Advocates for LGBTQ people and for the environment praised a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling Tuesday that bars the Legislature's Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules from blocking a rule that bans therapists from trying to "convert" a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. (Getty Images)
Gov. Tony Evers along with advocates for the environment and for LGBTQ people as well as Democratic Party lawmakers hailed Tuesday’s state Supreme Court ruling that strips a Wisconsin legislative committee’s power to block state regulations.
Republican leaders in the Legislature — who’ve deployed that power successfully against the Evers administration for the last six years — condemned the Court’s action as consolidating power in the executive branch.
Tuesday’s ruling, written by Chief Justice Jill Karofsky for the Court’s four-member liberal majority, found that state laws giving the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) the power to block state regulations were unconstitutional.
The ruling said that in doing so, the committee was rewriting state laws that affected the rights and duties authorized for executive branch officials.
JCRAR has repeatedly thwarted Evers administration rules since the governor first took office in 2019. Tuesday’s ruling was the result of a lawsuit Evers filed in 2023 challenging the committee’s actions in suspending a rule that bans conversion therapy and indefinitely blocking an update to the state building code.
“The people of Wisconsin expect state government to work — and work better — for them,” Evers said in a statement Tuesday applauding the ruling.
“For years, a small group of Republican lawmakers overstepped their power, holding rules hostage without explanation or action and causing gridlock across state government,” Evers said.
“Today’s Wisconsin Supreme Court decision ensures that no small group of lawmakers has the sole power to stymie the work of state government and go unchecked,” the governor said. “This is an incredibly important decision that will ensure state government can do our important work efficiently and effectively to serve Wisconsinites across our state.”
Conversion therapy ban maintained
The ruling ensured that a rule will continue barring therapists treating LGBTQ people from using conversion therapy to try to change sexual orientation or gender identity.
JCRAR suspended the rule in early 2023 after it was last promulgated. The professional board that had enacted the rule reinstated it in April 2024 after the Legislature concluded its 2023-24 session. Tuesday’s ruling will prevent JCRAR from blocking the rule again.
“The continuous suspensions of the rule represented legislative overreach in the rule-making process and threatened the ability of professions in Wisconsin to create their standards,” said the National Association of Social Workers Wisconsin Chapter (NASW-Wisconsin) in a statement welcoming the Court’s ruling.
The association has sought the conversion therapy ban since 2018.
“After seven and a half years of trying to ban the harmful, discredited and unethical practice of conversion therapy and having the rule repeatedly blocked by the Joint Committee on the Review of Administrative Rules, I am thrilled by this ruling,” said Marc Herstand, the social worker association’s executive director. “Professions have the right to establish their own conduct code, and no social worker should ever engage in the practice of conversion therapy.”
Republicans attack ruling
Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), chair of the committee, criticized the Court’s ruling.
“Today the liberal majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court ended nearly 7 decades of shared governance between the legislature and executive branch agencies aimed at protecting the rights of individuals, families and businesses from the excessive actions of bureaucrats,” Nass said in a statement.
“The liberal junta on the state supreme court has in essence given Evers the powers of a King,” he said.
Nass also attacked Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, charging that in the budget that lawmakers passed on the evening of July 2 and Evers signed shortly after midnight, Vos “gave away the power-of-the-purse-string for the next two years, so our options of defunding bureaucrats are now off the table.”
Vos also released a statement attacking the ruling.
“For decades, case law has upheld the constitutionality of the legislative rules committee to serve as a legitimate check on the powers of the Governor and the overreach of the bureaucracy,” Vos said. “The absence of oversight from elected representatives grows government and allows unelected bureaucrats to increase red-tape behind closed doors.”
Praise for the decision
Democrats, LGBTQ allies and environmental advocates said it was JCRAR’s practices, often shrouded in secrecy — not the rule-making process — that interfered with democracy.
“Today’s court decision is a victory for Wisconsinites, who deserve the freedom to have a government responsive to everyday people, not special interests and right-wing extremists,” said Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison). “This decision sends a clear message: We are working toward making Wisconsin a place where everyone can build a better life.”
Abigail Swetz, executive director of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Fair Wisconsin, called the outcome “a powerful step in the right direction towards ending the harmful practice of conversion therapy,” and credited the advocacy of NASW-Wisconsin and other community members and partner groups.
Swetz also urged lawmakers and the governor to take “an even more powerful step” by passing SB 324, legislation banning conversion therapy in all licensed professions.
In a joint statement the Legislature’s LGBTQ+ caucus called the ruling “a victory against the abusive and discredited practice of ‘conversion therapy’ and a victory for LGBTQ+ people who want to live as their authentic selves.”
Environmental impact
Environmental rules were not at the heart of the Court’s ruling Tuesday, but environmental groups said the outcome would strengthen efforts to enact stronger environmental protections.
“The bottom line is that good environmental rules now face a much easier path to getting to the finish line and becoming law—which is good for the environment and public health,” said Evan Feinauer, an attorney for Clean Wisconsin, in a statement the organization issued.
Clean Wisconsin said JCRAR has blocked regulations on PFAS contamination, nitrates, surface water pollution and remediating contaminated lands.
“Far too often in recent years JCRAR’s ability to object to any proposed rule, for almost any reason, or no stated reason at all, prevented agencies like DNR from doing their jobs,” Feinauer said. “That political gridlock prevented our government from being responsive to environmental and public health challenges.”
In a statement from Midwest Environmental Advocates, executive director Tony Wilkins Gibart said that through JCRAR’s control of the rulemaking process, “small groups of legislators have been able to block the implementation of popular environmental protections passed by the full legislature and signed by the governor.”
MEA filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Wisconsin Conservation Voters and Save Our Water, a group of residents affected by PFAS contamination in and around Marinette and Peshtigo.
When JCRAR blocked a rule in December 2020 that regulated firefighting foam containing PFAS, it perpetuated the discharge of PFAS-contaminated wastewater in the Marinette wastewater treatment plant, MEA said Tuesday.
“Committee vetoes were anti-democratic because they allowed a handful of legislators to make decisions that affect the entire state,” said Jennifer Giegerich, government affairs director of Wisconsin Conservation Voters, said in the MEA statement. “We’re pleased this ruling restores constitutional balance and strengthens accountability for environmental decisions that impact all Wisconsinites.”
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed a new two-year budget in the early morning hours Thursday in a race against Congress to ensure the state gets a federal Medicaid match that it would lose under President Trump’s tax and spending cuts package.
In an extraordinarily rapid succession of events, Evers and Republican lawmakers unveiled a compromise budget deal on Tuesday, the Senate passed it Wednesday night, and hours later just before 1 a.m. on Thursday, the Assembly passed it. Evers signed it in his conference room minutes later.
Democrats who voted against the $111 billion spending bill said it didn’t go far enough in meeting their priorities of increasing funding for schools, child care and expanding Medicaid. But Evers, who hasn’t decided on whether he will seek a third term, hailed the compromise as the best deal that could be reached.
“I believe most Wisconsinites would say that compromise is a good thing because that is how government is supposed to work,” Evers said.
Wisconsin’s budget would affect nearly every person in the battleground state. Income taxes would be cut for working people and retirees by $1.4 billion, sales taxes would be eliminated on residential electric bills, and it would cost more to get a driver’s license, buy license plates and title a vehicle.
Unprecedented speed
There was urgency to pass the budget because of one part that increases an assessment on hospitals to help fund the state’s Medicaid program and hospital provider payments. Medicaid cuts up for final approval this week in Congress cap how much states can get from the federal government through those fees.
The budget would increase Wisconsin’s assessment rate from 1.8% to the federal maximum of 6% to access federal matching funds. But if the federal bill is enacted first, Wisconsin could not raise the fee, putting $1.5 billion in funding for rural hospitals at risk.
In the rush to get done, Republicans took the highly unusual move of bringing the budget up for votes on the same day. In at least the past 50 years, the budget has never passed both houses on the same day.
“We need to get this thing done today so we have the opportunity to access federal funding,” Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said at the start of debate just before 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Governors typically take several days to review and sign the budget after it’s passed, but Evers took just minutes.
Bipartisan compromise
In a concession to the Democratic governor, Republicans also agreed to spend more money on special education services in K-12 schools, subsidize child care costs and give the Universities of Wisconsin its biggest increase in nearly two decades. The plan would also likely result in higher property taxes in many school districts due to no increase in general aid to pay for operations.
The budget called for closing a troubled aging prison in Green Bay by 2029, but Evers used his partial veto to strike that provision. He left in $15 million in money to support the closure, but objected to setting a date without a clear plan for how to get it done.
Republicans need Democratic votes
The Senate passed the budget 19-14, with five Democrats joining with 14 Republicans to approve it. Four Republicans joined 10 Democrats in voting no. The Assembly passed it 59-39 with six Democrats in support. One Republican voted against it.
Democratic senators were brought into budget negotiations in the final days to secure enough votes to pass it.
“It’s a bipartisan deal,” Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein said before the vote. “I think everybody left the table wishing it was different, but this is something everyone has agreed on.”
Democrats said newly drawn legislative maps, which helped them pick up seats in November and narrow the Republican majorities, led to greater compromise this year.
“That gave us leverage, that gave us an opportunity to have a conversation,” Democratic Sen. Mark Spreitzer said.
But still, Spreitzer said the budget “fell far short of what was needed on our priorities.” He and other Democrats said it didn’t go far enough to help fund child care, K-12 schools and higher education, in particular.
Evers vetoes prison closure deadline
The budget called for closing a troubled aging prison in Green Bay by 2029, but Evers used his partial veto to strike that provision. He left in $15 million in money to support planning for the closure, but objected to setting a date without a clear plan for how to get it done.
The governor noted in his veto message that the state has “painful experience” with trying to close prisons without a fleshed-out plan, pointing out that the state’s youth prison remains open even though lawmakers passed a bill to close the facility in 2017.
“Green Bay Correctional Institution should close — on that much, the Legislature and I agree,” Evers wrote. “It is simply not responsible or tenable to require doing so by a deadline absent a plan to actually accomplish that goal by the timeline set.”
Jim Rafter, president of the village of Allouez, the suburb where the prison is located, issued a statement Friday saying the veto shows how broken state government has become.
“The time for studying has come and gone,” he said. “The village of Allouez and our community demand action and the certainty they deserve about when this facility will be closed.”
Governor kills grant as payback for ending stewardship
Evers used his partial veto powers to wipe out provisions in the budget that would have handed the town of Norway in southeastern Wisconsin’s Racine County an annual $100,000 grant to control water runoff from State Highway 36. The governor said in his veto message he eliminated the grant because Republicans refused to extend the Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship Program.
That program provides funding for the state and outside groups to buy land for conservation and recreation. Republicans have complained for years that the program is too expensive and removes too much land from property tax rolls, hurting local municipalities. Funding is set to expire next year. Evers proposed allocating $1 billion to extend the program for another decade, but Republicans eliminated the provision.
Evers accused legislators in his veto message of abandoning their responsibility to continue the program while using the runoff grant to help “the politically connected few.” He did not elaborate.
The town of Norway lies within state Rep. Chuck Wichgers and Sen. Julian Bradley’s districts. Both are Republicans; Bradley sits on the Legislature’s powerful budget-writing committee. Emails to both their offices seeking comment weren’t immediately returned.
Rep. Tony Kurtz and Sen. Pat Testin, both Republicans, introduced a bill last month that would extend the stewardship program through mid-2030, but the measure has yet to get a hearing.
Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this report.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Gov. Tony Evers signed the budget, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 15, at 1:32 a.m. in his office Thursday, less than an hour after the Assembly passed it. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers signed the $111 billion two-year state budget bill into law overnight following a marathon day of overlapping Senate and Assembly floor sessions where the bill received bipartisan support from lawmakers. The budget cuts taxes by $1.3 billion, makes investments in the University of Wisconsin system, boosts public schools’ special education reimbursement rate to 45% and allocates about $330 for child care.
Evers signed the budget, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 15, at 1:32 a.m. in his office Thursday, less than an hour after the Assembly passed it. Just before signing it, he thanked legislative leaders for working with him and said the budget reflects the fair legislative maps that he signed into law in 2024 and that were in place during November elections.
“We need to work together,” Evers said.
As the Assembly and Senate prepared to meet for debate Wednesday evening, Evers was outside of the east wing of the Capitol for Concerts on the Square and telling people not to “drop meatballs” on themselves.
“I was actually chatting with people about tonight outside,” he said. “Many of them were saying ‘How about that? Compromise.’ Compare that to what’s going on in Washington, D.C., and it’s significantly different, so I’m very proud to sign it.”
The passage and signing of the state budget comes two days after the end of the fiscal year.
Following months of negotiations and the announcement of a deal between Evers, Republican legislative leaders and Senate Democrats on Tuesday, the Legislature worked for about 15 hours Wednesday to get the bill over the finish line.
Their goal was to get the bill signed by Evers before the federal reconciliation bill made it to President Donald Trump’s desk.
One reason for the rush was a provision in the state budget that increases a Medicaid-related hospital assessment from 1.8% to 6%, the current federal limit, to supplement the state’s Medicaid resources. It’s estimated to result in over $1 billion in additional Medicaid revenue that will go back to Wisconsin hospitals, but the state’s ability to make that change is set to be restricted under the federal bill.
“We want our health care system to be in good shape, and in order to do that, we’re going to need help from the federal government,” Evers said.
Governor uses partial veto
In addition to signing the budget, Evers exercised his partial veto on 23 items . He had agreed not to partially veto any part of the deal that he came to with lawmakers, but other pieces of the legislation were fair game.
Evers vetoed language that set 2029 for closing Green Bay Correctional Institution. He said he supports closing the facility, but said more needs to be done before a date is set.
“We need more compromise on that. We need to get things going before we start taking people out of Green Bay,” Evers told reporters. “Saying that we’re going to do Green Bay by ’29 doesn’t mean a damn thing.”
He also partially vetoed $750,000 in grants to the Lakeland STAR Academy, a Minocqua charter school that specializes in serving students with autism and diverse learning needs; vetoed language excluding two of Wisconsin’s 11 federally-recognized tribes from a grant program; and vetoed $25,000 for a street project in the village of Warrens.
In addition, he vetoed funds for five projects that would go through the Department of Natural Resource.
“I object to providing an earmark for a natural resources project when the Legislature has abandoned its responsibility to reauthorize and ensure the continuation of the immensely popular Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship program,” Evers stated in his veto message.
Lawmakers said they are still working on legislation to continue the program. “Instead of renewing the program and helping the many, the Legislature has opted to benefit the politically connected few,” Evers wrote. “The Legislature must do its job and renew the Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship program.”
Evers said if he would change anything about the budget, he would have wanted “more in the area of specificity in child care.” The budget will spend about $330 million on child care including $110 million to extend direct payments to providers for another year, $65 million to a new program for providers serving 4-year-olds and $123 million to increase the reimbursement for child care costs for low-income families under the Wisconsin Shares program.
Evers also rejected the calls of some advocates that he veto the entire budget, noting the uncertainty that could result and the funding that could be put at risk by starting from scratch on a budget.
“Failing to reach consensus and vetoing this budget in its entirety was an untenable option, not just for me, but for the people of our state,” Evers wrote in his budget message.
Evers told reporters he wasn’t caught off guard by the number of Democratic lawmakers who didn’t support the budget.
“They have to do what they think is right, and everybody’s kind of looking for what’s going to happen in a couple years, and so I’m not surprised,” Evers said. “But there’s a whole bunch of Republicans that supported it so God bless them.”
Republican lawmakers also said throughout the day that the prospect of losing hospital funding if the budget wasn’t signed ahead of the federal reconciliation bill moving through Congress played a role in wanting to get the budget done as quickly as possible.
“That’s why we’re working really fast to get it done,” Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said during a press conference Wednesday morning. “We will get the bill to the governor’s desk prior to the President [Trump] signing the Big Beautiful bill.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said at a mid-afternoon press conference he expected Evers would sign the legislation late Wednesday or early Thursday.
“It’s about a billion dollars that will be able to flow to an awful lot of rural hospitals, people who are taking care of those with urgent needs,” Vos said. “We want to get it done and we want access to those dollars.”
Senate approves budget 19-14
The Senate took action on the bill first, passing it 19-14 shortly after 9 p.m. Five Democratic senators, including Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton), joined 14 Republicans to pass the bill. Four Republicans, including Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk), voted with the 10 Democrats against the legislation.
Democrats’ votes were needed to pass the budget bill in the Senate after several Republicans expressed concerns about the legislation. Hesselbein was at the negotiating table as a result.
The hospital funding, which led to lawmakers rushing work to pass the budget in one day, was also the top reason that Felzkowski voted against the budget.
Democrats voting yes, in addition to Hesslebein, were Sens. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D- Appleton), Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska), Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) and Jamie Wall (D- Green Bay). Republicans voting no, in addition to Felzkowski were Rob Hutton (R- Brookfield), Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) and Steve Nass (R Whitewater).
Felzkowski said she felt bad because there were good things in the budget, but that she was appalled the budget didn’t address the cost of health care, noting Wisconsin has the fifth highest health care costs in the country.
Felzkowski said that there should be other health care reforms if hospitals were going to get a “windfall” of over $1 billion a year and blamed Evers and hospital lobbyists for opposing those, including additional hospital price transparency measures.
“Gov. Evers, you failed Wisconsin,” Felzkowski said. “You failed constituents. You failed employers.”
Evers rejected the claims, calling them “bulls – – t.”
“The people that work in those hospitals are working real hard,” Evers said. “The last thing we need is to have hospitals going belly up in the middle of the pandemic or something.”
Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), who voted no, mentioned Evers’ previous vetoes of Republican tax cuts and said the current budget bill leveraged those vetoes “to hide the 12% increase in spending” as well as a structural deficit.
“In a time of economic uncertainty, when our spending decisions warrant further restraint and discernment, we need a budget that creates proper spending priorities and puts taxpayers first,” Hutton said.
Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) called the budget an “orgy” of spending in a statement explaining his “no” vote. Implicating fellow Republicans, he criticized lawmakers for spending the state’s $4.3 billion surplus on one-time earmarks and “funding for special interests” instead of larger tax cuts.
Despite the handful of opponents, the majority of Senate Republicans supported the budget, touting the tax cuts that they secured and some of the investments.
LeMahieu called it “a responsible budget that invests in core priorities” and touted the $1.4 billion tax cut.
At the Senate GOP press conference Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) singled out some of the University of Wisconsin system funding that will “put the thumb on the scale…to help some of those campuses like UW Platteville that have had declining enrollment over the last decade.” The budget allocates $53 million for UW system funding, distributed through two formulas: one for declining enrollment and another for the number of credit hours undergraduates complete.
The University of Wisconsin system will also get $840 million for capital projects, $94 million for staff wage increases, $54 million for recruitment and retention and $7 million for virtual mental health services.
Sen. Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac), who voted yes, said the budget didn’t do everything he wanted it to do and included some things he didn’t support.
“I always have, and always will, advocate for a smaller, smarter state government,” he said in a statement. “I’m glad to see that this budget cuts over 300 vacant positions from state government.”
Feyen highlighted his support for special education funding and child care provisions in the document. He said if people want a more “conservative” budget, then Republicans would need to expand their majority and elect a Republican governor in 2026.
The Senate took action on the bill first, passing it 19-14 shortly after 9 p.m. (Photo by Baylor Spears/WIsconsin Examiner)
Senate Democrats, whether they voted for or against the bill, all had a similar message: it doesn’t do enough.
“What we have on the floor today is better than it would have been if Senate Dems had not been at the table, but let me be clear, it is not perfect,” Hesselbein said at a Wednesday morning press conference. She described the budget as a “bipartisan deal” where “everybody left the table wishing it was different, but this is something that we can agree on trying to move forward.”
Asked about the advocates who called for lawmakers to vote against the budget and Evers to veto it, Hesselbein said she knew some people were upset.
“I’m glad they’re making their voices heard,” she said. “That’s why today, we’re going to be fighting for every single Wisconsinite.”
Day of drama delayed
The Senate convened a little after 10:30 a.m., but didn’t pass the bill until after 9 p.m.
The first several hours of debate centered on Senate Democrats’ 25 proposed amendments that ranged from increasing funding for the UW system, K-12 education and child care to expanding postpartum Medicaid. The body got through about half of those amendments before pausing for several hours to caucus.
During the delays, Republicans were working on a 35-page “technical amendment” with several changes, including an added requirement that the UW system conduct an efficiency study on declining student enrollment and future operations.
When the Senate reconvened around 7 p.m., it tabled the rest of the Democratic amendments and started debate on the full budget bill.
Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) said Democrats helped improve the budget but that it l would not allow people in Wisconsin to thrive.
“We understand the urgency to act. Congress is actively restricting our future funding. This budget must move forward, but that does not make it a good budget,” Spreitzer said.
The budget broke the “rule of 17” — the Senate Republicans’ practice of making sure 17 members support a measure before it’s put on the floor — Spreitzer said, and criticized them for not breaking the rule to pass other measures, including postpartum Medicaid expansion or funding for the Knowles-Nelson Conservation program in a bipartisan way. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just get it done today?” he said.
Spreitzer said the Democratic votes on the budget were not an endorsement, but were rather an acknowledgement that it was better than it would have been without bipartisan negotiations. Asserting that the budget didn’t deserve one more vote than was necessary to pass it, he voted against it.
Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said the optimism after Evers introduced his budget in February soon faded and criticized the governor for not fighting harder for his priorities. The result is “grossly” insufficient and “will do more harm than good,” he said
“It’s a ‘failure to fight’ budget,” Larson said. “This budget is cowardice. We all deserve so much better.”
Assembly passes budget 59-39
“We have a guarantee that we’re going to have a transformation budget that works for everyone,” Vos said during the Assembly floor debate. “I assume, like in the state Senate where Democrats and Republicans are going to vote for the budget, we would have the same thing here in the Assembly, if people are serious about saying we want to work together.”
The Assembly concurred in the bill 59-39 at around 12:40 a.m. Seven Democrats voted with Republicans in favor of the bill: Reps. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse), Steve Doyle (D-Onalaska), Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire), Maureen McCarville (D- DeForest), Lori Palmeri (D-Oshkosh), Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D-Milwaukee) and Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby).
One Republican — Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha) — voted with Democrats against the bill. Rep. Calvin Callahan (R-Tomahawk) was not voting.
The Assembly concurred in the bill 59-39. Seven Democrats voted with Republicans in favor of the bill: Reps. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse), Steve Doyle (D-Onalaska), Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire), Maureen McCarville (D- DeForest), Lori Palmeri (D-Oshkosh), Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D-Milwaukee) and Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby). (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Assembly Co-Chair Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said the budget process this time was different from any other that he’s worked on. This is his fourth as co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee.
“We did spend more time working with the governor’s office, the governor and Democrats,” Born said, and called the budget “more conservative” than the state’s 2023-25 budget, to his surprise. He noted that the $1.3 billion tax cut will get signed into law, unlike previous tax cuts that Evers has vetoed.
The budget spends the state’s estimated $4 billion budget surplus down to about $800 million, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The budget also has a 6% increase in general purpose revenue spending and a 12% increase overall.
While Republicans highlighted the bipartisan nature of the budget and measures included, Democrats throughout the day focused on their critiques and the measures that didn’t make it in.
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said at a press conference Wednesday morning that she was appreciative of Evers and Hesselbein for being at the negotiating table and getting what they could — but it wouldn’t be enough to win her vote.
“This proposal is a far cry from the budget that Assembly Democrats would have written,” said Neubauer. She said she was not at the table when the budget deal was made. With a 54-45 majority, Assembly Republicans had the votes to pass the budget without the Democrats, Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) said at a GOP press conference.
Neubauer said that as a consequence, the Assembly Democrats “were not part of those negotiations.”
School districts will get an increase in the special education reimbursement rate from about 32% to 42% in the first year of the biennium and 45% in the second year. It will be the highest that the rate has been in many years, but still lower than the 60% advocates and Democrats wanted.
Democratic lawmakers said that without increases in general aid or schools, districts will have to continue relying on property tax increases to keep up with costs.
“You didn’t set out to stop the cycle of [property tax increase] referendums, you set out to continue it,” Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) said on the Assembly floor. “When 96 of 99 Assembly districts have gone to referendum recently and the statewide demand for public school funding increases isn’t partisan for our constituents, why are we fighting so hard to get Republicans to adequately fund our schools? This isn’t a Democrat versus Republican issue across the state, and it shouldn’t be a Republican versus Democrat issue in the state Capitol.”
The four-member Wisconsin Legislative Socialist Caucus — including Reps. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee), Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) and Francesca Hong (D-Madison) — voted against the bill. In a joint statement they called the agreement between Republican lawmakers, Senate Democrats and Evers a “catastrophic failure of leadership that surrenders to Republican austerity.” They cited the lack of a general school aid increase for public schools, the special education reimbursement not meeting 60% and the failure to expand Medicaid.
“This is not a compromise, this is capitulation,” the caucus said.
Assembly Republicans mostly focused on the parts of the state budget they were appreciative of but also took jabs at Democrats for saying they would vote against the bill.
The Agriculture Roads Improvement Program, which was created in 2023 to support local agricultural road improvement projects statewide, will get an infusion of $150 million.
“That’s a big deal in my community and up in the rural part of the northwest,” Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) said. “It helps our state’s largest industry by improving the quality of our roads to get their products and goods out and inputs and services that farmers need into the field as well.”
Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek) said lawmakers committed to providing tax cuts for seniors and Wisconsinites as a whole through the elimination of the utility tax, a policy Evers had advocated for.
“I know that some people on the other side of the aisle said that people are not seeking tax relief,” Rodriguez said. “Yes, they have been. You just haven’t been listening.”
The Office of School Safety, housed in the Department of Justice, will get 13 permanent staff positions and $1.57 million in the budget.
The office provides training and grants to schools for safety and runs the Speak Up, Speak Out tipline where students can anonymously report safety concerns. Funding for the office became a flashpoint of criticism in the 2023-25 budget debate.
Rep. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville) touted the new budget’s provision for the office and spoke about working with Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul on getting the funding in this year’s budget. He also credited lawmakers on the finance committee for helping to keep the office going.
“The process is ugly, but working together to get something done is a really great thing, so I will defend this budget. I will run on this budget,” Novak said.
Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) said on the floor that lawmakers who voted against the budget shouldn’t take credit for any of its accomplishments in the budget later or attend groundbreakings for projects it funded.“If you vote against this, do not show your face,” Kurtz said. “You didn’t have the courage to vote yes.”
Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republicans who control the state Legislature announced a deal Tuesday on a new two-year budget that cuts income taxes, increases funding for the Universities of Wisconsin despite a threatened cut and raises fees to pay for transportation projects.
The deal in the battleground state, where Evers and Republicans have a long history of not working together, emerged the day after the deadline for enacting a new budget. However, there is no government shutdown in Wisconsin when the budget is late. The Legislature is scheduled to pass it this week.
Evers called the deal “a pro-kid budget that’s a win for Wisconsin’s kids, families and our future.”
Here is what to know about Wisconsin’s budget deal:
Tax cuts
Evers and Republicans agreed to $1.3 billion in income tax cuts largely targeting the middle class. More than 1.6 million people will have their taxes cut an average of $180 annually.
Republicans pushed for cutting taxes given the state’s roughly $4.6 billion budget surplus.
The deal would expand the state’s second lowest income tax bracket and make the first $24,000 of income for people age 67 and over tax-free. It also eliminates the sales tax on electricity, saving taxpayers about $178 million over two years.
Republican legislative leaders praised the deal as providing meaningful tax relief to the middle class and retirees.
“This budget delivers on our two biggest priorities: tax relief for Wisconsin and reforms to make government more accountable,” Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a statement.
And Senate Republican Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu praised it as a compromise that cuts taxes but also stabilizes the state’s child care system and strengthens schools by increasing special education funding.
Higher education
The Universities of Wisconsin would see a $256 million increase over two years, the largest funding increase for the UW system in about two decades. UW Regents had asked for an $855 million overall increase, and Republicans in June floated the possibility of an $87 million cut.
The deal also imposes a faculty minimum workload requirement and calls for an independent study on the system’s future sustainability.
Prison closing
Republicans will be voting on a plan Tuesday to close the 127-year-old Green Bay Correctional Institution by 2029 as Evers proposed. However, it’s not clear what other elements of Evers’ prison overhaul plan Republicans will endorse.
That part of the budget was not under the negotiated deal with Evers, which means he could make changes to it with his powerful partial veto.
Schools, roads and child care get more
There will be $200 million in additional tax revenue to pay for transportation projects, but Evers and Republican leaders did not detail where that money would come from.
The agreement increases funding for child care programs by $330 million over two years, a third of which will be direct payments to providers. The money will replace the Child Care Counts program started during the COVID-19 pandemic. That program, which provides funding to child care providers, expired on Monday. Evers, Democrats and child care advocates have been pushing for additional funding to address child care shortages throughout the state.
Funding for K-12 special education programs will increase by $500 million.
State employees, including at the university, would get a 3% raise this year and a 2% raise next year.
The budget deal was reached after Republicans killed more than 600 Evers proposals in the budget, including legalizing marijuana, expanding Medicaid and raising taxes on millionaires.
Democrats credit redistricting
Democrats said Republicans were forced to compromise because they didn’t have enough votes in the Senate to pass the budget without Democratic support.
Democrats gained seats in November under the new maps drawn by Evers and narrowed the Republican majority in the Senate to 18-15. Two Republican senators said they planned to vote against the budget, resulting in Senate Democrats being brought into the budget negotiations with Evers and Republicans.
“What we are seeing playing out in this budget is the consequence of Wisconsin’s new fairer maps — legislators working together to find compromise and make meaningful progress for the people of Wisconsin,” Democratic Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin said in a statement.
Republican budget committee co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein said, “This budget has involved an awful lot of compromise.”
What’s next?
The deadline for finishing the budget was Monday, but unlike in other states and the federal government there is no shutdown in Wisconsin. Instead, the previous budget remains in place until a new one is signed into law.
The Legislature’s budget-writing committee was voting on the plan Tuesday. The full Legislature is set to meet starting Wednesday to give it final passage.
Once the budget clears the Legislature, Evers will be able to make changes using his expansive partial veto powers. But his office said Evers would not veto any budget provisions that were part of the deal he reached with Republicans.
Evers, who is midway through his second term, has said he will announce his decision on whether he will seek a third term after he has signed the budget. He has 10 business days to take action on the spending plan once the Legislature passes it.
Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this story.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
As the Joint Finance Committee continues to make progress on completing the 2025-27 budget, a recent Marquette Law School poll reveals where voters stand on some of the key sticking points in the budget debate.
JFC plans to meet on the remaining topics, including the UW system, health care and the capital budget, Tuesday morning after delaying Friday’s meeting by 12 hours. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, remains hopeful the budget will be completed this week.
The next budget will not be approved by the July 1 deadline, so current spending levels from the 2023-25 budget will carry over into the next fiscal year.
Republicans are working to make a deal on the state budget that both Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and state senators will support. Senate Republicans have an 18-15 majority, so they can only lose one Republican vote without picking up votes from Democrats. Two Republican senators have voiced discontent with the current budget process.
K-12 funding vs. property taxes
The Marquette poll found 57% of Wisconsin residents would rather see lower property taxes, while 43% support more funding for K-12 schools — a figure that has been trending away from support for public schools over the past decade.
During the last budget cycle, Evers used a creative veto to increase caps on K-12 funding each year. To keep property taxes lower for residents under the so-called 400-year veto, the state would need to increase general state aid for public schools.
But the Republican budget provides no increase to general school aid, which Democrats argue could in turn lead school boards to raise property taxes and continue to rely on referendums to make up for the lack of state funding.
2024 saw a record number of school referendums with over half of all public school districts requesting additional funding to account for inflation and lack of financial support from the state, increasing taxpayers’ property taxes around the state.
Postpartum Medicaid
The poll also found 66% of residents want to see legislation passed to extend Medicaid coverage for new mothers to 12 months, rather than the current coverage of 60 days postpartum.
Evers proposed extending coverage to 12 months in his 2025-27 budget proposal, but JFC has yet to make a decision on this provision. The committee intended to vote Friday but delayed discussion on health services. Co-chair Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said the committee plans to take action on health services, among other programs, at a “later date.”
Evers previously proposed extending coverage to 12 months in his 2021-23 budget request, but Republicans revised the budget to instead request 90 days of postpartum coverage — the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services denied the request, saying it would not approve a waiver for coverage under one year.
While there has been bipartisan support for extending postpartum coverage in the Senate and the Assembly, Vos previously blocked the bill from a hearing. Vos has expressed opposition to expanding welfare in the state.
UW system
Wisconsin voters were divided on support for the Universities of Wisconsin system, with 49% of those surveyed saying the UW system budget should stay the same size, 23% supporting a reduction and 27% supporting an increase.
The UW system has requested a record-high $856 million increase while Republican lawmakers have floated an $87 million cut to the system.
UW system leaders have pointed to Wisconsin’s ranking at 44th in the nation for public funding for universities and the closure of two-year branch campuses. When given this information, 41% supported an increase, while 57% of voters said the UW should still receive the same amount of state funding.
Evers called the potential cut a “nonstarter.”
Other budget-related topics in the poll include:
79% of Wisconsin voters said they were very or somewhat concerned about PFAS contaminating their drinking water, and 33% said the so-called “forever chemicals,” which are found in firefighting foam and nonstick cookware, were the most important issue impacting drinking water. Evers’ budget proposal included $145 million for a PFAS cleanup trust fund — one of 600 items removed by the JFC in early May.
While 71% of voters favor a “major increase” in state funding for special education. JFC increased reimbursement to 35% in year one and 37.5% in year two of the biennium over the current rate of 30%. Evers requested 60% reimbursement.
75% of Wisconsin voters supported comprehensive mental health services in schools. The JFC voted to provide $20 million over the next two years for school mental health programs. Evers proposed $170 million for comprehensive mental health services.
Support for marijuana legalization has continued to increase in the state. The most recent poll shows 67% of residents favor legalizing marijuana; the number of people in favor of legalization has grown nearly 20% since 2013. Evers proposed legalization in his budget, but Republicans removed it from consideration entirely in early May.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The deal comes after months of negotiations (and multiple breakdowns in communication) among Gov. Tony Evers and Senate and Assembly leaders. Gov. Tony Evers delivers his 2025 state budget address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers and Republican and Democratic legislative leaders have reached a tentative agreement on the 2025-27 state budget, agreeing to invest hundreds of millions in the University of Wisconsin system, to create new grant and payment programs for child care facilities, further boost investment in special education and cut $1.3 billion in taxes.
The deal comes after months of negotiations (and multiple breakdowns in communication) among Evers and Senate and Assembly leaders. Each leader highlighted pieces of the deal in statements.
Evers focused on the investments in education and child care, saying it is “a pro-kid budget that’s a win for Wisconsin’s kids, families, and our future.”
“What was at stake is no secret — Republican lawmakers had long indicated this budget would not invest in child care providers, would provide no new increases for our K-12 schools, and would cut nearly $90 million from our UW System. But I never stopped believing we could work together to reach consensus and pass a bipartisan budget, and I’m proud of the months of work that went into getting to where we are today,” he said.
Evers thanked Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) for coming to the table to get a deal done.
“The people of Wisconsin expect their leaders to show up, work hard, and operate in good faith to get good things done,” Evers said. “We’ve shown we’ve been able to get good things done for Wisconsin when people put politics aside and decide to work together to do the right thing. I look forward to signing a bipartisan budget that makes these critical investments in our kids, families, and communities across our state,” Evers said.
Evers has also agreed not to utilize his partial veto power — previous uses of which have been both limited and sustained by the state Supreme Court in recent weeks — on parts of the budget included in the deal.
Vos said in a statement that he appreciated Evers’ willingness to work with lawmakers to find a bipartisan agreement.
“This budget delivers on our two biggest priorities: tax relief for Wisconsin and reforms to make government more accountable,” Vos said. “This deal brings those investments and reforms together and creates a Wisconsin that works for everyone.”
JFC co-chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said legislators worked hard to find compromise while staying “committed to our core principals.”
“We are proud to have worked diligently to craft this budget, listened to the priorities of our constituents and look forward to sending the bill to [Evers] later this week,” Born said.
LeMahieu and budget committee co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said in a statement that tax relief for middle-income Wisconsinites has been their top priority during the entire process.
“This compromise will provide meaningful tax relief for retirees and the middle class, stabilize the child care system without making pandemic-era subsidies permanent and strengthen our schools by reimbursing special education at a higher rate,” the Senate leaders said.
Hesselbein said she has “been at the table fighting hard on behalf of Senate Democrats to help hammer out a bipartisan budget agreement.” Her involvement in negotiations comes amid slim margins in the Senate.
“Remember where we were a week ago: Republicans proposing $87 million in cuts to the UW, a mere 5% increase for special education and no direct payments to child care providers. Elections matter: the fact that Democrats gained four Senate seats and are close to taking the majority means that Senate Democrats were able to make this budget agreement better for the people of Wisconsin,” Hesselbein said.
Last session, the state Senate passed the budget bill with only Republican votes even after a couple of Republicans voted against the proposal. This session the Republican Senate caucus would only be able to lose one vote if it were going to pass the bill with only GOP support, yet, even prior to a deal announcement, a handful of Republican members had publicly expressed concerns about the spending in the bill. Among them was Sen. Steve Nass who, in a statement last week, laid out requirements for a budget that he could support, Sen. Rob Hutton who, in a Friday opinion piece, and Sen. Chris Kapenga who, in a post on Monday, drew their own lines in the sand.
It is unclear how many Senate Democrats will vote for the budget when it comes to the floor this week. Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) earlier told WISN UpFront that the caucus was sticking together and members were “not willing to be picked off one by one.”
The Joint Finance Committee is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday to vote on the rest of the budget before sending it to the full Assembly and Senate.
Child care funding
Child care providers, who have dealt with staffing shortages, high costs and declining state support, will receive a $300 million investment under the deal.
Evers had proposed spending an additional $480 million to continue funding Child Care Counts, a program that was funded using federal pandemic relief. With that funding running out, Evers had said the state should pick up the costs to continue supporting child care providers, while Republican lawmakers said they were opposed to providing checks to facilities.
Under the deal, the Child Care Counts program will be phased out, but the state will invest $110 million to support direct monthly payments and monthly per-child investments to child care facilities for a bridge program. That will continue helping providers to remain in business, cut child care wait lists and lower costs for families. The money will come out of the state’s federal interest earnings.
The state will also invest $66 million in general purpose revenue for a “Get Kids Ready” initiative, which will be targeted at supporting child care providers serving 4-year-olds. This will be the first child care program in state history to be funded solely by general purpose revenue.
Another agreed-upon budget item creates a $28.6 million pilot program to help support child care capacity for infants and toddlers.
Under the program, providers are to receive $200 per month for every infant under 18 months and $100 per month for every toddler between 18 and 30 months.
Other child care investments include a $123 million increase in the Wisconsin Shares program, $2 million over the biennium for the creation of a competitive grant program aimed at supporting child care facilities seeking to expand their capacity and $2 million in Wisconsin’s Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies to help parents find child care and provide training to providers.
The deal also makes changes inspired by solutions that Republican lawmakers have advocated for including creating “large family care centers” that will be allowed to serve up to 12 children and standardizing the minimum age for an assistant teacher in a child care facility at 16.
No cuts for University of Wisconsin system
The University of Wisconsin system will get an investment of more than $256 million in the state budget under the deal — a significant compromise as Evers and the system had requested an $855 million investment, while Republican leaders in recent weeks were considering an $87 million cut to the system. Evers had threatened to veto the budget if it came to his desk with a cut.
The funding includes $100 million to support UW system campuses statewide. Some of the funding would be distributed to campuses according to a formula. Of this, $15.25 million each year would be distributed to campuses with declining enrollment over the last two years and $11.25 million each year through a formula dependent on the number of credit hours undergraduates complete.
There will also be $7 million across the biennium to provide 24/7 virtual telehealth mental health services across UW system campuses, $54 million to support retainment and recruitment of faculty and staff, $94 million to increase wages by 3% in the first year and 2% in the second year for UW system employees and $1 million for UW-Green Bay’s Rising Phoenix Early College High School Program.
The UW system will also be required to maintain the number of positions funded with general purpose revenue and program revenue at January 2024 levels.
The system will also get over $840 million for capital projects. Other parts of the capital budget, including the Green Bay Correctional Institution, were not addressed in the deal.
$194 million for UW-La Crosse to complete the construction of the Prairie Springs Science Center and to demolish Crowley Hall
$189 million for UW-Milwaukee to renovate the Health Sciences and Northwest Quadrant complex
$137 million for UW-Oshkosh to demolish a library facility, renovate and add a brand-new replacement addition
$10 million for UW-Madison to renovate and build a new addition to Dejope Residence Hall
$98 million for UW-Stevens Point to renovate and build a new addition to Sentry Hall
$800,000 for UW-Milwaukee to plan for renovations at Sandburg Hall East Tower
Nearly $32 million for UW-Stout to renovate and build a new addition at its recreation complex
Nearly $19 million for UW-Madison to renovate the Chadbourne Residence Dining Hall, $5 million to plan for relocation and demolition of the UW-Madison Humanities Building and $160 million for renovation of UW-Madison’s Science Hall
K-12 special education funding up to 45%
The deal also makes changes to the budget that Republican lawmakers on the budget committee passed in mid-June, boosting the special education reimbursement rate to 45% by the second year of the budget.
The state’s special education rate was one of the crucial issues discussed by education advocates with many saying a significant investment would help alleviate some of the financial stress schools have faced and ease districts’ reliance on property taxes.
Some advocates had called for a 90% investment, while Evers proposed a 60% rate. Republican lawmakers had initially approved raising the rate to 35% in the first year of the budget and 37.5% in the second year.
Under the deal, the total investment in the special education reimbursement will be over $500 million. The rate will rise to 42% in the first half of the biennium and 45% in the second. It will remain at a sum certain rate, meaning the amount of money allocated is finite and will not increase based on expanding demand.
The budget deal will also invest $30 million for comprehensive school-based mental health services.
Department of Health Services changes
The deal would also increase the hospital assessment rate to help maintain the state’s Medicaid costs. The Wisconsin Hospital Assessment is a levy from certain hospitals that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) uses to fund hospital access payments, hospital supplemental payments and reinvestment in the Wisconsin Medicaid program.
Wisconsin hospitals currently pay an assessment rate of about 1.8% of their net patient revenue to the DHS. That would rise to 6% under the deal with 30% of the funds being retained in the Medical Assistance Trust Fund, which supports Wisconsin’s Medicaid program. The rest of the funds will be used to invest in hospital provider payments and is estimated to provide over $1.1 billion in additional investments in Wisconsin hospitals.
The changes use federal funding to increase hospital reimbursement while decreasing the amount of general program revenue for the Medicaid program.
Evers’ office noted that federal reconciliation legislation proposals have included provisions that would prohibit or limit the policy change in the future, meaning that this budget could be the last for Wisconsin to make these types of changes.
The state will also fund the current Medicaid program under the deal.
The budget will also increase investments in free and charitable clinics by $1.5 million.
The deal does not include Medicaid expansion, which Evers continued to advocate for in the budget but Republican leaders have fervently opposed. It also doesn’t include the smaller postpartum Medicaid extension, which would allow postpartum mothers to receive Medicaid coverage for up to a year after giving birth.
Wisconsin is one of 10 states not to take the Medicaid expansion and one of two not to take the postpartum expansion.
Roads improvement program gets additional investment
A couple of projects created in the last budget to help with road improvement will get additional funding under the deal
The state will allocate $150 million in the Agricultural Roads Improvement Program, which was created in 2023 to support local agricultural road improvement projects statewide. Of the additional funding, $30 million will go towards improving and repairing deteriorating bridges across the state.
According to Evers’ office, the program has so far funded 92 projects across the state.
The deal would also generate nearly $200 million in additional revenue to improve the sustainability of the transportation fund, allocate $14 million for municipal service payments, invest $50 million to continue the Local Projects Program (also created in the 2023 budget), which supports local communities with construction projects that serve statewide public purpose, allocate $15 million for repairs and modifications to the Echo Lake Dam, invest $5 million for the Browns Lake dredging project and invest $30 million for the De Pere railroad bridge.
Under those changes, more people will qualify for the state’s second tax bracket with a rate of 4.4%. For single filers, the qualifying maximum income will increase from $29,370 to $50,480. For joint filers, the maximum will increase from $39,150 to $67,300 and for married separate filers, the maximum will increase from $19,580 to $33,650.
It’s estimated that this will reduce the state’s revenues by $323 million in 2025-26 and $320 million in 2026-27.
The cut will affect 1.6 million Wisconsin taxpayers and provide an average cut of $180. Under Wisconsin’s tax system, people pay the first-bracket tax rate on the portion of their income that falls into that bracket, the second-bracket rate on their income up to the maximum of the second bracket and so on. Thus even high-income earners will get a tax break through adjustments to the lower bracket rates.
The proposal also included an income tax exclusion for retirees. It is estimated to reduce Wisconsin’s revenues by $395 million in 2025-26 and $300 million in 2026-27. This will allow Wisconsinites 67 and older to exclude up to $24,000 for single-filers and $48,000 for married-joint filers of retirement income payments. Those filers will see an average cut of about $1,000 per filer.
The deal will also include the elimination of the sales tax on household utility bills, which is estimated to cost the state about $178 million over the biennium and create a film tax credit similar to one that Republican lawmakers have been advocating for.
During the 2022–23 school year, book bans occurred in 153 districts across 33 states, according to a PEN America report. (Getty Images)
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that Gov. Tony Evers overstepped his partial veto power by exercising it on a bill to implement new literacy programs in the state. Evers scolded the decision, while lawmakers said it upheld the balance of power and that they plan to release the funds now.
The decision reverses a lower court, which ruled Evers hadn’t overstepped his power but held that the court did not have the power to compel the Legislature to release the funds.
The case, Wisconsin State Legislature v. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, involves 2023 Wisconsin Act 100 — one part of a series of measures meant to support the creation of new literacy programs in Wisconsin.
In the 2023-25 budget, lawmakers and Evers approved $50 million for new literacy programs but the funding went into a supplemental fund, meaning it required the Republican-led Joint Finance Committee to approve its release to the Department of Public Instruction before it could be used.
2023 Wisconsin Act 20 created an Office of Literacy within the Department of Public Instruction, which would be responsible for establishing an early literacy coaching program and awarding grants to schools. Act 100 was a separate law to create a way for the agency to expend the money transferred by the Joint Committee on Finance.
Evers exercised a partial veto when signing Act 100 into law to expand it from covering a “literacy coaching program” to covering a “literacy program.” The action led to lawmakers withholding the funding, saying he didn’t have the authority to change the law’s purpose, the argument at the center of their subsequent lawsuit. Evers’ administration had argued the bill was an appropriation, and therefore it was within the governor’s powers to partially veto it, and that the Legislature was not within its right to withhold the money.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the Legislature had not been improperly withholding the funding from DPI and that Act 100 was not an appropriation, so Evers overstepped the boundaries of the veto power given to him in the Wisconsin State Constitution. The decision overturns part of the ruling of a Dane County judge.
The state constitution gives the governor the power to sign or veto bills in full, and a 1930 amendment gave the governor the power to partially veto “appropriation bills.” Wisconsin’s executive partial veto power is one of the strongest in the country, though it has been limited over the last several decades by constitutional amendments and through Court rulings.
The state Supreme Court’s 7-0 ruling Wednesday reigns in Evers’ partial veto power.
Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote in the majority opinion that the bills “did not set aside public funds for a public purpose” but rather “created accounts into which money could be transferred to fund the programs established under Act 19 [the state budget] and Act 20, and it changed other aspects of the ‘literacy coaching program.’”
“The bill, however, does not set aside any public funds; in fact, it expressly states that “$0” was appropriated,” Bradley wrote.
Bradley said it was within the Legislature’s authority to pass the bills in the way that it did, and the Constitution only gives the governor power to “veto in part only appropriation bills — not bills that are closely related to appropriation bills.”
“Although the executive branch may be frustrated by constitutional limits on the governor’s power to veto non-appropriation bills, the judiciary must respect the People’s choice to impose them,” Bradley wrote. “This court has no authority to interfere with the Legislature’s choices to structure legislation in a manner designed to insulate non-appropriation bills from the governor’s exercise of the partial veto power.”
Under the ruling, the law will revert to what it was when the Legislature passed it.
Another recent state Supreme Court ruling upheld another of Evers’ partial vetoes that extended school revenue increases for 400 years, though that decision was split. In that ruling, the Supreme Court said lawmakers could avoid the partial veto power by drafting bills separate from appropriation bills. Republican lawmakers have been considering for years ways to limit Evers’ veto power, and it remains an issue of controversy in the current budget process as lawmakers pass bills without funding attached.
Evers called the Supreme Court decision “unconscionable” and urged lawmakers to release the nearly $50 million.
“Twelve lawmakers should not be able to obstruct resources that were already approved by the full Legislature and the governor to help get our kids up to speed and ensure they have the skills they need to be successful,” Evers said in a statement. “It is unconscionable that the Wisconsin Supreme Court is allowing the Legislature’s indefinite obstruction to go unchecked.”
Evers said he would accept the Court’s decision.
“A basic but fundamental responsibility of governors and executives is to dutifully comply with decisions of a court and the judiciary, even if — and, perhaps most importantly, when — we disagree,” Evers said.
Evers said lawmakers failing to release the funds would be “reckless” and “irresponsible.”
“Stop messing around with our kids and their futures and get it done,” Evers said.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said in a joint statement that the ruling is a “rebuke of the Governor’s attempt to break apart a bipartisan literacy-funding bill and JFC’s constitutional authority to give supplemental funding to agencies.”
“While the Governor wanted to play politics with money earmarked for kids’ reading programs, it is encouraging to see the Court put an end to this game,” Vos and LeMahieu said. “Wisconsin families are the real winners here.”
The end of the state’s fiscal year and deadline for getting the next state budget done is June 30, and if the money isn’t released, it will lapse back into the general fund going back to the state’s $4 billion budget surplus.
Co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) and Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said in a joint statement they plan to release the funds now that the Supreme Court has ruled on the issue
“The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision confirmed what we already knew: the Governor’s partial veto of Act 100 was unconstitutional. We are happy to see that the court ruled in favor of the Legislature as a co-equal branch of government and provided us much needed guidance,” the lawmakers said. “Now that there is clarity, we look forward to releasing the $50 million set aside to support kids struggling to read and help implement these important, bipartisan reforms. It is unfortunate that the Governor’s unconstitutional veto has delayed this funding needed by kids and families across the state.”
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Democrats on the Joint Finance Committee called for lawmakers to meet before Monday to release the funds.
“Unless the Joint Finance Committee acts before Monday, those kids and those school districts will not see another dime. Wisconsinites are tired of Republicans playing politics with our public schools,” Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) said. She noted that Evers had requested an additional $80 million for literacy in his budget proposal, but lawmakers have so far not included that.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Democrats on the Joint Finance Committee including (left to right) Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) and Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) called for lawmakers to meet before Monday to release the funds. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Republican lawmakers have approved the K-12 portion of the state budget, which includes an increase for the state’s special education reimbursement rate from about 32% to 37.5% and a 90% rate for high cost special education in the second year of the budget, along with funding for other priorities. Democrats and education advocates have been critical, saying that the budgeted amounts are not enough to ease the financial burdens public schools are facing.
Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) said Democrats haven’t heard from Republican lawmakers about working on the budget.
“We are ready to work,” Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said. “We would like to see immediately some action on the funding that is going to disappear if it’s not spent by June 30th, particularly the literacy funding. The Joint Finance Committee has also refused to release other funds, including $125 million to combat PFAS and $15 million to support Chippewa Valley hospitals.
Roys said it was “great to hear” that the co-chairs said they would release the funds and that she hopes he “stands by his word.”
State Superintendent Jill Underly also urged the release of the funds, saying part of the compromise struck by Evers and lawmakers was “to provide districts with funding to implement new strategies and change practices” and districts have been working to implement the literacy changes but have yet to see funding.
“It is devastating that despite bipartisan agreement on how to proceed, we have been stuck in neutral,” Underly said.
Peggy Wirtz-Olsen, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), the state’s largest teachers’ union, said in a statement that Republican lawmakers are “bent on using schools as pawns for political payback” and are giving “lip service to literacy, while leaving educators without funding to do our job.”
“On the cusp of another state budget, these same politicians again threaten to underfund public schools instead of working across the aisle for the good of students,” Wirtz-Olsen said, adding that WEAC will continue to advocate for funding from the state.
Assembly Republicans gathered ahead of the floor session to stress the need for bipartisan negotiations and progress on writing the state budget. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
With the state’s budget deadline less than a week away, the Wisconsin State Assembly approved a slate of bills that would create new programs but withheld funding, which Republicans said would come later. Democrats criticized Republicans, saying they couldn’t trust that the funding would actually be passed. The body also approved a pair of bills related to nuclear power and bills that will increase penalties for criminal offenses.
Assembly Republicans gathered ahead of the floor session to stress the need for bipartisan negotiations and progress on writing the state budget.
Budget negotiations fell apart last week for the second time as Senate Republicans walked away from talks with Gov. Tony Evers. Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said in a statement at the time that discussions were “heading in a direction that taxpayers cannot afford.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said during a press conference that he has been in communication with Evers, including on Tuesday morning.
Vos said the discussions about child care funding are “preliminary” with “a lot of details to be worked out.” He said Assembly Republicans remain “steadfast” in its opposition to “writing checks out to providers” but are open to working with Evers on child care.
Evers told reporters Monday he wouldn’t sign a budget if it doesn’t include money for child care.
“Republicans need to get their act together and come back and let’s finish it up,” Evers said.
Asked if he would sign a budget that doesn’t include funding for the state’s Child Care Counts program, Evers said “no.”
Evers has not vetoed a budget in full during his time in office, though he has exercised his partial veto power extensively, rejecting major tax cuts and making changes to extend increases for school revenue – to the great irritation of Republicans.
“I think in the end we’ll be able to find a consensus around that topic,” Vos said about child care funding.
Vos also said Republicans are already taking some action related to child care. Assembly Republicans have announced measures including a 15% tax credit for the business expenses at child care facilities, no-interest loans and allowing 16-year-olds to be counted as full staff as ways of addressing the crisis.
Evers said discussions about the funding for the University of Wisconsin had included “a positive number” though he wouldn’t go into details. Last week, Vos said his caucus intended to cut $87 million from the UW system.
“I know we’re going to make investments in trying to make sure that parents have access to child care, I know we’re going to make a historic investment in special ed funding and I know we’re going to do some reforms at the university. Those are all things that we would love to do as part of a bigger deal,” Vos said, adding that legislators have to make sure any plan can get through both the Assembly and the Senate and then to Evers.
Vos said the most thing thing for Assembly Republicans is getting tax cuts passed and signed by Evers, saying they have learned from previous budgets where tax cuts have been vetoed and other parts of the budget is approved. The budget committee has approved a $1.3 billion tax cut package for the budget bill already.
“It’s better for us to find a compromise,” Vos said. “We’d like to have a guarantee from Gov. Evers that we’re going to get tax cuts signed into law. In exchange, he would like a guarantee that we’re going to have some increases in investments that he cares about.”
Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said he is in communication with Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) working on figuring out when the budget committee will meet next.
“We’re hopeful our Senate colleagues will join us in the next couple of days,” Born said.
The deadline for the budget — and end of the fiscal year — is June 30.
“I think if we are actively talking about a budget in the next couple of days, we can hammer out details in a hurry. That’s the way budgets are built. If people are ready to work, we’ll get things done,” Born said.
Republicans have a slim 18-15 majority in the state Senate, which is leading to some difficulties passing a budget, as their caucus can only lose one vote and still get a budget passed without Democratic votes. Two members — Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) and Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) — have expressed concerns about the budget.
Nass laid out several “benchmarks” that would get him to vote for a budget in a press release Tuesday, including a $3.5 billion one-time tax rebate that would provide $1,600 to joint filers and $800 to individual tax filers, ensuring the new budget doesn’t create a structural deficit and making cuts of $700 million to $1 billion and no more than $1.5 billion in new bonding for buildings.
“I will not support the Vos-Evers budget proposal because it contains too much spending, special interest pork and the creation of a significant structural deficit,” Nass said. “The Vos-Evers budget plan is neither conservative nor taxpayer friendly. However, if passed it would be a big win for the politicians and lobbyists.”
Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), who is a member of the Joint Finance Committee, called Nass’ proposal “reckless” in a social media post and said Republicans are in “disarray.”
“It shows that Republicans do not care about maintaining the essential services that Wisconsinites need and want — public schools, UW, roads, healthcare,” Roys wrote. “We need a budget by June 30 or all of it is at serious risk.”
Bills passed that will rely on funding in budget
The state budget overshadowed debate about several other bills Tuesday as Democrats complained about the lack of funding included in the bills and the lack of trust they have that Republicans will release the funding.
Republicans, however, said the funding would come later in the budget. A similar argument took place in the state Senate last week.
Republicans are splitting the bills from the funding as a way of working around Evers’ veto power. Evers has objected to this. Evers’ legislative affairs director sent letters to Republican lawmakers telling them that if they want their bills to become law, the policy needs to be included in the budget, the funding needs to be attached to the bill or the bill needs to include language that states the policy only goes into effect if there is funding.
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said at the start of session Tuesday that lawmakers have yet to take meaningful action on the budget and that is unacceptable.
“I want to be very clear about what happens in Wisconsin, if we fail to pass a budget before July 1. There will be no new special education, mental health, or nutrition spending for our schools. Project positions will end overnight. There will be cuts to programs like county conservation and tourism, and much more,” Neubauer said. “There are real consequences to not passing a budget on time. It will hurt Wisconsinites, and it really is unacceptable. It does not need to be this way.”
Neubauer said that Republicans are allowing the “extremists” in their party to hold up the budget process when lawmakers should be listening to their constituents. She said the floor session is an example of Republicans ineffectiveness.
“Even as the budget process is in complete chaos, the majority is writing a series of unfunded bills to the floor that they allege would receive funding in the budget,” Neubauer said. “My biggest question right now is, what budget? Republicans do not have a plan to fund these bills. They do not have a plan for our state budget, and they don’t have a plan to move our state forward. Wisconsin deserves better.”
Unfunded bills create ‘bizarre budget’ process
One bill — AB 279 — would instruct the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) to create a talent recruitment grant program meant to lure out-of-state families to relocate to Wisconsin. It passed by voice vote.
Rep. Alex Joers (D-Middleton) said he supports the idea but is concerned about the lack of funding.
“It creates a grant program and there’s no grants, there’s no funding in this bill,” Joers said. “You all need to fund your bills.”
Bill author Rep. David Armstrong (R-Rice Lake) said his bill would help communities market themselves to people looking to relocate. He said he delivered five motions to the committee, but none were included. The committee took action on the WEDC budget earlier this month.
“They told me to get these passed through the House and through the Senate and they’ll come back and find the funding,” Armstrong said, adding that he agrees the program shouldn’t be mandated without the money.
SB 106, which the Assembly concurred in, would provide the framework for the Department of Health Services to certify psychiatric residential treatment facilities. The facilities would provide in-patient care for people under 21 and are aimed at helping keep young people in crisis stay in-state for care.
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) said it is “outrageous” that the bill doesn’t include funding.
“It’s not a workable bill if it’s not funded,” Vining said. “This is irresponsible governing. It is fiscally irresponsible. You guys have got to stop playing games.”
Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston) said the bill is critical so that young people in crisis have support from the state and their families. When it comes to funding, he said that would come later.
“It will be coming up in separate legislation as we negotiate, as this budget moves forward. We are not going to put a bill out without funding, and I don’t appreciate scare tactics like that because this won’t happen, I have a lot of budget motions, and I am working with JFC to get that accomplished,” Snyder said. “Let’s work on getting the foundation built and then finding out the cost and fund it.”
SB 108 would require DHS to develop a portal to facilitate sharing of safety plans for a minor in crisis with specific people. It passed in a voice vote.
SB 283 requires the Department of Transportation to create a public protective services hearing protection program to provide specialized hearing protection devices to law enforcement and fire departments.
Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) said the bill is really good, but won’t work without funding.
“We’ve heard that Joint Finance is going to fund something, and it doesn’t happen,” Emerson said. “$15 million for hospitals in the Chippewa Valley still sitting in Joint Finance. Money for the reading program, still sitting in Joint Finance. Money for PFAS, still sitting in Joint Finance. There’s a lot of broken trust between the people of Wisconsin and that committee, so we need to see that the funding is here. We need to see it right now. Otherwise, I don’t see how we can get a bill like this passed.”
Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha), who is a member of the Joint Finance Committee, said during debate that Republicans have “set the stage for a bizarre budget” by approaching new policy in this way. He said Republicans have previously asked Democrats to trust funding will be released as they’ve allocated funding in a roundabout way, noting that in previous budget cycles lawmakers put money in supplemental funds as a way of requiring additional approval from the budget committee before the money was released.
“I voted for a literacy bill last year — $50 million to help kids read — and that money is still sitting there… We have the ability to appropriate funds, so we could have added funding to all these bills today,” McGuire said.
McGuire said Republicans could be aiming to effectively reduce agencies’ budgets by mandating new projects without including the funding.
“There’s the possibility that this is just a secret way of cutting agencies and of robbing every other program that those agencies administer because that’s what happens if we don’t administer the funds,” McGuire said. “Those agencies have to make the choice between the program that we require them to allocate funds for and other programs… and it makes it harder for people to receive services that they already need.”
Nuclear power bills
The Assembly approved a pair of bills meant to move progress on nuclear energy in Wisconsin, which will now head to Evers’ desk for consideration.
One bill — SB 125 — would require the Public Service Commission to conduct a study to determine potential sites for a nuclear power plant.
The other — SB 124 — would create a Nuclear Power Summit Board in Wisconsin meant to host a summit in Madison to advance nuclear power and fusion energy technology and development and to showcase Wisconsin’s leadership and innovation in the nuclear industry. The summit would need to be held within the month after instruction starts at the new engineering building at UW-Madison, which is supposed to be finished in 2028. The funding for the building was approved by the Legislature and Evers in 2024.
Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde (D-Milwaukee) said he is concerned about Wisconsin’s energy, but the bills as they are are missing some steps.
“Where’s our integrated resource plan? Have we developed one? In other states, they have an integrated resource plan, which lets us know just how much carbon emitting fuel we need to be producing and let’s not produce any more than that,” Moore Omokunde said. “We need to be determining the speed of nuclear energy, the cost, the safety.”
Moore Omokunde said the state should take an “all of the above” approach and consider different types of energy including nuclear, wind and solar to allow Wisconsin to better decide its “energy future.”.
Snyder said that with technological advances, including artificial intelligence, other types of energy such as windmills and solar won’t be able to provide enough energy.
“This is something for the future. If you want the cleanest energy, you have to include nuclear,” Snyder said. “We can’t be living in the past of Chernobyl. Fear does not move us forward.”
Sortwell compared technological advances in energy production to the difference between the Flintstones and the Jetsons. He said lawmakers worked with Evers’ office and the PSC and other stakeholders on the bill. Evers had proposed including $1 million in the state budget to support a nuclear power plant feasibility study.
“The nuclear renaissance is upon us here in Wisconsin and in the United States, and it’s time for everybody else to get on board,” Sortwell said.
New and increased penalties
The Assembly also passed bills that increase — or create — criminal penalties.
Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) spoke in opposition to the slate of bills, saying they will contribute to mass incarceration in Wisconsin.
“Locking people up does not need to be the solution to every single piece of legislation,” Clancy said. “Incarceration has become this Legislature’s default response to every single claim you think is wrong in this state. It’s incredibly harmful and it doesn’t work.”
AB 26 would make it a Class H felony to threaten or commit battery against a juror or a member of a juror’s family.
While talking about this bill, Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) said he was thankful Clancy was in the “minority of the minority of the minority” on the issue. He said it would help protect family members of jurors.
“While you may as an individual juror not feel particularly at risk yourself, maybe you’re concerned about your family being threatened, and so this is making sure once again that we have a justice system that is deciding on the merits of the case,” Sortwell said.
AB 35 would change current law that says candidates can’t remove their names from ballots unless they are dead. The bill comes in reaction to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. trying unsuccessfully to remove himself from the Wisconsin presidential ballot in 2024 after he dropped out and endorsed President Donald Trump.
Under the bill, candidates withdrawing from national or statewide races would have to pay the Wisconsin Elections Commission a $1,000 fee — or $250 for a non-statewide office.
The bill would also make it a Class G felony with a maximum penalty of up to $25,000 and imprisonment for up to 10 years if someone intentionally makes or files a false statement withdrawing a person’s candidacy.
AB 53 would also make it a Class H felony to cause or threaten to cause bodily harm to a community service officer in response to an action the CSO took in an official capacity. It is currently a class A misdemeanor to cause bodily harm to another person.
AB 65 would make it a Class F felony with a maximum penalty of $25,000 and 12 years and 6 months in prison if someone intentionally enters another person’s home without consent with intent to commit battery.
Children watch popcorn pop at their child care program operated by the Dodge County YMCA. (Photo courtesy of the Dodge County YMCA)
For months child care providers and their allies campaigning for direct financial support from Wisconsin lawmakers have highlighted employers and the economy as central to their pitch.
Child care providers are “the workforce behind the workforce” in one of the rallying slogans of the provider-parent coalition Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN).
Employers and business owners themselves, however, have largely stayed in the background — from time to time offering testimonials about their employees’ need for child care, but rarely weighing in on policy alternatives.
Last week more than 75 business leaders broke that pattern, sending a letter to members of the Wisconsin Legislature.
“Wisconsin’s lingering child care crisis … cannot go unaddressed any longer by state legislators, because Wisconsin remains at a workforce crossroads that presents significant, pressing challenges for businesses and the economic vitality of the state,” the group wrote.
“We therefore ask you to advance a significant long-term state investment in child care in the 2025-27 state budget because inaction will further shutter child care programs and continue to hamper efforts to stabilize and grow Wisconsin’s workforce.”
The letter was distributed with the help of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA), which provides advocacy and professional services for child care providers and also conducts policy research.
Campaign continues for direct subsidy
The letter embraces what Gov. Tony Evers, child care providers and their allies have been seeking in the 2025-27 Wisconsin budget this year: A direct state subsidy for child care providers. Evers and providers have warned that without that kind of support there’s likely to be a drastic shutdown of child care centers across the state in the coming months.
“Child care programs operate on razor-thin margins with budgets balanced on parent fees, which, despite being costly for families, do not cover the full cost of programs providing high-quality care,” the letter states.
“As employers, we have explored and implemented different local initiatives to help grow access to care,” it adds. Nevertheless, “those solutions are limited and must be complemented with a long-term, significant investment of state revenue.”
Tracy Propst, the executive director of the Beaver Dam Chamber of Commerce, helped organize support for and signed the business letter.
“I really do believe child care is part of an economic strategy,” Propst told the Wisconsin Examiner. “If you don’t have access to abundant and economical child care, you are going to lose workforce.”
Mary Vogl-Rauscher, a human resources consultant in Beaver Dam, joined the letter along with businesses she works with.
Prospective fee hikes are “enough of an increase, if we don’t get the subsidies, to take people out of the workforce,” Vogl-Rauscher said. “From an employer perspective and a business perspective, if [the cost of care] goes up and we don’t continue with the state subsidies, it’s going to make an even bigger economic impact.”
Vogl-Rauscher is active in the local and state chapters of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and organized a community discussion of the issue this spring.
Propst and Vogl-Rauscher both say they’ve sought to persuade their local Assembly member, state Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam), the Joint Finance Committee’s co-chair, that the lawmakers should add the subsidy program into the budget.
“I’ve had conversations with Mark,” Propst said, adding that he told her that the committee was “doing something,” although not what she had asked for. “He will listen to his constituents,” she said.
Middle-class squeeze
Both Propst and Vogl-Rauscher said their conversations with Dirk Langfoss, CEO of the Dodge County YMCA and a board member at the Beaver Dam chamber, were instrumental in clarifying the problem.
The Dodge County Y has the largest child care program in the county. Langfoss told the Wisconsin Examiner that competition for employees with other businesses has produced “upward pressures” on wages. The average weekly rate for infant and 1-year-old care is $253 — which adds up to $13,000 for all 52 weeks in the year. Rates are lower for older age groups.
“The middle-income families are the ones that are getting squeezed,” he said, with some telling him now that “they are strapped.”
If subsidies end entirely and the Y has to raise its rates, “those families are going to have to make some very hard decisions,” Langfoss added.
Propst views a direct investment now as a step toward something more comprehensive. “It’s really about child care stabilization,” she said, allowing providers to get their footing.
She also considers the immediate situation to be urgent, and fears the urgency hasn’t gotten through to many people.
“I just think this has snuck up on the businesses,” Propst said. “Like they weren’t aware this is happening, and here we are. And they don’t realize the ramifications of what’s going to happen — and that’s child care closures, child care price increases, and we’re not going to have enough providers.”
Direct investment divisions persist
While child care advocates have been arguing for a direct investment for years, the argument hasn’t fully caught on with the broader public or in the business community.
Among business leaders and the public, “there is a general recognition that child care is essential for workers, especially those that are taking care of young children,” said David Celata, vice president of policy and research for the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. But the true cost of care and why most working families can’t afford it is “an incredibly complex issue,” Celata told the Wisconsin Examiner.
“The numbers really don’t add up until we recognize that there is a social and economic good related to child care that we are failing collectively to truly maximize,” he said. “That then requires some sort of a public investment to strengthen the infrastructure of our child care sector.”
In Wisconsin the campaign for a state child care subsidy has been underway since the 2023-25 budget after monthly grants from federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds helped child care providers raise wages without having to increase the fees families paid.
The Legislature’s Republican majority turned aside attempts to continue the subsidy program, Child Care Counts, with state money in the 2023-25 budget. Evers subsequently redirected other federal funds to extend the program at reduced rates through the middle of 2025.
The last of those funds will run out by early July. Asurvey that the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Povertyreleased in April found that as many as one in four child care providers said they might shut down without the continued support. Anywhere from half to two-thirds of programs forecast fee increases.
Evers put a $480 million proposal for a state-funded Child Care Counts program in his 2025-27 budget. Republicans on the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee removed it from the budget along with more than 600 other proposals Evers included before beginning work on their own version of the document.
After visiting a child care center in Waukesha County on Monday to highlight his subsidy proposal, Everstold reporters that he would not sign a budget this year without direct child care support. Evers said the provision was part of his ongoing budget negotiations with the Legislature’s GOP leaders.
Direct funding is still a sticking point, however.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) told reporters Tuesday that Republicans are open to working with Evers on child care but remain firmly opposed to “writing checks out to providers.”
Republicans on the Legislature’s budget-writing committee canceled last Thursday’s Joint Finance Committee meeting after two GOP senators voiced discontent and Gov. Tony Evers called a possible $87 million cut to the Universities of Wisconsin system a “nonstarter.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and JFC co-chair Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said they had chosen to return to negotiations with Evers to guarantee tax cuts in the final budget and shared hope that Senate Republicans “will come back to the table to finish fighting for these reforms.”
Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, and Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, indicated they are unlikely to vote for the budget in its current form.
Senate Republicans have an 18-15 majority, so they can only lose one Republican vote without picking up a vote from a Democrat. To pass the budget, both the Assembly and the Senate must vote for it, and Evers must sign off. Evers can use his partial line-item veto or veto the whole budget.
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, said conversations were heading in an unaffordable direction and Senate Republicans were ready to pass a budget “that cuts taxes and responsibly invests in core priorities.”
Negotiations initially broke down on June 4 when Republicans walked out of conversations with the Evers administration, failing to agree on tax cuts and education spending.
With delays and cancellations in approving the budget, it has become increasingly likely the next biennial budget will not be approved by the July 1 deadline. If it is not approved by the end of the month, the 2023-25 budget would carry over into the next fiscal year.
That’s not entirely unusual, though the latest Evers signed his first three budgets was July 8. In 2017, under former Gov. Scott Walker, the budget was not signed into law until September.
Democrats said if the budget is not approved before July 1, local school districts and municipalities will have to delay hiring because they won’t know how much funding they will receive from the state.
Also, the looming federal budget puts Wisconsin at risk of losing out on federal dollars and programs if a budget is not passed soon.
“We see a horrible budget bill being debated in Washington that could contain really, really significant cuts for services that all Wisconsinites rely on, thinking about, obviously health care, but certainly things like education, transportation, natural resources, agriculture,” Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, said.
Rep. Tip McGuire, D-Kenosha, also criticized Republicans for “allowing extremists within their caucus to hijack this budget and go against the will of the people.”
Vos told reporters Wednesday afternoon the Republican caucus supports an $87 million cut to the UW system budget, yet an Evers spokesperson said any cut to the UW system would be a “nonstarter.”
The UW system requested a record $856 million funding increase, which was scheduled for action on Tuesday and then removed from the agenda. Last budget cycle, Republicans withheld pay raises from the system and approval of UW-Madison’s new engineering building, eventually signing a deal to freeze diversity, equity and inclusion spending in exchange for the release of the funding.
Vos signaled the potential cuts to the UW system are also about leverage over campus culture. The Trump administration has similarly threatened to withhold and ultimately cut federal grants from universities unless they comply with demands aimed at reshaping campus culture and combating antisemitism.
“It’s not about cutting money. What it is, is about getting some kind of reforms to the broken process that we currently have,” Vos said. “There is still too much political correctness on campus. We don’t have enough respect for political diversity.”
Democrats decry prison budget as ‘kicking the can down the road’
The budget committee voted 11-3 along party lines to increase funding for prisons by $148 million over the biennium, though Evers had requested $185 million.
Some of the key differences included the Legislature providing about $20 million less for community reentry programs and 50 fewer contract beds in county jails than Evers proposed.
During the budget committee meeting, Democrats accused their colleagues of “kicking the can down the road” by not funding programs that reduce recidivism in the approved motion.
Republicans said that their budget motion is “realistic” and that it expands on “huge improvements” in prison guard vacancies made by the 2023-25 budget.
Upper middle income earners get bulk of GOP tax cut
The Wisconsin Republican tax cut plan will give middle to upper income earners the largest tax cut, while taxpayers earning under $40,000 will receive less than 1% of the total, according to a report last week from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Wisconsin taxpayers earning $100,000 to $200,000 would receive 58.5% of the tax decrease, with an average cut of $242 for tax year 2025. In Wisconsin, those making between $100,000 and $200,000 account for a third of tax filers, according to the fiscal bureau.
Some lost federal disaster assistance gets state support
The committee passed a motion to provide additional funding for the Department of Military Affairs for emergency planning — a sign of some bipartisan agreement on alleviating the effects of federal funding cuts.
While the bill included most of Evers’ requests, the approved motion, introduced by Republicans, did not include Emergency Management Programs Sustainment funding, which would have replaced $1.13 million over the biennium in revenue lost as a result of federal cuts.
Previously, FEMA awarded $54 million in grants to Wisconsin to address environmental risks in the state, but federal cuts have canceled $43 million, reducing federal funding for natural disaster prevention by nearly 80%.
The measure adopted Tuesday with bipartisan support would allocate $2 million in 2025-26 for pre-disaster flood resilience grants and $3 million for state disaster assistance programs. The funding would prepare Wisconsin for disasters and provide assistance to mitigate consequences if a natural disaster were to occur.
Republicans add more assistant district attorneys
The budget committee voted 11-3 to add 42 additional assistant district attorneys in counties across the state, including seven positions in Brown, six positions in Waukesha and four positions in Fond du Lac.
Each county would now have staffing levels at approximately 80%, according to a workload analysis from the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association. Currently, 15 counties are below 60% of the staffing level suggested by the WDAA workload analysis, and 33 of 71 counties are below 70%.
The state has been struggling with a shortage of rural attorneys for several years, an issue Larry J. Martin, the executive director for the State Bar of Wisconsin, has called “a crisis that policymakers in our state Capitol must address.”
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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.
“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.”
Assembly Republicans 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. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
“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.
“We all have responsibility when it comes to toning down the political rhetoric we use each day,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Legislature held its first floor sessions after the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband and the near-fatal shootings of another state lawmaker and his wife. Leaders said that political violence is unacceptable and expressed willingness to discuss increasing security at the Capitol and for Wisconsin public officials.
Police have identified 57-year-old Vance Luther Boelter as the suspected gunman in the assassination of Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor House leader Melissa Hortman and her husband over the weekend. He is also the suspect in the shooting of Sen. John Hoffman and his wife. Boelter was apprehended Monday and faces federal and state murder charges.
Wisconsin lawmakers had requested increased security in the Wisconsin State Capitol following the shootings and ahead of Wednesday’s floor sessions.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) told reporters that they made the right decision in requesting the increased security and said his caucus would be open to talking about new security proposals but it isn’t clear those are the right actions to take.
“Whenever an incident like this happens the most important thing that we can do is to take a breath and look at what’s going to be the actual best potential solution as opposed to a knee-jerk reaction,” Vos said.
Vos added that the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) believes the Minnesota case may be one of the first political assassinations of a state lawmaker in the nation’s history and also noted that the “scariest” thing is that the shootings happened at the lawmakers’ homes.
“The idea of trying to make the Capitol into a fortress, I don’t know if that necessarily would even have ever done anything in this situation to help the awful situation that happened in Minnesota,” Vos said. “We’re going to talk about it as a caucus. I think we made the right decision to increase security here.”
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) echoed Democrats at another presser, where lawmakers didn’t take questions.
“Political violence is never the answer. We need to solve our differences through legislation,” LeMahieu said.
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) spoke about the attacks at a joint press conference ahead of Wednesday’s floor sessions. Boelter had a list of dozens of people including elected officials and abortion providers in his vehicle, according to police. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11 Democratic lawmakers were found on that list.
Neubauer thanked law enforcement and her colleagues in leadership for coming together in a joint statement over the weekend to say that “no one should ever fear for their lives because of their service to their communities.” She said she and Hortman “shared a strong commitment to service and our communities” and that her heart is broken for Hortman’s family.
“I would also like to ask everyone to remember that these threats, even after the suspect has been apprehended, have had real impacts on the mental health of everyone affected, and we ask that you please respect the duress members and their families have been put through and extend understanding to them,” Neubauer said.
Hesselbein said that differences should be settled with debate, not political violence.
“In addition to inflicting physical harm, political violence is meant to silence opposition. It is meant to discourage participation in our democracy by residents, by people thinking of running, by public officials. No one should fear for their lives because of their service to the community or because of their involvement in public life,” Hesselbein said.
“I feel safe in our Capitol building. I think we’re going to continue to have conversations to make sure that everyone else feels safe as well,” Hesselbein said.
Neubauer said Democrats are open to longer term conversations about security measures in the Capitol.
Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) has suggested that Wisconsin should install metal detectors in the Capitol and should ban members of the public from carrying guns inside the building.
State lawmakers have passed bipartisan lawsin the past to help protect judges. While debating a bill — SB 169 — that would make a minor change to one of those laws enacted last year that provides privacy protections for judicial officers when there is a written request, there was some discussion about extending additional privacy protections for public officials.
Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said the bill speaks to keeping judges safe in their homes and said she hoped her colleagues would consider joining her in working on a proposal to extend privacy protections to anyone who serves the public in a public-facing role.
“There are many people who serve the public in an important capacity, judges are certainly one, but legislators as well, constitutional officers… who are now in this world of high risk,” Roys said.
Vos earlier told reporters that the jobs of judges and state lawmakers are a little different, which could influence conversations about additional privacy protections for public officials in various roles.
“State legislators are just so much more accessible, which, frankly, is like our superpower. We are the most accessible and the most responsive to the public because we are constantly at events, we are meeting with people, we are doing town halls. We are doing all the interactions that you want in a healthy democracy,” Vos said.
During the Assembly Floor Session, Vos spoke about knowing Hortman, saying he met her through his work with the National Conference of State Legislatures and called Hortman “funny and engaging and incredibly smart.”
Hortman was elected to the Minnesota State Legislature in 2004. “Over the next two decades,” Vos said, “she became a formidable force in state politics on her intelligence and her effectiveness.”
“We all have responsibility when it comes to toning down the political rhetoric we use each day,” Vos said. “All political parties suffer political intimidation, name calling and the risk of physical violence, and we owe it to those who elect us to be role models for civil discourse.”
The Senate and Assembly both held moments of silence for the Hortmans.
Vos and Hesselbein both read portions of the statement put out by the Hortmans’ children, Sophie and Colin Hortman: “Hope and resilience are the enemy of fear. Our parents lived their lives with immense dedication to their fellow humans. This tragedy must become a moment for us to come together. Hold your loved ones a little closer. Love your neighbors. Treat each other with kindness and respect. The best way to honor our parents’ memory is to do something, whether big or small, to make our community just a little better for someone else.”
Wisconsin State Capitol (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
Wisconsin lawmakers have requested additional security ahead of this week’s floor session in light of the attacks over the weekend on Minnesota state lawmakers, including the assassination of Democratic–Farmer–Labor House leader Melissa Hortman and her husband and the shooting of Sen. John Hoffman and his wife.
The police have identified 57-year-old Vance Luther Boelter as the suspected gunman. Boelter had a list in his car of dozens of people including elected officials and abortion providers, according to police. Boelter was apprehended Monday and faces federal and state murder charges.
All three of Wisconsin’s federal Democratic lawmakers and 11 state lawmakers were identified as being named in documents left behind by Boelter.
According to Politico, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin spokesperson Eli Rosen said Monday she was notified by law enforcement she was included on the alleged shooter’s list of names and “is grateful for law enforcement’s swift action to keep the community safe.”
Rosen also said Baldwin “remains focused on the things that matter most here: honoring the legacy and life of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, praying for the other victims who are fighting for their lives, and condemning this abhorrent, senseless political violence.”
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore wrote on social media that she was aware her name was on one of the documents recovered from the vehicle of the suspect in Minnesota.
“I thank law enforcement for their swift notification and subsequent response,” Moore said. “My prayers are with all those impacted by these horrific acts.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan has said he is “appreciative that law enforcement apprehended the suspect” in the shooting and he had heard that his name was in the Minnesota shooting suspect’s notebooks.
“I will not back down in the face of terror, however, we as elected officials must do better to lower the temperature,” Pocan said. “That said, my schedule remains unchanged.”
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11 Wisconsin state lawmakers were named in lists left behind by Boelter.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) has requested additional security for the Assembly floor session this week, according to Vos’ communications director Luke Wolff. Vos’ office declined to provide additional details about the new security plan Tuesday afternoon.
The Wisconsin State Senate Sergeant at Arms Timothy La Sage announced Monday a series of enhanced security protocols at the State Capitol being taken in coordination with Capitol police, including “increased situational awareness practices, strengthened access control points, and updated emergency response protocols.” Specific security details are not being disclosed publicly, according to the statement.
The steps are meant to provide a secure and responsive environment and maintain public accessibility and civic engagement.
“The safety of those who serve, work, and visit the Capitol is my top priority,” La Sage said. “We remain vigilant and prepared. These enhancements are part of our ongoing commitment to security and public service.”
The week prior to the Minnesota attacks, Wisconsin Democrats on the budget committee spoke about increasing political violence across the country and, specifically, the targeting of judges and justices as they defended a budget request to add specific security for the state Supreme Court. State lawmakers have passed bipartisan laws in the past to help protect judges. Republicans on the committee, however, rejected this proposal, saying that the Capitol police is doing a good job and there isn’t a need for separate security.
At a press conference following the budget committee’s Tuesday meeting, Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said she thinks increasing security at the Capitol is part of a “broader conversation that state legislatures are having all around the country.”
“I’m hopeful that we’re going to have some of that in Wisconsin,” Roys said. “Obviously, our thoughts are with all of our colleagues in Minnesota.”
Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) told WISN-12 reporter Matt Smith that he wants increased security around the Capitol, including metal detectors and a ban on members of the public (but not lawmakers) carrying guns into the building.
“I have not been through another Capitol that has not had metal detectors,” Kapenga said. “We need to have a higher level of security just because of, unfortunately, ingenuity with how you can hurt people.”
Security at the state Capitol was a point of concern previously in 2023 after a man entered the building twice with a gun in search of Gov. Tony Evers. At the time, Evers said about increasing security that he was “sure they are looking at that” but that it was “not something we talk about [or] something police talk about.”
A rally goer rolls out a scroll with the names of every school district that has gone to referendum since the last state budget. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.
Education advocates are making a push for more investment in public schools from the state as the Republican-led Joint Finance Committee plans to take up portions of the budget related to K-12 schools during its Thursday meeting.
The issue has been a top concern for Wisconsinites who came out to budget listening sessions and was one of Gov. Tony Evers’ priorities in his budget proposal. Evers proposed that the state spend an additional $3.1 billion on K-12 education. Evers and Republican leaders were negotiating on the spending for education as well as taxes and other parts of the budget until last week when negotiations reached an impasse.
Evers has said that Republicans were unwilling to compromise on his funding priorities, including making “meaningful investments for K-12 schools, to continue Child Care Counts to help lower the cost of child care for working families and to prevent further campus closures and layoffs at our UW System.” He said he was willing to support their tax proposal, which Republicans have said included income and retiree tax cuts.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said on WISN 12’s UpFront that Evers “lied” about Republicans walking away from the negotiating table.
“We’re willing to do it, just not as much as he wanted… When you read that statement, it makes it sound like we were at zero,” Vos said. “We were not at zero on any of those topics. We tried to find a way to invest in child care that actually went to the parents, and to make sure that we weren’t just having to go to a business. We tried to find a way to look at education so that money would actually go back to school districts across the state. It just wasn’t enough for what he wanted.”
Public education advocates said school districts are in dire need of a significant investment of state dollars, especially for special education. After lobbying for the last week, many are concerned that when Republicans finally announce their proposal it won’t be enough.
State Superintendent Jill Underly told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview Wednesday afternoon that she is anticipating that Republicans will put forth more short-term solutions, but she said schools and students can’t continue functioning in that way.
Underly compared the situation of education funding in Wisconsin to a road trip.
“The gas tank is nearly empty, and you’re trying to coast… you’re turning the air conditioning off… going at a lower speed limit, just to save a little fuel and the state budget every two years. I kind of look at them as like these exits to gas stations,” Underly said. “We keep passing up these opportunities to refuel. Schools are running on fumes, and we see the stress that is having an our system — the number of referendums, the anxiety around whether or not we’re going to have the referendum or not in our communities. Wisconsin public schools have been underfunded for decades.”
The one thing lawmakers must do, Underly said, is increase the special education reimbursement rate to a minimum of 60%, back to the levels of the 1990s.
“It used to be 60% but they haven’t been keeping up their promise to public schools,” Underly said. “They need to raise the special education reimbursement rate. Anything less than 60% is once again failing to meet urgent needs.”
The Wisconsin Public Education Network is encouraging advocates to show up at the committee meeting Thursday and continue pushing lawmakers and Evers to invest. Executive Director Heather DuBois Bourenane told the Examiner that she is concerned lawmakers are planning on “low balling” special education funding, even as she said she has never seen the education community so united in its insistence on one need.
“We’re familiar with the way they work in that caucus and in the Joint Finance Committee,” DuBois Bourenane said. “The pattern of the past has been to go around the state and listen to the concerns that are raised or at least get the appearance of listening, and then reject those concerns and demands and put forward a budget that fails in almost every way to prioritize the priority needs for our communities.”
While it’s unclear what Republicans will ultimately do, budget papers prepared by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau includes three options when it comes to special education reimbursement rate: the first is to raise the rate to 60% sum sufficient — as Evers has proposed; the second is to leave the rate at 31.5% sum certain by investing an additional $35.8 million and the third is to raise the rate to an estimated 35% by providing an additional $68.6 million in 2023-24 and $86.2 million in 2024-25.
The paper also includes options for investing more in the high cost of special education, which provides additional aid to reimburse 90% of the cost of educating students whose special education costs exceed $30,000 in a single year.
The School Administrators Alliance (SAA) sent an update to its members on Monday, pointing out what was in the budget papers and saying the committee “appears poised to focus spending on High-Cost Special Education Aid and the School Levy Tax Credit, rather than significantly raising the primary special education categorical aid.”
SAA Executive Director Dee Pettack said in the email that if that’s the route lawmakers take, it would “result in minimal new, spendable resources for classrooms and students.”
Public school funding was one of the top priorities mentioned by Wisconsinites at the four budget hearings held by the budget committee across the state in March.
“I just think it’s time to say enough is enough,” DuBois Bourenane said. “We’re really urging people to do whatever they can before our lawmakers vote on this budget, to say that we are really going to accept nothing less than a budget that stops this cycle of insufficient state support for priority needs and demand better.”
Pettack and leaders of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, Southeast Wisconsin School Alliance and the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance also issued a joint letter Tuesday urging the committee to “meet this moment with the urgency it requires,” adding that the budget provides the opportunity to allocate resources that will help students achieve.
The letter detailed the situation that a low special education reimbursement has placed districts in as they struggle to fund the mandated services and must fill in the gaps with funds from their general budgets.
“The lack of an adequate state reimbursement for mandated special education programs and services negatively affects all other academic programs, including career and technical education, reading interventionists, teachers and counselors, STEM, dual enrollment, music, art and more,” the organizations stated. “While small increases in special education reimbursement have been achieved in recent state budgets, costs for special education programming and services have grown much faster than those increases, leaving public schools in a stagnant situation.”
“Should we fail in this task, we are not only hurting Wisconsin’s youth today but also our chances to compete in tomorrow’s economy,” the leaders wrote.
If the proposal from Republicans isn’t adequate, Underly said Evers doesn’t have to sign the budget. Republican lawmakers have expressed confidence that they will put a budget on Evers’ desk that he will sign.
“There’s that, and then we keep negotiating. We keep things as they are right now. We keep moving forward,” Underly said. “But our schools and our kids, they can’t continue to wait for this… These are short term fixes, I think, that they keep talking about, and we can’t continue down this path. We need to fix it so that we’re setting ourselves up for success. Everything else is just really short sighted.”
WPEN and others want Evers to use his veto power should the proposal not be sufficient. DuBois Bourenane said dozens of organizations have signed on to a letter calling on Evers to reject any budget that doesn’t meet the state’s needs and priorities.
“What we want them to do is negotiate in good faith and reject any budget that doesn’t meet the needs of our kids, and just keep going back to the drawing board until you reach a bipartisan agreement that actually does meet those needs,” DuBois Bourenane said. “Gov. Evers has the power to break this cycle. He has the power of his veto pen. He has the power of his negotiating authority, and we expect him to use it right and people have got his back.”
The budget deadline is June 30. If it is not completed by then, the state continues to operate under the 2023-25 budget.
“Nobody wants [the process] to be drawn out any longer than it is,” DuBois Bourenane said. “Those are valid concerns. But the fact is we are in a really critical tension point right now, and if any people care even a little bit about this, now is the time that they should be speaking out.”
Children at the Growing Tree child care in New Glarus. Wisconsin is one of only six states that doesn't put any money into early childhood education. (Photo by Kate Rindy)
Children are born into this world innocent. They did not choose their parents. They did not choose to be born into poverty. They do not get to choose if a parent is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Children do not get a choice to be born into an environment of neglect. Children do not choose to grow up in a home with violence. Children do not get a choice to be abused or assaulted. Children do not choose to be born with a disability. Children do not get to choose if they can access medical care. Children do not get a choice on whether they are even wanted or loved.
Adults do have choices. In Wisconsin, we have chosen to have a state where children are the largest demographic living in poverty. We have chosen to allow some children to live with constant hunger. We have chosen not to support children with disabilities. We are still choosing not to create systems to support children who have experienced adversity like abuse and neglect. We made the choice to create an education system based on the income of the people living in the community. We choose to allow children to be uncared for. We as a community have made these choices deliberately and without shame.
Consequently, we have chosen for those children to be less likely to graduate from high school, more likely to fail at a job, have poor health (which is connected to stress in the early years) and to be statistically more likely to be placed in the prison system.
We, as a state, have chosen to prioritize funding for prisons and spend nothing on early care and education, one of only six states that don’t invest a penny in early childhood programs, even though we know that when children have access to quality early education that they are more likely to graduate high school, have higher incomes, be healthier, and are less likely to enter the prison system. We have chosen to remove health care options for children by not expanding Badgercare. We are soon to be the only state that does not provide postpartum Medicaid, risking the lives of new mothers and increasing the likelihood that children will have to grow up without them. We have decided that children with disabilities will receive services not based on their actual needs, but based on the budget for special education, which our state keeps at the barest minimum.
We have chosen to make the word “welfare” into a bad word. Welfare by definition is the health,happiness and fortunes of a person or group. And we have chosen to deny the health,happiness and fortune of children in our state. Referring to a bipartisan push for Medicaid expansion to cover postpartum care, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has said he “cannot imagine supporting an expansion of welfare.” Why is providing welfareto support the health and wellbeing of children or anyone for that matter a negative concept?Why are we so afraid that if we support people in need that it somehow takes awayfrom us? For example, why would providing children with free lunches at school be a bad thing to do? Why would ensuring that children have access to medical care regardless of whethertheir parents can afford it or not be bad to do? Why would ensuring that children have access toquality care and education in their early years, regardless of their parents’ income, be a badthing? Why would ensuring that children with disabilities have access to the services they needbe bad? Why is it wrong to have systems in our state that ensure we aredoing everything we can to give all children the best opportunities to grow, thrive and becomeproductive members of our communities?
Rep. Vos and Joint Finance Committee co-chairs Sen.Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) all disagree with creating andfunding policies that support our children. Time and time again, they have voted down policiesthat would have provided support to children. They have continued to forgo our futureby not investing in our children. Instead, they invest in the wealthiest in our state and invest inour punitive prison systems. They invest in large businesses with expensive lobbyists who demand tax breaks and deregulation. They invest in those most likely to donate to their campaigns. Thesegrown-up white men cannot stand the idea of anyone, even a child, getting help from the state. If they had to pay for school lunch, they figure, so should everyone else. If theyhad to pay for their child’s medical visit, then so should everyone else. If they had to pay forchild care, then so should everyone else. They are incapable of seeing past their privileges.They cannot appreciate what it is like to be a child born into an environment that causes harm and the trajectory that puts the child on. However, they will certainly be therewhen that child becomes an adult and enters the prison system. They are more than willing topay for incarceration and punishment.
That’s not just financially irresponsible — we spend about four times as much to keep someone in prison as we spend on education — it’s inhumane, and it impoverishes our state and condemns children to unnecessary suffering and a bleak future.
Negotiations on the state budget between Gov. Tony Evers and Republican lawmakers broke down on Wednesday. Evers delivers his 2025 state budget address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Republican lawmakers are planning to move forward on writing the two-year state budget without input from across the aisle after negotiations with Gov. Tony Evers broke down on Wednesday.
Senate and Assembly leaders and Evers each released statements on Wednesday in the early evening saying that while negotiations have been in good faith, they are ending for now after meetings late on Tuesday evening and on Wednesday morning. Evers said Republicans were walking away from the talks after being unwilling to compromise, while Republicans said Evers’ requests weren’t reasonable.
“Both sides of these negotiations worked to find compromise and do what is best for the state of Wisconsin,” Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) and Joint Finance Committee co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said in a statement. “However, we have reached a point where Governor Evers’ spending priorities have extended beyond what taxpayers can afford.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) left the possibility of future negotiations open in a separate statement.
“Assembly Republicans remain open to discussions with Governor Evers in hopes of finding areas of agreement, however after meeting until late last night and again this morning, it appears the two sides remain far apart,” the lawmakers said.
Vos and Born said JFC will continue “using our long-established practices to craft a state budget that contains meaningful tax relief and responsible spending levels with the goal of finishing on time.”
In previous sessions this has meant that the Republican committee throws out all of Evers’ proposals, writes the budget itself, passes it with minimal Democratic support and sends the bill to Evers — who has often signed it with many (sometimes controversial) partial vetoes.
LeMahieu and Marklein noted that the Republican-led committee has created budgets in the last three legislative sessions that Evers has signed and they are “confident” lawmakers will pass a “responsible budget” this session that Evers will sign.
Lawmakers have less than a month before the state’s June 30 budget deadline. If a new budget isn’t approved and signed into law by then, the state will continue to operate under the current budget.
Evers said in a statement that he is disappointed Republicans are deciding to write the budget without Democratic support.
“The concept of compromise is simple — everyone gets something they want, and no one gets everything they want,” Evers said. He added that he told lawmakers that he would support their half of priorities, including their top tax cut proposals, even though they were similar to ones he previously vetoed, but he wanted agreements from them as well.
“Unfortunately, Republicans couldn’t agree to support the top priorities in my half of the deal, which included meaningful investments for K-12 schools, to continue Child Care Counts to help lower the cost of child care for working families and to prevent further campus closures and layoffs at our UW System,” Evers said.
“We’ve spent months trying to have real, productive conversations with Republican lawmakers in hopes of finding compromise and passing a state budget that everyone could support — and that, most importantly, delivers for the people of Wisconsin. I am admittedly disappointed that Republican lawmakers aren’t willing to reach consensus and common ground and have decided to move forward without bipartisan support instead.”
Democratic leaders said that Republicans are refusing to make investments in the areas that Wisconsinites want.
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said in a joint statement that it’s disappointing Republicans are walking away from negotiations.
“The people of Wisconsin have a reasonable expectation that their elected leaders will work together to produce a state budget that prioritizes what matters most: lowering costs for families and investing in public education,” the lawmakers said. “This decision creates yet more uncertainty in a difficult time. Democrats will continue to stand up for all Wisconsinites and work to move Wisconsin forward through the budget process.”
Democrats on the budget committee accused Republicans of giving in to the “extremist wing of their party” by walking away from the negotiations and not committing to “fully funding our public schools, preventing the closure of child care centers, or meeting the healthcare needs of Wisconsinites.”
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is pushing a fix to a 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that hampered the public’s ability to obtain attorney fees in certain public records lawsuits against public officials — but the top Assembly Republican remains noncommittal about the bill.
The case, Friends of Frame Park v. City of Waukesha, involved a public records dispute between the city and a citizen group. Waukesha was working to bring a semi-professional baseball team to town. A group of concerned residents, Friends of Frame Park, submitted a public records request to the city seeking copies of any agreements the city had reached with the team’s owners or the semi-professional league.
The city partially denied the request and refused to produce a copy of a draft contract. Friends of Frame Park hired an attorney and sued. A day after the lawsuit was filed, and before the local circuit court took action, the city produced a copy of the draft contract.
The case eventually worked its way to the state Supreme Court, which determined that Friends of Frame Park was not entitled to attorney fees because it technically had not prevailed in court — the group received the record without action from the circuit court.
The ruling “actually incentivizes public officials to illegally withhold records because it forces requestors to incur legal costs that may never be recovered,” said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, during a public hearing about the bill.
Max Lenz, an attorney representing the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, said the state Supreme Court ruling incentivizes public officials to “effectively dare the public to sue.”
“The Supreme Court’s ruling in Friends of Frame Park flipped the public records law presumption of openness on its head,” he said.
The legislation, spearheaded by state Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, would supersede the high court’s ruling and allow a requestor to obtain attorney fees if a judge determines that the filing of a lawsuit “was a substantial factor contributing to that voluntary or unilateral release” of records, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.
The bill has garnered support from an unusual coalition of organizations. Seven groups, some of which frequently lobby, have registered in support of the bill, including the liberal ACLU of Wisconsin and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.
A similar version of the bill was approved by the state Senate last session but did not receive a vote in the Assembly. The legislation was approved by the state Senate last week.
The legislation’s path forward remains unclear. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told reporters recently that “our caucus has never talked about it.”
“It’s certainly something we could discuss, but we don’t have a position on it at this time,” Vos added.
Are you interested in learning more about public records? Here’s a primer on what types of records should be accessible to you — and how to request them.
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The bill passed 87-10 with only Republican lawmakers voting against. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin State Assembly, in a departure from prior floor debates this session, passed several widely bipartisan bills related to health care, including one to exempt direct primary care services from insurance laws and another to allow pharmacist to prescribe birth control.
AB 43 would allow pharmacists to prescribe certain birth control, including the pill and contraceptive patches, to patients 18 and older as a way of making it easier to access. Currently, Wisconsin patients have to make an appointment with a doctor or advanced practice nurse and answer a mandatory list of questions regarding their health before a doctor could prescribe birth control. Once a physician determines it safe, patients can take a prescription to a pharmacy to be filled.
Under the bill, pharmacists would have to give patients a self-assessment questionnaire and do blood pressure screening. If there are any “red flags,” then a pharmacist would need to refer patients to see a physician.
Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) said during a press conference ahead of the session that the process included in the bill is “much more rigorous” than when women get birth control online. He said it would also help women with family planning, noting that about half of pregnancies in Wisconsin are unplanned each year.
“These women are unlikely to finish school, and it will severely affect their potential earnings throughout their lives…” Kitchens said. “Birth control is 99.9% effective when it’s used according to directions and regularly. The lack of access is the biggest reason that it sometimes fails. Women will leave home for a couple of days and forget about it, or they can’t make an appointment with their doctor, and this bill is going to help with all of that.”
This is the fourth time the Assembly has passed a similar bill. Last session, it passed a Senate committee but it never came for a floor vote.
Kitchens said he thinks there is a “good chance the Senate will pass it this time.”
Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek) said in a statement that the policy “will increase access to contraceptives, particularly for women who live in rural areas, where many Wisconsinites live closer to their pharmacy than they do to their doctor’s office,” and urged her Senate colleagues to take up the bill.
“This is a good bill that will make for greater access to contraception. I have voted for this proposal four sessions in a row. I urge the Senate to follow our lead,” Rodriguez said.
The bill passed 87-10 with only Republican lawmakers voting against.
Primary care insurance exemption
SB 4 would exempt direct primary care, which is a health care model where patients pay a monthly or annual fee to a physician or practice for access to primary care services, from insurance laws. Advocates have said that clarifying that insurance law doesn’t apply to direct primary care doctors would encourage more providers to opt in to this model.
Bill author Rep. Cindi Duchow (R-Town of Delafield) said at a press conference that direct primary care “is not insurance.”
“It’s a private contract you have with the doctor, then you have insurance for something catastrophic — if you need to have surgery or you have a heart attack, you have insurance to cover that — but this is just for your everyday needs, and it’s more one-on-one, and you have more personal experiences with the doctors,” Duchow said.
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) expressed concerns about the bill, noting that it is missing nondiscrimination language and that she would be voting against it.
“[This] is getting us nowhere helpful,” Vining said.
The nondiscrimination language, Vining referenced, was in relation to prohibiting discrimination on the basis of “gender identity.” Conservative organizations had lobbied against the bill last session due to the inclusion of that language and it never received a vote in the Senate.
Vining expressed concerns that Evers might veto the bill without the nondiscrimination language.
Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) said she had similar concerns but would be voting for it.
“I think it is a good bill, and it does something that is important, but I do it knowing that I wish the bill could be stronger,” Subeck said.
The Assembly concurred in SB 4 in a voice vote. The Senate passed the bill in March, and it will now head to Evers’ desk.
Lawmakers also concurred in SB 14, a bill to require written informed consent from a patient when a hospital performs a pelvic examination for educational purposes on a patient while the patient is under general anesthesia or otherwise unconscious. The bill was advocated for by Sarah Wright, a teacher who was subjected to a nonconsensual pelvic exam while she was undergoing abdominal surgery in Madison in 2009.
Subeck said it is a “horrifying” story that Wright has shared every legislative session.
“[Wright] was unconscious. There was no medical need for a pelvic exam and medical students were brought in to do public exams in order to learn the procedure because it’s easy as to learn on an unconscious individual,” Subeck said. “This is tantamount to sexual assault. This is not giving consent. This is assuming consent from somebody who is unconscious.”
Subeck noted in a statement that lawmakers have been working on the legislation for over a decade.
“It has taken far too long, but we are finally honoring her bravery by putting an end to this disturbing and unethical practice,” Subeck said in a statement. “Patients entrust medical professionals with their care at their most vulnerable moments. That trust must never be violated. Performing a medically unnecessary and invasive exam without consent is not only a breach of ethics — it is a violation that can feel indistinguishable from sexual assault.”
Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) noted that one study found that over 80% of medical students at major training hospitals reported performing pelvic exams on anaesthetized patients, but only 17% said that the patients were informed, while nearly half reported that the patients were rarely or never explicitly told so.
“I am really thankful for the bipartisan support,” Goeben said.
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said in a statement ahead of the session that the bills were a sign that lawmakers could work across partisan lines, but said they could do more.
“It is possible to come together to pass good, bipartisan bills that will move our state forward — but we know that there is so much work left to be done,” Neubauer said. “Just last week, Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee cut proposals by [Evers] that would have lowered costs for working families and cut taxes for the majority of Wisconsinites. Removing these critical proposals from consideration and preventing future discussion is ridiculous, and on top of this, the GOP has refused to have public hearings, let alone votes, on popular and bipartisan legislation that would move our state forward.”
Ahead of the floor session, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) told reporters that work on the budget is on hold until legislative leaders meet in person with Evers. Republican lawmakers are seeking a tax cut in the budget.
“Our preferred option [is] to be able to get an agreed upon tax cut so that we know we have X dollars to invest in schools and health care and all the other things that are important,” Vos said. “It’s pretty hard for us to move forward… I think we’re kind of on pause until we hear back from Gov. Evers.”
As local governments across Wisconsin continue to wrestle with tight budgets, $300 million in state aid remains unspent.
That money could have provided a major boost to the $275 million in shared revenue increases that the Legislature approved in a historic overhaul of local government funding.
Instead, lawmakers deposited the $300 million in an “innovation fund” to reward cities, villages, towns and counties that cut expenses by consolidating or privatizing services.
It’s an approach championed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who at one point wanted to reserve $1 billion for the incentive payments, legislative records show. Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, says she expects the state’s smallest communities will benefit most from the plan.
But Democrats say the money could have been better used as part of the main shared revenue distribution than in what Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, calls “a set-aside slush fund.”
Act 12, the landmark 2023 local government legislation, increased shared revenue allocations to counties and municipalities throughout the state. Yet even though that cash infusion helped many communities, dozens are still calling referendums to seek voter approval to raise property taxes beyond state levy limits.
Under Act 12, the innovation fund will pay financial incentives to cities, villages, towns, counties and Native American tribes that successfully present proposals to contract with each other to share services or to hand them off to a business or nonprofit organization. Each agreement needs to cut costs by at least 10%, and the state Department of Revenue will give top priority to plans that save money on law enforcement, firefighting and emergency medical response, without jeopardizing service.
The Revenue Department expects applications for those grants will be available in July.
A related $3 million program provides planning grants to communities of less than 5,000 residents to prepare their proposals for the main innovation grants. To date, $1.7 million has been distributed in three rounds to 58 local governments, many of which received more than one of the 98 grants. With nearly half the allocation unspent, the application deadline was extended to April 30, adding two more rounds.
Proposals to combine fire departments and emergency medical services dominate the planning grants awarded so far. Others focus on sharing police, public works and administrative services.
A Vos spokesperson didn’t respond to requests for an interview. But legislative drafting notes indicate he championed the innovation fund — and even wanted it to be more than triple its final size.
“I just talked to the Speaker. He wants to put the whole billion in the first year” of the state’s fiscal biennium, says an email from an aide to Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, who co-authored Act 12, to legislative staff working on the bill.
During the discussions that led to Act 12 — and for years beforehand — Vos repeatedly questioned whether the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County were spending taxpayer money wisely. He urged them to do more to share and privatize services.
Mayor Cavalier Johnson and County Executive David Crowley responded with lengthy lists of how much their governments already had done to cut expenses and share services. The city’s list included establishing a joint recycling center with Waukesha County; reaching mutual aid agreements with suburban fire departments; contracting to take over fire and emergency medical protection for West Milwaukee; and privatizing snow removal at bus stops.
But none of that qualifies for an innovation grant. Act 12 specifies the grants are only for deals taking effect after Nov. 13, 2024, not for any previous moves by local governments.
Felzkowski said she thought the innovation fund would help small rural towns and villages consolidate services. In addition to merging fire departments, she suggested they might find efficiencies by sharing human resources and information technology staff. Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, said larger communities might benefit as well.
But Spreitzer questioned the fund’s emphasis on reducing overall costs instead of improving services. For example, if two or more communities wanted to share a fire chief and use the money saved to hire more firefighters, the state should encourage them to do that, he said.
Gov. Tony Evers’ office did not respond directly when asked what the governor thought of the fund.
While Roys said she is a “big believer in efficiency,” she also believes local governments should consolidate services only if it’s the right thing to do, not because they’re coerced into doing it.
The innovation fund is “kind of holding them over a barrel and forcing them to compete,” Roys said.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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