Federal funding for SNAP ran out on Nov. 1, and the cuts are affecting about 700,000 Wisconsinites who rely on SNAP. A “SNAP welcomed here” sign is seen at the entrance to a Big Lots store in Portland, Oregon. (Getty Images)

Gov. Tony Evers has declared a state of emergency in Wisconsin due to federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as FoodShare in Wisconsin, being cut off over the weekend.

“Wisconsinites and Americans across the country are now scrambling, trying to figure out how to feed their families,” Evers said in a statement. “There’s no excuse for it, and this is a direct result of Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration, who’ve done nothing to help. As the courts agree, the Trump Administration could’ve stopped this from happening, but they didn’t, and now, Wisconsin’s kids, families, and seniors are worried about whether or when they’re going to eat next. This shouldn’t be happening.” 

Evers issued the declaration on Friday evening and ordered state agencies to take actions within their powers to provide support to Wisconsinites. 

Federal funding for SNAP ran out on Nov. 1, and the cuts are affecting about 700,000 Wisconsinites who rely on SNAP.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a $5 billion contingency fund for SNAP, but the Trump administration had claimed it couldn’t use it to fund regular benefits during the shutdown.

Two judges ruled on Friday that the Trump administration should use the contingency funds. It has until Wednesday to do so. The Trump administration said Monday it would partially fund SNAP following the rulings, though it is unclear how quickly SNAP beneficiaries will receive funds and how much they will receive. 

Until then, Evers said the executive order would help ensure Wisconsin agencies can do what they can within their power to support Wisconsinites. 

The order directs state agencies to take any and all necessary measures to address the emergency by prohibiting price gouging due to loss of FoodShare funding and economic disruptions and ensuring resources are available for Wisconsinites, including information about emergency aid and consumer protection. 

“The federal government shutdown has gone on long enough — it has to end,” Evers said. “Republicans must start working across the aisle to end the federal government shutdown and extend tax credits that will lower the cost of healthcare so Wisconsinites and Americans across our country have economic stability and certainty, and the Trump Administration must take action and do so quickly to fix the damage they’ve caused and ensure folks can get basic food and groceries they need to survive without any further delay.”

Evers is limited in the steps that he can take unilaterally to fill gaps and address the loss of funds. Some states, including Connecticut, Louisiana, Virginia and Vermont, have taken steps to partially fund SNAP using state and local dollars while federal funds are unavailable. For Wisconsin to take similar steps, however, it would require cooperation from the Republican-led Legislature and Evers.

A bill would need to pass both houses of the Legislature to appropriate funds and be signed by Evers. 

Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said in an interview with WISN-12 on Oct. 26 that it was unlikely that state lawmakers would take action to backfill SNAP. 

“My heart goes out to people, but this is a federal issue, and I don’t see the state having the resources to do that,” Felzkowski said. “I just wish that the Democrats would sign this continuing resolution and vote for it, and let’s move on. They shouldn’t be playing games like this. You don’t hold people hostage over these kinds of issues, so no, I don’t see us stepping in.” 

The government shutdown is entering Day 34 with no end in sight, 

During a virtual press conference on Monday, a group of Wisconsin legislative Democrats criticized Republicans for letting SNAP funding lapse and for not taking more actions during the state budget to ensure that state programs support food assistance and farmers, saying they’ve fallen short when it comes to providing necessary aid for Wisconsinites. 

“The federal government is using hunger to negotiate, and I think that’s immoral,” Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) said. 

Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon) noted that the federal funds the Trump administration has agreed to release will not fully fund SNAP. 

“The funds being released — it’s only a partial payment, so there will still be families and kids that go hungry and yet Wisconsin’s portion of FoodShare is about one-third of the White House ballroom,” Jacobson said, referencing the renovations that Trump has undertaken in recent weeks to demolish the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom. “We could get it funded.” 

Pfaff highlighted a number of measures that Democratic lawmakers have proposed this year, including free school meals for students, funding for a food security grant program, which would assist food banks and funding for a farm to fork grant program, which would provide state funding to help connect local entities with cafeterias to nearby farms to provide locally produced foods. 

“Every single one of these measures were either completely eliminated, or as in the case of the Farm to Fork program, severely cut by the Republican-controlled Legislature, which struck $20 million out of our Food Security Grant program, which would be very helpful right now,” Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) said. 

Asked whether the state Legislature or Evers should play more of a role as the shutdown continues and SNAP isn’t funded, however, Pfaff said the lawmakers were “not here today to talk about that.”

“What we are here today is to talk about what the [state] Legislature has within its jurisdiction right now, there’s bills that are ready to go,” Pfaff said.

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Halle Berry calls for Wisconsin lawmakers to advance a bill related to menopause education as Rep. Robyn Vining and Sen. Dianne Hesselbein watch. (Photo courtesy of Vining's office)

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) and Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) brought in a big name — award-winning actress Halle Berry — this week to help them call for better education on perimenopause and menopause. 

Berry, who wasn’t able to be at the hearing in real time, has become an advocate nationally for raising awareness of menopause and advocating for changes. She joined the Wisconsin bill authors at a virtual press conference on Tuesday afternoon, and her testimony was played at a Senate Health Committee public hearing Wednesday. The committee also took testimony Wednesday on bills to help with falls prevention among older Wisconsinites and on medical marijuana. 

“This is not a political issue — I promise you, it’s not. It is a human rights issue,” Berry said. 

Menopause is the period of time usually in middle age when a woman has not had her period for 12 consecutive months. Perimenopause is the period of time when hormone levels fluctuate and decline and a woman begins transitioning into menopause. It typically lasts between 4 years and 10 or more years.

Women can reach menopause at different ages, but often women reach it between 45 and 55. Symptoms typically begin during perimenopause. 

During the hearing, Vining listed part of a long list of symptoms that women can experience when they hit perimenopause and menopause.

“Wisconsin women deserve to know what is happening to their bodies. Wisconsin women deserve to access to information that can help explain symptoms like increased anxiety and depression, brain fog, frozen shoulder, concerns about increases in cholesterol, decreases in bone density, sleeplessness, night sweats, increased sensitivity and pain in joints, vertigo, gut issues, loss of libido, the unusual exhaustion, confusing dryness, hot flashes, and more,” Vining said. “Many women say, ‘I don’t feel like myself’ and they deserve to know why that is and what they can do about it.”

Berry said her experience started with “excruciating” pain in her vagina and her OB-GYN telling her that it was herpes “and probably one of the worst cases” he had seen. 

“I had just started dating a new guy, one year into a wonderful new relationship, and [my doctor] said, ‘Well, go have a talk with this guy [because] you have herpes.’”

Berry said she and her partner both got tested and found that neither of them had herpes. She said that when she went back to her doctor, he said that he didn’t know what was wrong with her. She saw another doctor, when she started experiencing dry mouth, who suggested she might have had an autoimmune disorder. She saw the first doctor again when she started experiencing dry eyes. 

It was then that he reluctantly told her she was experiencing menopause. 

“Why couldn’t you just say that to me? You’re my health care provider. You’re my doctor,” Berry said she asked her OB-GYN. “He said, ‘because my patients don’t want to hear they’re in menopause. It scares them. They think they’re getting old.’” 

“I have real life examples of how more education would have saved me almost four years of self-exploration and self-diagnoses,” Berry said.  “I would have loved to have gotten this information from my health care providers.”

Lack of education about menopause is connected to stigma, she said.

Hesselbein and Vining are lead authors on a bill meant to help women in Wisconsin get the information that they need. 

SB 356 would require the Department of Health Services to partner with health care providers, including obstetricians and gynecologists, community health centers and hospitals, to educate women on symptoms and other issues surrounding perimenopause and menopause. The bill is bipartisan with Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevera (R-Appleton) as a cosponsor. 

Under the bill, DHS would also be required to create digital and physical informational materials to be distributed to women who are or are soon to experience perimenopause and menopause. 

The authors said it was discussions with their friends and shared experiences that led them to introduce the bill. 

“We’re all talking about the same thing right now,” Hesselbein said. “[Halle Berry is] having this problem with all the resources she has, and as a state employee with my health insurance, I also ran into some obstacles where people weren’t giving me the correct information. …How many other women in the state of Wisconsin are going through this?” 

Hesselbein said a big moment for her was when she was dealing with “frozen shoulder” — a condition that causes pain, stiffness and limited range of motion in the shoulder joint and is common during perimenopause. 

“I didn’t know what it was, and I thought it’s not related to menopause,” Hesselbein said. “They gave me a cortisone shot, which was really great because it released the frozen shoulder, and I had [physical therapy] after that… I talked to friends about it, they’re like, ‘oh, yeah, I’ve had that too.’”

Hesselbein said the bill is based on a similar model adopted in Pennsylvania. 

“It is my hope that we can pass this bill so that we can get Wisconsin women the help they deserve and in the process of doing so that we can destigmatize honest and forthright conversations and discussions about menopause and perimenopause,” Vining said.

Falls prevention awareness

Rep. Rick Gundrum (R-Slinger) and Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) are seeking to cut down on the number of falls that Wisconsin residents are experiencing through a state grant to raise awareness for prevention. 

“If passed, the impact that this bill would have on Wisconsin’s older population is significant,” Gundrum said during the public hearing. “Falls are the leading cause of injury-related death and hospitalization for seniors. According to the CDC, Wisconsin has the highest fall death rate among older adults in the country.”

According to a recent Department of Health Services report, emergency medical services responded to 35,564 more falls-related calls in 2024 when compared to 2019 — an increase of nearly 10,000 a year or 7.4% a year since 2019. 

Speculation on why the state’s high fall death rate includes Wisconsin’s cold weather, the amount of alcohol that is consumed in the state and that the state may be better at reporting death-related falls.

SB 410 would provide $900,000 across 2025-26 and 2026-27 to the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging, a nonprofit that oversees the Falls Free Wisconsin Coalition. The coalition is responsible for a statewide initiative to reduce older adult falls and works to raise awareness; curate and share best practices in falls prevention; gather and report falls data; and address policy and systems changes. The state funds provided under the bill would be used by the organization to support falls prevention awareness and initiatives. 

A legislative council staffer told lawmakers in response to a question that the bill in its current form is  “really a broad charge to the Institute for Healthy Aging for how they’d want to spend the money in the category of falls.” 

“I think it would kind of remain to be seen exactly how, what initiatives they’ve spent the money on,” the staffer said. “The bill gives the Institute broad latitude to figure out how to use the money.” 

Jill Renken, executive director of the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging, told the committee that she has seen the benefits of programs through her own mother, who had started falling in her home after she retired. She said that she encouraged her mother to take a class at the local aging and disability resource center, which she said can reduce falls by 31%. 

“I noticed that she was applying what she learned… She was doing her exercises. She talked with her pharmacist about her medications. My dad made some home safety modifications in the home,” Renken said. “I’m so excited that she has not fallen. It’s been over two years.” 

Renken said the organization for the last decade has worked to diversify funding, but there isn’t enough to sustain their activity.

“State investment is critical in order to maintain the stability of the programs, to maintain the services that we offer and also to grow the program so we can make a much more significant impact in our communities,” Renken said. “We want more older adults to be able to have access to these programs and services. We want to increase awareness so that people know what these services exist.”

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