system.

The Republican-approved motion will provide $20 million to cover the federal funding loss. It will also provide $163,500 for two staff positions, which will expire in July 2027. The Wisconsin DOJ had requested an additional $66 million in the budget to make up for the funding gap. 

McGuire noted the funding would be significantly less than what the state agency had requested and would essentially create a two-year program rather than an ongoing one.

“[This] maintains the Legislature’s level of input, but it doesn’t actually maintain the same level of service because of the declining revenues as a result of the federal government,” McGuire said. “While we can’t fix all the things that are the result of what the federal government is doing wrong … this is something that will have an impact on communities across the state. It’s going to have an impact on people who’ve had the worst day and the worst week in the worst month of their life. It’s gonna have an impact on people who have been harmed by violence who have been in toxic, abusive relationships. It’s going to have an impact on people who desperately need services through no fault of their own. These are really vulnerable people and they should receive our support.  

Wisconsin Grants to get slight infusion, UW budget postponed 

The committee did not take up the budget for the University of Wisconsin system. It’s been one of the key issues for debate as Republican lawmakers have considered cuts, while Evers and UW leaders have said the university system needs $855 million in additional funding. Evers has said that in negotiations he and lawmakers were discussing a “positive number.”

The committee did take up the Higher Educational Aids Board, which is the agency responsible for overseeing Wisconsin’s student financial aid system, investing in the Wisconsin Grant Program. The program provides grants to undergraduate Wisconsin residents enrolled at least half-time in degree or certificate programs.

The Wisconsin Grants program would receive an additional $5.6 million in 2025-26 and $11.9 million in 2026-27 under the proposal approved Friday. The UW system, private nonprofit colleges and Wisconsin Technical College System would receive equal dollar increases. It also includes a $75,000 increase for tribal college students.

Evers had proposed 20% increases for the Wisconsin Grants for the state’s public universities, private nonprofit colleges and technical colleges — a total $57.7 million investment.

The Wisconsin Technical Colleges System had requested $10.8 million in each year of the biennium, saying there has been a waitlist for the grants for the first time in 10 years and that list is projected to grow.

The committee also approved $3.5 million in 2026-27 in a supplemental appropriation for emergency medical services training costs to reimburse training and materials costs. 

“Recruiting volunteer EMS personnel is a challenge all over the state of Wisconsin — certainly is in my Senate district,” Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said. “We believe that this will remove one barrier to recruitment of volunteers in our EMS units all across the state.” 

Other portions of the budget approved Friday evening include: 

• $30 million to the Tourism Department for general marketing, and an additional $1 million in the second year of the budget, as well as about $113,000 for state arts organizations and two staff positions and funding for the Office of Outdoor Recreation. The motion includes $5 million for Taliesin Preservation Inc. for restoration projects at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin home located in Spring Green supporting private fundraising for an education center, the restoration of visitor amenities and the stabilization of some buildings.
• $193,700 to the Wisconsin Elections Commission with over $150,000 of that going toward information technology costs and the remaining going towards costs for the Electronic Registration Information Center.
• $20.9 million and 147 positions for 12 months of personnel related costs for a Milwaukee Type 1 facility, which is meant to serve as a portion of the replacement of youth prisons Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, which the state had been working to close for years. The 32-bed facility in Milwaukee has a planned completion date in October 2026.
• The WisconsinEye endowment received $10 million to continue video coverage of the Legislature.
• The committee also approved $11 million for grants to nine of Wisconsin’s 11 federally-recognized tribes. The committee has been excluding two tribes — the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa — from the grant funding for several years due to disputes over roads. The exclusion “strikes me as inappropriate,” McGuire said. He added that it’s “an insult to those people.” 

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Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said his caucus has “no trust” in Evers and his office and said that is the result of vetoes in the past on bills. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Friction between Democrats and Republicans was on display Wednesday as the Senate passed several bills along party lines that create programs, grants and facilities without state funding attached. 

Republicans argued the bills need to be signed before funding is included in the budget to assure them there won’t be any changes made by Gov. Tony Evers using his partial veto, and Democrats said the funding needed to be included to assure them the bills don’t become unfunded mandates.

The first bill — SB 41 — would instruct the Office of School Safety in the Department of Justice to establish a program that allows public and private schools to apply for grants to improve safety in school buildings and provide security training to school staff. The program would sunset in July 2027 under the GOP bill.

The bill initially had $30 million in funding attached, but Republican lawmakers passed an amendment that removed the funding.

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said, while the Senate debated the bill, that his caucus has “no trust” in Evers and his office and said that is the result of vetoes in the past on bills. 

LeMahieu noted three vetoes from last session as example: the veto in the state budget that extended revenue limit increases for schools for 400 years, one on a bill funding a new literacy program and another on a bill meant to help combat PFAS. 

“It is our commitment to you that we are hoping these bills get bipartisan support — they’re bills that are important for Wisconsin,” LeMahieu said. “And if they get through both the houses and the governor signs them. We intend to fund this through the budget process.”  

LeMahieu said that otherwise lawmakers would be funding a program without knowing what it will look like.

“Frankly, there is a trust issue between our caucus and Evers,” LeMahieu said. 

Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said in a statement to the Examiner after the floor session that the GOP-led Legislature has “spent years undermining our constitutional checks and balances by giving themselves outsized influence and control over the policymaking process.” 

“It’s ‘my way or the highway’ for Republicans, who’d rather go as far as passing a Frankenstein budget in pieces than try to work together to get good things done for the people of our state,” Cudaback said. “If Republican lawmakers spent more time working across the aisle in good faith than they do trying to exhaust every avenue to preserve their political power while they still have it, Wisconsinites would be better off.”

Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) said during floor debate that Democrats cannot trust the funding will actually come if the bills are done in that way.

“We’re supposed to trust that bills are going to get passed with no funding because they are going to get funded later,” Smith said, adding that “when there is no funding behind the bill it’s hollow. It means nothing.”

Smith authored an amendment that would have put the funding back. Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) — the author of the bill — voted in favor of every amendment to the bill, including the ones authored by Democrats to provide the funding and in favor of the amendment that he authored that removed the funding from the bill. He made similar votes on other bills that he authored. 

Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) said he has asked Republican lawmakers, including those on the budget committee, about funding for several proposals, but has never gotten a clear answer on funding. 

“Come back and talk to us when you’ve decided. Is it $ 5 [million]? Is it 10 [million]? Is it nothing? Are we actually doing this? If you were bringing this up later with the budget, if we actually had a budget, if we weren’t just waiting for you all to decide whether you’re going to cut the UW budget, if we had a budget in front of us… maybe we could talk,” Spreitzer said. “We have absolutely no idea what you’re doing on the budget. We have no idea if you actually have 17 votes on a budget.” 

With the budget still in process, Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) and Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) have expressed reluctance to support  the budget proposal as approved so far by the Joint Finance Committee. This could leave Senate Republicans — who hold an 18-15 majority — without much wiggle room to pass a budget.

That could give Democrats more leverage. Hesselbein said she is hopeful she can work with Republicans to pass a budget that invests in priorities including public education, higher ed and child care.

“It certainly seems that Sen. Kapenga has been very clear,” Hesselbein said. As for whether Democrats will vote for it, she said, they will “have to see what that budget looks like” but her “door remains open to have those conversations.”

The Senate floor session came after Evers had been urging lawmakers to make sure their bills include funding. 

Evers’ legislative affairs director Zach Madden sent letters to Republican authors of bills last week, which Democrats read during the floor session, expressing Evers’ concern about the lack of funding attached. His office identified 16 bills needing funding.

“While the Governor is supportive of the policy concept the bill aims to accomplish, the bill does not include the necessary funding to implement the bill. Without providing the necessary funding, the legislation is effectively nothing more than an empty promise,” Madden wrote. 

Madden wrote that Evers is requesting the bill be amended to include the funding, the bill be incorporated into the budget bill or that language be added to the bills to “make clear the requirement of the bill is only mandated after adequate funding is appropriated in subsequent legislation specifically for the purpose of the bill.” 

“The Legislature has increasingly tried to pass legislation to create new and unfunded mandates, add additional requirements or policies that require resources to implement, and tie up hundreds of millions of dollars in critical investments in a trust fund or the JFC supplemental fund that never leave Madison to serve the purposes for which they were intended,” Madden wrote. “Due to the Legislature’s inaction, districts still haven’t seen one cent of that funding even as the various policy requirements went into effect.” 

Madden said that lawmakers splitting the bills in the budget from their funding is  “unsustainable and untenable,” and is interfering with the Evers’ ability to exercise his partial veto power. He said the change needs to be made if the bills are going to be signed into law. 

“It is clear the overarching goal of these practices is designed to prevent the Governor from exercising his constitutional veto authority, and it is further apparent the Legislature is now attempting to use this practice to effectively try to pass a biennial budget in pieces.” 

Wanggaard called the letters “intimidating” and “threatening” at one point. 

“That was the intimidating letter that was sent,” Spreitzer said, after reading one of them. “If that was intimidating, then you must not have worked in politics long.” 

The debate became heated with Spreitzer at one point standing up and asking for his name to be removed as an author from one of the bills he had co-sponsored, saying it was an “unfunded mandate.” 

Youth corrections bills

Several of the bills the Senate voted on came out of a study committee held over the summer of 2024 charged with considering legislative solutions to issues with the emergency detention of minors.

One bill — SB 106 — would establish psychiatric residential treatment facilities (PRTF) in Wisconsin. The facilities are meant to offer long-term treatment for children diagnosed with psychiatric conditions, including bipolar disorder, disruptive behavior disorders, substance use disorders, severe emotional disturbance or post-traumatic stress disorder. Lawmakers want to establish the facilities to help prevent minors from being sent out of state when they’re in crisis. 

“We’re willing to vote for this if it’s real, if it has funding,” Smith said. One of the Democrats’ proposed amendments to the bill would have provided DHS with nearly $1.8 million in 2025-26 and 2026-27 for the administration and funding of PRTFs. 

Sen. Eric Wimberger called Democrats’ amendments a “stunt” and said the Wisconsin Supreme Court had changed the rules for how Wisconsin does the budget. 

“If we were to put an appropriation in the bill, he could line-item the whole thing and just take the money,” Wimberger said. “We’re going to maintain the authority of our branch.”  

Wanggaard said that if Evers vetoes the bill it is on him and not on the Legislature. 

Other bills passed by the Senate that Democrats said needed money attached included:

• SB 108, which requires the Department of Health Services (DHS) to develop an online portal that would facilitate sharing of safety plans for a minor in crisis with specific people. Democrats had requested $1 million in funding to be attached.

• SB 111, which establishes that counties are responsible for the transportation of a minor to emergency detention if they approve detention for a minor. Democrats wanted to include open-ended funding, while an amendment was made to provide a specific amount of funding. 
• SB 182, co-authored by Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) instructs the Technical College Board to provide grants to technical colleges that provide emergency medical services courses that train and prepare people for their initial certification or licensure as an emergency medical responder or services practitioner. The bill also instructs the Higher Educational Aids Board to reimburse students or their employers for tuition and materials necessary for someone to qualify for the initial certification or licensure as an emergency medical responder or an emergency medical services practitioner.
• SB 283, which requires the Department of Transportation to establish and administer a public protective services hearing protection program. 

Assembly talk about education, child care plans

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said on Wednesday morning ahead of the Assembly floor session that the proposals from Republican lawmakers aren’t adequate.

“Our public schools are in crisis. Our communities are being forced to go to referendum year after year, our child care industry needs direct investment to keep it afloat, and our universities need essential dollars to provide the best services for our students,” Neubauer said. She added that Republican lawmakers declined to raise special education funding in schools to 60% and are preparing cuts to the University of Wisconsin system.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said his caucus supports cutting $87 million from  the UW system, but wouldn’t say if that’s the final proposal the budget committee will take up. The system has said it needs additional funding and Evers had requested $855 million in his proposal for it. Vos says Republicans want “reform” of the UW for the “broken process that we currently have.” 

“That would have serious consequences for economies across Wisconsin and the future of our state. A cut like that could mean closed campuses — the Platteville, River Falls or Stevens Point Marathon County — at risk,” Neubauer said. “Cuts like that would have consequences for thousands of students, staff, and faculty, and is just unacceptable.” 

Neubauer said that lawmakers need to work with Evers and Democrats to pass a budget that will “ensure the continuity of essential services” in Wisconsin.

“There is still too much political correctness on campus,” Vos said. “We don’t have enough respect for political diversity — heaven forbid, if you’re a student who’s Jewish or has a different viewpoint on campus, where you feel like you’re either targeted or the victim of potential hate.” 

During the last legislative session, Republican leaders leveraged pay raises and funding for building projects to get the UW system to concede on diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Assembly Republicans also announced their plans to address the child care crisis in Wisconsin — again rejecting Democrats’ calls for funding Child Care Counts, which faces a quickly approaching deadline for when funding runs out. Evers had requested a $480 million child care measure and some providers have argued it’s necessary to help keep child care businesses open. 

The outline announced Wednesday includes allowing 16-and 17-year-olds to staff child care facilities as assistants and to count towards staff to child ratios, increasing the number of children that a family provider can have from 8 to 12 and creating a zero-interest loan for child care providers and a 15% tax credit for the business expenses at a child care facility.

Vos said Democrats’ approach to the child care issue wouldn’t be effective. He said Republicans’ plan was “comprehensive” and a “good idea.”

“The plan that they have basically put out is saying that the way we drive down the price of groceries is to pay the owner of the grocery store more, hoping that it will trickle down to cost carrots and eggs less,” Vos said. “What we prefer to do is to give the money to the consumer to the parents to actually make those decisions.” 

Shawn Phetteplace, national campaign director for Main Street Alliance, told the Examiner that the proposal is a sign that Republicans are “deeply unserious” about working to improve the child care crisis. 

“If you look at what the actual crisis is in child care, it is the fact that parents can’t afford it, and that providers do not make enough to be able to make a living and stay and enter the industry. We believe at Main Street Alliance that the solution to this is to invest in the Child Care Counts program and not to do budget gimmicks that have been proven to be failures over the years.” 

Phetteplace said that Vos’ grocery comparison was “oddly” appropriate given that the U.S. already subsidizes farmers. 

“We provide generous subsidies to allow them to have consistent, predictable markets for their goods,” Phetteplace said. “What we’re asking for is to make sure that the child care providers are making enough, and the parents can afford it to ensure that we have a market and child care that works for Wisconsin families. The proposal today by the Speaker and Assembly Republicans is simply an effort to deflect this issue and to make it less politically salient. We believe that is not the right approach, and we urge them to get serious and to negotiate with [Evers].” 

The Joint Finance Committee is scheduled to meet to continue its work on the budget Thursday.

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