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• Wisconsin’s latest budget diverts 100% of funds from the Common School Fund to pay for 12 assistant district attorneys in Milwaukee.

• The constitution requires net proceeds from a county’s traffic fines and forfeitures to go to the Common School Fund. A 1973 Supreme Court ruling found the Legislature can’t have a nominal amount of that money go toward the school fund, which pays for school library books in many counties.

• The Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, which oversees the fund, has asked the Legislature’s attorney for an opinion.

Editor’s note: This story was corrected to reflect that the 12 assistant district attorney positions are existing positions funded by expiring federal funding, not new positions.

A provision in the recently passed state budget that diverts $2.2 million annually from schools to fund 12 Milwaukee County prosecutors may violate the Wisconsin Constitution.

The budget act redirects all traffic fines and forfeiture revenues in Milwaukee County to the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office to fund 12 assistant district attorney positions that had been paid for with federal funding set to expire.

But under Article 10, Section 2, of Wisconsin’s constitution, all “clear proceeds” from traffic fines are required to go to the Common School Fund. 

A statute later established the “clear proceeds” at 50% of total revenue, while counties could retain the other 50% to reimburse the cost of prosecuting traffic violations or seizing and managing forfeitures. 

In a 1973 Wisconsin Supreme Court case, the court granted limited power to the Legislature to define “clear proceeds.” In doing so, the decision said counties couldn’t keep so large a percentage of fine and forfeiture revenue that “the sum left for the school fund is merely nominal.” It also ruled that a county can only use these funds to reimburse for the prosecution of the fines and forfeitures.

By giving all revenue to the Milwaukee County DA, the new law, part of the biennial budget, contradicts the Supreme Court’s decision that all “clear proceeds” — or net profits — from forfeitures and fines be directed to the Common School Fund. 

Established in 1848 under the state constitution, the Common School Fund is used by public schools to purchase school library books and instructional materials and may be the only source of library funding for some counties. The Office of the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands (BCPL) manages the fund. 

In two recent BCPL meetings, board members discussed how the amendment appears to contradict the Supreme Court decision — raising the prospect of litigation, according to meeting minutes. 

“This provision appears to directly violate the 1973 Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion regarding Article 10 of the Constitution,” Tom German, board executive secretary of BCPL, said during an Aug. 19 meeting. “That opinion expressly limited the Legislature’s authority to define clear proceeds in order to prevent only a nominal amount of fines and forfeitures going to the school fund. Zero is less than nominal.”

The provision is projected to reduce revenue directed to the fund by $2.2 million annually. Wisconsin’s remaining 71 counties are still required to direct 50% of revenue from fines and forfeitures to the Common School Fund. A report from April 2025 estimated the 2024-25 library aid to be $8.3 million for more than 130,000 pupils in Milwaukee County.

The Milwaukee County DA’s office has about 120 ADAs and 160 support staff. The provision allows the county to maintain 12 ADA positions, which German says also violates the Supreme Court opinion. 

The Legislature’s budget committee added the provision during the last executive session of this budget cycle under a “miscellaneous items” section of the motion as part of a budget deal with Gov. Tony Evers.

Before the provision was proposed and passed by the committee late in the budget process, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau did not publish budget papers to explain the redirection of revenue from fines and forfeitures, as it often would for other budget proposals that come before the Joint Finance Committee during normal budget deliberations. 

“The DPI will work with our partners in state government and professional organizations to ensure the Common School Funds — which are critical to student learning — continue,” a DPI spokesperson told Wisconsin Watch in response to the funding change. 

In the last BCPL meeting, German said he informed the Wisconsin Legislative Council — the nonpartisan state agency in charge of providing legal and policy analysis — of this violation, and the council is currently investigating the provision. 

The Legislative Council declined to comment. Evers’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

A Milwaukee County spokesperson said the funding for the 12 assistant district attorneys was a “bipartisan solution” to an “urgent need” to address court backlogs in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.

“Without this funding, Milwaukee County will lose a dozen assistant district attorney positions, which will significantly increase court backlogs that will impact public safety efforts now and in the future,” the county spokesperson said in an unsigned email.

Wisconsin’s budget shifts money from schools to Milwaukee prosecutors. That may violate the state constitution. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• The $111 billion state budget adopted last month doesn’t extend the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund, but it does include two conservation earmarks totaling $15 million in Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ district.

• The projects include repairs to Echo Lake Dam, which Vos said will save Burlington taxpayers $3,000.

• Environmental advocates are hopeful the Legislature will still extend the Knowles-Nelson fund before the end of the current session. A Republican bill would reauthorize it for four years at $28.25 million per year with additional legislative controls.

Wisconsin’s recently passed budget doesn’t include the extension of a popular land conservation program, but it does include two earmarks for environmental projects in the home district of the state’s most powerful Assembly Republican.

After Republican legislators declined to reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund in the state budget, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed five natural resources projects, criticizing the Legislature for choosing “to benefit the politically connected few” instead of supporting stewardship through the statewide fund. 

“I am vetoing this section because 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 wrote in his veto message.

However, Evers didn’t veto other natural resources projects, including two totaling $15 million in Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ district in southeastern Wisconsin west of Racine. Asked why Evers spared those projects, his spokesperson Britt Cudaback referred Wisconsin Watch, without specifics, to the agreement between Evers and legislative leadership that cemented the $111 billion two-year budget. 

Local environmental earmarks in the state budget are nothing new, but the latest examples highlight how such projects can take on greater political dimension when not overseen by civil servants at the DNR and the Legislature’s budget committee, as has been the process for more than 30 years since the creation of the Knowles-Nelson fund. Legislators have allowed the program to inch closer to expiration while attempting to secure stewardship programs in their own districts.

The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund supports land conservation and outdoor recreation through grants to local governments and nonprofits and also allows the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to purchase and maintain state land. The program is currently funded at $33 million a year until the end of June 2026.

Local governments and nonprofit organizations can apply for Knowles-Nelson grants during three deadlines every year, and DNR staff evaluate and rank projects based on objective criteria including local public support, potential conservation benefits and proximity to population centers. 

Despite not authorizing the fund through the state budget, Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, and Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, committed to reauthorizing the fund and introduced stand-alone legislation in June to reauthorize the stewardship fund at $28.25 million per year for the next four years.

Burlington receives $15 million for two natural resources projects

The two projects in Vos’ district received a total of $15 million in state taxpayer dollars from the general fund and were the only natural resources earmarks mentioned in the state budget agreement between Republicans and Evers.

The only larger natural resources earmark — a $42 million grant for a dam in Rothschild — was added by the Joint Finance Committee and included in the final state budget, though it wasn’t mentioned in the agreement. That grant isn’t funded with general fund revenue, but rather a separate forestry account, which includes revenues from the sale of timber on public lands.

In a statement on the inclusion of funding for the projects, Vos, R-Rochester, touted how $10 million for the Echo Lake Dam will save Burlington residents an average of $3,000 in taxes that would otherwise fund the project. Upgrades to Echo Lake will cost as much as $12 million including $3.5 million for dam modifications and up to $5 million for lake dredging. 

For years, city officials in Burlington have grappled with how to address the Echo Lake Dam. In 2022, the Burlington City Council considered removing the 200-year-old dam but ultimately voted to keep it after residents expressed support though an advisory referendum. The dam needs upgrades because it doesn’t meet DNR requirements to contain a 500-year flood.

The Browns Lake Sanitary District also received $5 million for the removal of sediment in Browns Lake. Local residents have raised concerns over sedimentation in the lake, affecting the lake’s usability for recreation and ecological balance. 

In a website devoted to the Browns Lake dredging, Claude Lois, president of the Browns Lake Sanitary District, thanked Vos for including $5 million for the project and advised residents: “If you see Robin Vos, please thank him.”

DNR spokesperson Andrea Sedlacek directed Wisconsin Watch to Evers’ spokesperson, declining to answer questions on whether the two projects in Vos’ district could have been covered by Knowles-Nelson funds. The Echo Lake Dam project tentatively received a grant for over $700,000 from the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund last fall for development of gathering spaces adjacent to the lake. 

Vos did not respond to a request for comment. 

Other conservation projects were vetoed by Evers, including a $70,000 dredging project on a section of the Manitowoc River in the town of Brillion. Ultimately, the DNR and the Evers administration provided funding for the project after Sen. Andre Jacque, R-New Franken, and local farmers criticized the veto, claiming that they were at risk of flooding without funds for the dredging project. 

Rep. Rob Swearingen, R-Rhinelander, said he was surprised and disappointed with Evers’ veto of the Deerskin River dredging project in his district. He called Evers’ reasoning a “lame excuse, using the Knowles-Nelson program as political cover” in an email statement to Wisconsin Watch. Swearingen said he and Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, were considering alternative funding sources, including introducing stand-alone legislation to finance the dredging project.

Swearingen declined to say what he thought about the projects in Vos’ district getting funded. Other Republican lawmakers with vetoed projects in their districts didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Deb Andraca, D-Whitefish Bay, a member of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, told Wisconsin Watch she supports Evers’ vetoes because the earmarked projects did not go through the process the DNR uses to evaluate the benefits of particular projects.

Andraca said while several earmarked projects were likely strong contenders for Knowles-Nelson, without the DNR’s process of evaluating project merit, the most beneficial projects may not receive funding.

“We need to make sure that we’re taking into account that the best, most important projects are being funded, not just the projects that are in someone’s (district) who might have a little bit more sway in the Legislature,” Andraca said.

Paul Heinen, policy director for environmental advocacy organization Green Fire, lobbied for the first stewardship fund in 1989. Heinen said legislators have pushed for stewardship projects in their districts through the state budget process for as long as the stewardship fund has existed.

“The DNR has a process by which they go through to analyze projects, and that’s all set up in the code and everything,” Heinen said. “But of course, just like Robin Vos and any other legislator, if they can get something in the budget, it’s faster and you don’t have to go through the steps in order to get something done.”

In the 2023-25 budget cycle, the largest natural resources earmark was $2 million for dredging Lake Mallalieu near River Falls. 

Heinen said legislators are faced with a conundrum — they claim to oppose statewide government spending on stewardship, but want projects in their own districts. 

“Publicly, they say they’re opposed to government spending in this boondoggle stewardship fund,” Heinen said. “But then when it gets down to something in their district, they are at the ribbon cutting.” 

State Supreme Court decision complicates reauthorization

For years the JFC halted Knowles-Nelson conservation projects by not taking a vote on them, something critics referred to as a “pocket veto.” The Evers administration sued over the practice, and in July 2024 the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 6-1 the Legislature’s pocket veto was unconstitutional.

“What the court said was that the finance committee by going back after the fact and blocking an appropriation that had already been approved by the entire Legislature, and that was an unconstitutional infringement on executive authority,” said Charles Carlin, director of strategic initiatives for Gathering Waters, an alliance of land trusts in the state.

Republicans have said trust issues with both the DNR and the Evers administration prevented them from releasing Knowles-Nelson funds without more control.

Kurtz and Testin’s proposed bill also includes new requirements for legislative approval for larger projects over $1 million in an effort to allow legislative oversight without the pocket vetoes.

The bill’s funding level is below the $100 million per year for 10 years that Evers proposed in his budget, but close to current funding levels of $33 million per year. 

In 2021, the fund was reauthorized with $33.2 million per year for four years. In 2019, the fund was reauthorized for only two years, breaking a cycle of reauthorization in 10-year increments.

A poll of 516 Wisconsin voters commissioned by environmental advocacy organization The Nature Conservancy found 83% supported Evers’ proposal, with 93% of voters supporting continued public funding for conservation. However, most respondents were unaware of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund.

Funding for Knowles-Nelson peaked in 2011 and was reauthorized under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson was the first governor to approve funding for the stewardship fund in 1989.

“There was a lot of talk initially from mostly Republican legislators who were skeptical of the governor’s proposal,” Carlin said. “But it’s really only a huge amount of money in comparison to how the program had kind of been whittled down through the years.”

In a January interview with the Cap Times, Vos said the chances of Republicans reauthorizing the fund were less than half. 

Andraca said she hears more from constituents about the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund than almost any other program.

“I seriously hope that my Republican colleagues are serious about passing something because it would be a real tragedy to lose something like this that has bipartisan support and has been so instrumental in preserving Wisconsin’s natural areas,” Andraca said.

‘Totally uncharted territory’ for stewardship funding

Carlin said the failure to reauthorize Knowles-Nelson puts land stewardship organizations and local municipalities — the typical recipients of Knowles-Nelson grants — in “totally uncharted territory.” 

Although Knowles-Nelson funding is set to expire at the end of next June, Carlin said local governments and land trusts face uncertainty in planning because they aren’t sure the Legislature will get the new reauthorization bill done.

“Similar to what you’re probably hearing from folks about federal budget cuts … this just totally scrambles the planning horizon,” Carlin said.

Heinen, however, is more optimistic the Legislature will vote to reauthorize Knowles-Nelson. 

“90-plus percent of the people in the state of Wisconsin want the stewardship fund,” Heinen said. “Legislators know that. They’re not going to go running for reelection in November of next year and have their opponents say, ‘Why are you against the stewardship fund?’ So I’m really not worried about it at all.”

Budget deal’s $15 million in earmarks for Robin Vos’ district highlight politicization of Wisconsin’s conservation funding is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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“The state of recruitment and retention in police agencies is in trouble.”

That’s according to a 2024 report from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. And Wisconsin’s police departments aren’t strangers to the staffing shortage.

The total number of law enforcement officers in Wisconsin has dropped for years and now sits at near record lows, The Badger Project has found. As chiefs and sheriffs across the state say they struggle to fill positions in an industry less attractive to people than it once was, small departments are especially struggling.

A bipartisan bill working through the state Legislature aims to alleviate some of the problem.

The proposal would allow small police departments to apply for state grants to help put a recruit through the police academy. The grants would extend after graduation and cover the costs associated with the recruit’s department field training. The bill requires the hire to stay with the department for one year.

“There’s such a need for this,” said Rep. Clinton Anderson, D-Beloit, who introduced the Assembly’s version of the bill in mid-July.

Anderson, who also introduced the bill in 2023, explained that getting it passed this session will be an uphill battle because the state budget did not fund it. Divided government and the rush to pass the budget before the federal government passed its own tax and spending bill were factors, Anderson said.

“I know I care about law enforcement. I know they say they do too,” Anderson said of Republicans.

If the bill were passed now, Anderson said, the GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee would need to release the funding for it. His goal, since that’s not happening, is to open up the conversation and get a public hearing. Anderson hopes Republicans will take it up later in the session.

“While I am disappointed, the advocacy does not end,” said Rep. Bob Donovan, a Republican from Greenfield who worked with Anderson to introduce the bill. “I am still pursuing this bill to show my colleagues, and the public, the need for this legislation.”

While larger departments frequently sponsor a new hire as they go through the academy and move on to field training, smaller departments often can’t afford to do that, Anderson said. Small departments pull from the few who weren’t sponsored or they may make lateral hires from other departments.

“These struggles are all too real,” wrote Sen. Jesse James, a Republican from Clark County, in an email.

James, a current police officer for the village of Cadott in Chippewa County, introduced the Senate’s version of the bill in June, weeks before Gov. Tony Evers signed the state budget.

“I think it will be a significant challenge getting the bill funded and signed into law this session,” James wrote. “I still strongly believe in the importance of this program and will continue to advocate for it as the session continues. If we can’t get it across the finish line this year, I’ll try again next year.”

Both versions of the bill were assigned to committees the same day they were introduced. Neither has progressed since.

“Even if it takes another five terms,” Anderson said, “I will keep hammering home on this. It’s really important.”

This article first appeared on The Badger Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

Bipartisan bill to aid recruiting at small Wisconsin police departments stalls after state budget snub is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Corrine Hendrickson addresses a gathering of parents and child care providers outside the state Capitol on Friday, May 16, 2025. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

For 18 years Corrine Hendrickson has been taking care of young children in her New Glarus home.

At the end of August she’ll send the last of those children home, shut the doors of “Corrine’s Little Explorers” and clean up for a final time. She hadn’t planned for it to be this way.

“It’s really difficult,” Hendrickson says. “I’m not closing on my terms. I’m not closing because I was ready to close. I’m closing because it’s the decision that I need to make for myself and my family.”

It’s a decision, she says, forced by what the 2025-27 state budget didn’t do for child care.

“It will affect our community as a whole,” says Devon Kammerud, whose children were among the first that Hendrickson had in child care when she began the business. “I knew a few of my friends who were having babies they were hoping to go there. Now they won’t have that.”

Hendrickson says that even with provisions that were hailed as an unprecedented state investment in care, the budget fell short of what would have been required for her to afford to stay in business.

In the months leading up to the budget’s passage, Hendrickson was one of the leading voices for a substantial state investment in child care. As a co-founder of Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN), she helped lead rallies and round tables to call on lawmakers to set aside nearly half-a-billion dollars to send  directly to child care providers across Wisconsin.

Ongoing state investment

Providers and advocates have been seeking an ongoing state budget line item for child care for years. Without that continuing outside support, they argue, it  will either be impossible to pay child care teachers adequately or impossible for anyone beside affluent families to afford quality child care.

Child care wages have been historically low. A 2023 report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum found that in Milwaukee, lead teachers’ pay averaged between $12 and less than $15 per hour — less than retail employees at big box stores or warehouse workers.

Parents, the policy forum report found, were paying in Milwaukee County more than $16,000 a year for infant care and more than $12,000 a year for a 4-year-old. Providers, teachers and families are all “struggling at the same time,” according to the report.

Elliot Haspel, a fellow at Capita, a family policy think tank, contends that child care should be considered a public good. He compares it to public schools, libraries, fire departments and park systems, because “the benefits are so widespread they go beyond the users of the service.”

In addition to providing children with early education opportunities, the availability of child care has benefits “for the overall health of families and the ability of families to stay in communities,” Haspel told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview in May.

Pandemic relief and financial stability

The COVID-19 pandemic gave Wisconsin an opportunity for proof of concept for a state investment. Federal pandemic relief funds “gave us the most financial security we’ve ever had,” Hendrickson says.

She and Brooke Legler, who owns a group child care center in New Glarus, started WECAN about the same time. They had been traveling Wisconsin, hosting showings of the documentary “No Small Matter” about the importance of early childhood education. They started WECAN to bring activist muscle to advocating on behalf of providers and parents and increase respect and funding for child care.

Congress enacted the first COVID-19 pandemic relief funding programs in 2020. They culminated with the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), enacted in March 2021, shortly after President Joe Biden took office. ARPA made it possible for Wisconsin to send $20 million a month to child care providers across the state for two years under the Child Care Counts program instituted by the Department of Children and Families under Gov. Tony Evers.

“We really pushed hard to get that funding to come to our state,” Hendrickson says. “And then we also pushed hard to make sure that our state did allocate it directly to all of us [providers] that were regulated.”

The monthly payments made it possible for providers to raise wages for child care teachers without having to further increase the fees parents were already paying.

After failing to persuade the Republican majority in the Wisconsin Legislature to extend Child Care Counts with state funds in 2023, the Evers administration extended the program with repurposed federal money for another two years, reducing the monthly payout to $10 million. The money ran out early this month.

When Evers introduced the 2025-27 budget in February, he once again proposed extending Child Care Counts, asking for $480 million over two years. A survey of providers found that as many as 25% said they could close without continued support.

The only way to stabilize the child care sector, providers and their allies argued, was to provide a sustained, substantial state investment. Hendrickson and countless other advocates — the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, Democratic lawmakers, innumerable providers and some business leaders as well — spent most of the first half of this year advancing that message.

Weighing the odds

The odds looked steep from the start. The Republican majority on the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee pulled Gov. Tony Evers’ $480 million line item for child care along with more than 600 provisions from the draft budget at the committee’s first budget meeting in the spring.

As the budget debates dragged on, advocates kept up their demands. During that time, Hendrickson was weighing her own future. She asked herself, she says, “what were the odds of us getting what we needed in this budget, and what I would need to get put in the budget in order for me to be able to operate and not outprice my parents?”

Hendrickson almost closed her child care service in the fall of 2024, when three of the eight openings for kids were unfilled until the end of September. “And I didn’t want to have to go through that again this next year — and the prices were only going to be higher,” she says.

By June, it wasn’t looking good. Initially Hendrickson expected her program to have no openings in the fall. Then three families told her they would be dropping out.

One was a mom who qualified for the Wisconsin Shares subsidy program for low-income families. The subsidy is supposed to cover 75% of the cost of care, but as child care fees have increased Wisconsin Shares has not been able to keep up. The mother said she could no longer afford her part of the bill.

The woman moved with her child to another county, and Hendrickson said she’s heard from her that she’s “trying to work from home with her 2-year-old also there at all times, because she just can’t afford her child care anymore.”

Another family was moving out of state at the end of the summer — but then changed their plans and left in June.

Weeks before the budget negotiations concluded, Hendrickson had gotten word that a direct funding program was still possible, but that insiders thought it would get only about $100 million, less than one-fourth of what providers and Evers had been seeking.

With that in mind, Hendrickson calculated a rate increase and gave that estimate to a third family. They had been driving every day from Madison to New Glarus because her center was a good fit for their child and because her rates were lower.

The new rates were closer to what they would expect to pay in Madison, the family told her, and they decided to look closer to home.

The tipping point

Subsequent inquiries for care came from families who were expecting a child or who had a child under 2 years old. But Hendrickson was already at her limit for that age group under the terms of her family child care license and couldn’t add more.

On July 1, Evers announced a budget deal with funding for child care, including $110 million that would be distributed to providers along the same lines as Child Care Counts — not as a long-term program, but as a bridge to an undefined future. “A bridge to nowhere,” says Sarah Kazell, a child care teacher and advocate who has worked with Hendrickson.

Kazell says the failure of lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle to follow through on the message throughout the last six months for child care funding has left her “deeply disappointed and angry.”

It’s not just the absence of funding, she says, but also the last minute addition of a pilot program to increase the ratio of children to providers, but only in the low-income subsidized part of the child care system. “It just seems specifically harmful to the kids that are most vulnerable,” Kazell says.

Hendrickson had already privately calculated that she could get by if the lawmakers approved about $240 million — half what Evers had sought originally. But with a single year at a still smaller amount, increasing her rates by $60 a week  “just wasn’t going to work,” she says.

Taking into account the cost for property taxes, liability insurance, homeowner’s insurance and utility rate increases, “I just couldn’t continue to justify keeping my business open while struggling and hurting my own family,” Hendrickson says.

And she knew she would need to decide sooner rather than later, so families would have time to find a new provider.

“I didn’t want the families in my care to have to worry about where their kids would go if I continued to try and struggle — and then what would happen to those kids, and where would they go?” Hendrickson says. “And I didn’t want to feel guilty and have to stay open while also bankrupting myself.”

Corrine’s Little Explorers will remain open through the end of August. Working with Legler, Hendrickson arranged for the children to be able to transfer to Legler’s center, The Growing Tree, starting in September if their parents want that.

From provider to advocate

Hendrickson graduated from University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 2001 with a degree in early childhood education, but in the recession after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks there were no jobs, especially in early education, she says.

She went to work at a Bath & Body Works store, working her way up to store manager. After her oldest son was born in 2006, “I had three very pregnant friends who were talking about how they couldn’t find care and how they were trying to figure out who would have to quit their job,” Hendrickson says.

Chatting during a weekly get-together, she brought up her college degree. “I said, ‘What if I quit my job and I opened up a child care?’” she recalls.

“That was a way I could meet the needs of my community, use my teaching degree, and start a small business,” Hendrickson says. “How hard could it be? This can’t be that bad, right? Yeah, I was naive.”

She had been paying for child care herself and “saw how much I was paying,” she says — not understanding the costs that providers have to bear.

She started with the infants of two friends and her own son, 10 months old at the time. Three months later another infant joined the group. Wisconsin allows child care providers who are caring for three children unrelated to them to operate without a license.

In the midst of the Great Recession of 2008, her husband, Kevin got laid off from his job at a landscape contracting company. “We were trying to figure out how do I stay open,” Hendrickson recalls. “We went on food stamps. We went on BadgerCare … We did everything we could to keep my business floating and him trying to find a part-time job.”

A volunteer firefighter for New Glarus, her husband was able to take a part-time firefighting job in Verona and has since risen first to a full-time position and more recently to fire chief.

Within a couple of years, Hendrickson got licensed from the state as a family child care provider. “We weren’t really making a lot, but it was what I loved,” she says.

The couple renovated their home, adding a lower level that opens to the outdoors and serves as the child care space. Hendrickson qualified for the state’s highest quality rating, five stars, in 2012 and has maintained that since. 

When she encountered a child with special needs, Hendrickson asked about help from state officials in the administration of then-Gov. Scott Walker. She recalls one who told her that she could turn away the child. “I didn’t think that was right,” Hendrickson says.

‘We need people … that actually care’

All three of Bekah Stauffacher’s children have spent time in care at Corrine’s Little Explorers. “She’s had such a positive impact on all three of them,” Stauffacher says. “We feel so lucky that we got to know her and have our children with her.”

Stauffacher’s middle child, who’s now 12, has severe developmental delays due to a genetic disorder. Hendrickson threw herself into finding some additional support for the girl during her years in child care.

“It was impressive,” Stauffacher says of Hendrickson’s advocacy on behalf of her daughter. “It was more than we could have handled ourselves — we were grateful that she took it on.”

For a special needs child covered under the Wisconsin Shares subsidy program, a care provider can get additional funding for an aide, special materials or training. She got to know Democratic state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, who later introduced legislation that would have expanded that additional funding for all special needs children in child care, whether they were part of Wisconsin Shares or not.

Although the bill died in committee, “going through that process really empowered me, and helped me understand what your representatives are supposed to do,” Hendrickson says.

Kazell has spent the last few years subbing for Hendrickson in the child care program when Hendrickson has gone on the road to press the case for child care support or lead workshops on advocacy. She’s also been active in WECAN’s advocacy and organizing work.

“She’s a mentor to me, and I think the most meaningful and most important mentor in my life,” Kazell says — both in early childhood teaching and in the work of organizing for change.

“She definitely was that person that helped me gain such a deep appreciation for the need for actual activism and organizing,” Kazell says — critical, she adds, to bring about the cultural change to elevate society’s value for child care and the political change to translate that value into concrete policy.

“She can talk a mile a minute and she knows a lot of stuff, but she’s also the type of person who’s keyed into where the other person is coming from,” Kazell says.

As she considers what she’ll do next, Hendrickson expects to stay involved in advocacy work, providing training in grass-roots organizing. It’s something she’s been doing already for several years.

She’s also contemplating whether to run for the state Legislature.

“We need people in there that actually care and understand the consequences of their inaction or their action,” Hendrickson said. “Taxes aren’t necessarily bad. It’s just we need to use them in ways that the people paying them feel that they’re getting something back for it.”

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• Wisconsin’s state budget doesn’t include $24 million that Gov. Tony Evers proposed to address homelessness in the state.

• At the same time, the Trump administration is looking to pull back on resources that address housing, including consolidating a grant for permanent housing solutions into one that can only be used to provide up to two years of temporary housing.

• Rural service providers are looking to philanthropic sources and others across the state to address the growing homeless population in their local communities.

At a recent gathering of social service organizations in Brown County, participants contended with a double gut punch to their efforts to reverse Wisconsin’s recent rise in rural homelessness: almost no new support in the state budget and federal funding cuts.

The Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition, which focuses its efforts not only on the urban growth around Green Bay but also on the rural towns along the outskirts of the county, consists of at least 45 partner and supporting member organizations — representing the vast complexity of the issue they’re attempting to fix.

Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal gave them reason for hope. It included over $24 million of new funding to address homelessness.

The funding would have increased support for programs, including the Housing Assistance Program that provides support services for those experiencing homelessness and the State Shelter Subsidy Grant Program that funds shelter operations. 

But after the Republican-controlled budget committee cut Evers’ proposal, organizations were left with the same state resources they had last year, despite increasing homelessness across the state and looming cuts in federal support.

Joint Finance Committee co-chairs Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, and Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, who both represent mostly rural districts in Wisconsin, did not reply to multiple requests for comment.

Sen. Romaine Robert Quinn, R-Birchwood, a JFC member who represents the rural northwestern corner of Wisconsin, including the city of Shell Lake where Wisconsin Watch reported on a father and daughter experiencing homelessness, declined an interview request. Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, who represents the western part of Brown County, did not reply to multiple requests for comment.

Federal cuts coming for homeless services

President Donald Trump’s proposed federal budget reductions would cut funding for key programs administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), including grants that many local organizations depend on to provide housing and supportive services. 

The Trump administration’s efforts to reduce federal funding began with a Jan. 27 executive order that temporarily paused many federal grants and financial assistance programs — including those supporting homelessness services — causing immediate disruptions for organizations like RAYS Youth Services in Green Bay.

Josh Benti, program coordinator for RAYS and homeless initiative project director for the Brown County coalition, recalled how his organization’s basic services were abruptly halted, leaving it unable to support a child in need.

Benti’s organization provides services designed to promote stability and independence for youth up to age 24. They include placement in licensed foster homes, similar to emergency shelter stays.

Shortly after Trump signed the order in January, Benti received a text from his boss saying the organization could no longer move forward with placing a child in a host home. He had to inform the child it was uncertain whether the program would be funded. 

Even after federal funds were reinstated weeks later, disbursement delays further affected how employees were paid. Benti’s role, originally salaried, was switched to hourly so that he and his colleagues could maintain their positions.

Benti explained that because RAYS’ federal funds are matched by private grants, the organization’s development staff has begun applying for grants across the state. The organization seeks to expand its services and collaborate with statewide partners to become “too big to fail.” 

“We can’t do it all by ourselves,” Benti said. “We need those funds to take care of those pieces we do every day.”  

Trump’s big bill brought new limitations to RAYS through changes to social safety net programs, such as provisions introducing new work requirements for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which limited eligibility and access of certain recipients. 

These policy shifts have raised additional concerns about the potential losses to critical areas of the organization, especially Medicaid. Reductions to the federal health care program for low-income people threaten a large portion of Foundations Health and Wholeness, a nonprofit that provides mental health care to uninsured and underinsured individuals, many of whom rely on Medicaid as a source of health coverage.

Carrie Poser, executive director of Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care — a nonprofit committed to ending homelessness — pointed out that Medicaid cuts, along with restrictions on food stamps, won’t only affect people experiencing homelessness directly. 

“It will impact those living in poverty who are maybe just … a paycheck away from becoming homeless, and now you’ve just hit them with the potential of losing their health insurance, or losing access to food,” Poser said.

The organization manages a variety of federal grants, including funding for Coordinated Entry Systems that prioritize housing resources based on need, as well as a large federal Rapid Re-housing project of more than $5 million focused on domestic violence survivors.

Trump calls for shift from permanent to temporary housing

Trump’s budget proposal could eliminate federal funding for the Continuum of Care program, funneling those resources into state grants for up to two years of housing assistance. The shift would eliminate Permanent Supportive Housing, which is geared toward homeless individuals with disabilities. Under current law, those temporary housing grants can’t be used for permanent housing.

Trump’s budget also would zero out the funding for the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program.

“The top-line takeaway is that rural and suburban communities are going to suffer the most loss,” said Mary Frances Kenion, chief equity officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

About 48% of Wisconsin’s permanent supportive housing is currently funded through Continuum of Care dollars. Areas served by the outstate organization rely on federal funding for roughly 41% of their homelessness services budget.

The outstate organization also receives Housing Assistance Program grants, which it subgrants to organizations aiming to address specific gaps in their communities and offers them support that may not be available through federal funding.

Without added state support, the organization can’t expand its efforts to end homelessness, though it can maintain current levels. Currently, Housing Assistance Program funds support half a dozen projects outside Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties, a limited reach that additional funding would have broadened for the organization.

Additionally, more state funding for shelter operations could have helped shelters pay more staff and reopen after many closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Poser said.

Now, as the demand for shelter continues to rise, other service providers also face limited resources to expand their services.

The shelter funds provide support to the Northwest Wisconsin Community Services Agency for operating its shelters. However, CEO Millie Rounsville said the funding has remained flat for years, despite growing demand for services.

“As you’re trying to create additional projects … there’s no additional resources to be able to support those and actually would take away resources from other communities because the pot is the same size and the programs are expanding, which means that there’s less money to go around, and no new money to address any of the increase in the unsheltered,” Rounsville said.

With no increases in funding, expanding programs or launching new initiatives to meet rising homelessness has become increasingly difficult.

As several housing assistance organizations face limitations to state and federal funding to maintain many of their day-to-day programs and services, Kenion urges them to take stock of existing resources and make contingency plans.

Kenion advised communities to map out what services they currently offer, whether that’s through permanent supportive housing or homelessness programs, and to clearly understand where their funding may come from. She added that rural communities, in particular, should begin having difficult conversations about their funding landscape and work to broaden partnerships such as those with faith-based groups, clinics, small businesses, victim service providers and philanthropies.

Rural areas face challenges accessing support

Don Cramer, a researcher for the Wisconsin Policy Forum, points to some of the difficulty rural areas might face in obtaining funding to address homelessness. 

In rural parts of the state, limited staff capacity could mean that local agencies miss out on some of the state and federal funding opportunities that their urban counterparts are able to obtain. Cramer suggested that larger cities with high homeless populations, like Milwaukee, typically have more staff and time to dedicate to pursuing grants, while smaller counties, even those with higher homeless populations, often don’t have the employees who focus their time exclusively on applying for these funds.

Cramer also pointed out that rural communities often struggle not only to secure funding, but to capture the scope of homelessness in their areas, making it even harder to recognize and address the issue.

As Wisconsin Watch previously reported following the winter “point in time” count, one of two annual nights in the year that portray the number of people experiencing homelessness across the country, the state’s mostly rural homeless population reached 3,201 last year, its highest number since 2017.

The reported number of homeless students in Wisconsin last year reached its highest number since 2019, with 20,195 students experiencing homelessness, according to a report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum. Last year was the third consecutive year the number of reported homeless students has increased after hitting its lowest level in 2021 during the pandemic. 

The sheer difference in the number of students experiencing homelessness and individuals experiencing homelessness further highlights how the methodology for quantifying homelessness across the state, which is used to determine a community’s level of need, “doesn’t make sense for those who don’t know the differences in the methodologies,” Cramer said. 

The standards of counting between Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI), which would count a student who may be sleeping on a relative’s couch in its homeless count, and HUD, which wouldn’t, illustrate the strict guidelines that likely don’t come close to representing the full picture of homelessness in the state. 

“When you think of the (homeless counts), many assume those are undercounts,” Cramer said. “But I think the students would be pretty accurate — because schools are working with a majority of the state’s student population, and kindergartners aren’t hiding that information.”

‘We need to take into account our increasing need’

Katie Van Groll sees this issue firsthand through her work as the director of Home Base, an arm of the Boys and Girls Club of the Fox Valley that specifically works with youth up to age 21 who are experiencing challenges related to housing insecurity. 

Van Groll added that the difference between the HUD and DPI counts contributes to a systemic misunderstanding of what homelessness looks like for young people. For example, couch surfing is much more common in young people experiencing homelessness than it is for adults, but because the HUD count doesn’t include that frequent circumstance, the difference between being sheltered and being homeless “almost gets forgotten,” Van Groll said. 

“What that does is it makes them ineligible for other funding and other resources because they don’t meet the HUD definition until they are literally on the street, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid,” Van Groll said. “The sooner that we can intervene, the quicker we can disrupt that cycle and change those generational experiences of homelessness.”

While the number of youth experiencing homelessness in the state continues to rise, Evers’ budget proposal to increase funding for the Runaway and Homeless Youth program, which already operates on a difficult-to-obtain regional lottery system that Home Base competes for each year alongside other youth-oriented programs, was denied an increase in funding. 

Only one program serving runaway and homeless youth per region receives funding by the state, which in itself “is a disservice,” Van Groll said. “Right now, we’re lucky in that we are in a current federal grant so we are not looking at reapplying to the (state) funding that was just released, but we expect that other programs may not be in the same situation.” 

“Many people are going to be like, ‘well, what are you complaining about? You’re not losing any money,’” Van Groll said. “But you kind of are because we need to take into account the state of our economy, we need to take into account our increasing need, we need to take into account the fact that losing those decreases likely impacts those programs just like it does ours, which means it continues to be largely competitive across the state, inhibiting some programs from accessing those fundings.”

Meaghan Gleason, who leads the Brown County count, announced during the Brown County coalition meeting on July 9 that the current number of volunteers signed up for the summer homeless count is lower than the last two counts. She asked attendees to contribute in any way they can. 

“I would encourage you to contact your friends, family, community members, board members, funders — anyone who may be interested in going out and helping and seeing the work that we do in action,” Gleason said. 

In a phone interview on July 16, Gleason said that after reaching out to the coalition for more volunteers, involvement for the July 23-24 overnight summer count in Brown County will now see the highest number of volunteers she’s directed since taking on the role two years ago.

Homeless advocates added that there’s been an increase in encampments, with people experiencing homelessness moving deeper into the woods as the summer goes on. 

Amid the wet and hot season lately, Peter Silski, Green Bay homeless outreach case coordinator, explained that many of the people he encounters have no other choice than to build simple tents and shelters. 

Through conversations with people experiencing homelessness and connecting them with local, grassroots programs, Silski said the goal is “to empower individuals to become self-sufficient, but we want to make sure we’re there for them for as long as they need us.”

Wisconsin Watch reporter Margaret Shreiner contributed to this report.

‘We can’t do it all by ourselves’: As rural homelessness grows in Wisconsin, Republicans balk at boosting support is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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For over a decade, Wisconsin has heard the same message from Republicans regarding full Medicaid expansion: Accepting 90% federal reimbursement to cover more low-income people will only set Wisconsin up for failure if the federal government abandons its part of the deal. 

At first glance, President Donald Trump’s recently signed big bill appears to validate that argument. The 40 states that have fully expanded are now expected to lose billions of dollars in federal aid while getting tagged with additional administrative costs to create work requirements and eligibility assessments required in the bill. 

But it turns out Wisconsin is still going to be subject to the new federal mandates without the higher federal reimbursement rate that expansion states will continue to receive. In other words, at a time when the Republican-controlled federal government is supposedly pulling out the rug from expansion states, Wisconsin is still left holding the bag.

A look back

Back in 2014, then-Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans made the controversial decision not to accept full Medicaid expansion.

At the time, Walker explained his goal “is to get more people out into the workplace, more people covered when it comes to health care and fewer people dependent on the government, not because we’ve kicked them out, but we’ve empowered them to take control of their own destiny.”

But he also argued that the federal government would eventually pull back on its commitment to fund Medicaid at 90%.

“That commitment is not going to be there and taxpayers all across America will be on the hook,” Walker said. “They are not going to be on the hook in Wisconsin.”

At the time, Wisconsin was one of 25 states not accepting expansion. Now, the state is one of the 10 remaining holdouts, with most of the others in the deep red South. Even reliably red states, like Arkansas and Louisiana, have accepted full expansion. 

Instead of accepting full expansion, Wisconsin chose to cover individuals through BadgerCare, the state’s Medicaid-supported health insurance program for low-income residents set up by former Gov. Tommy Thompson, a Republican. 

Walker and Republicans lowered Medicaid coverage to 100% of the federal poverty line from the previous 200% and eliminated the waiting list for childless adults. Those above the poverty line without employer-sponsored insurance could purchase it through the Affordable Care Act marketplace using federal subsidies, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.  

But Wisconsin taxpayers are paying more to cover individuals below the poverty line: 39.3% of costs rather than 10% under full Medicaid expansion. In 2023, Medicaid accounted for 15.7% of state taxpayer spending, according to the policy forum.

Under its approach, Wisconsin doesn’t have an eligibility gap like some states, something Republicans highlight as a reason the state doesn’t need to expand.

But that has come with a loss of federal funds. Over the past decade, Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services estimates, the state has spent about $2.6 billion more to cover the costs of a partial expansion compared with the projected cost under a federal expansion.

Under an expansion, more individuals would be able to access Medicaid. But the Wisconsin Policy Forum found it would have a somewhat modest impact on coverage levels — the percentage change in Medicaid enrollees would be 7.2%, compared with nearly 30% or more in other non-expansion states. 

Work requirements still in effect under Trump bill

With the recent federal bill, Walker and other Republicans still argue Wisconsin was right not to accept federal expansion. The state is going to experience the impacts to a lesser extent than fully expanded states. 

But because Wisconsin receives federal waivers for its Medicaid program, the state is still subject to some provisions under the new law, including the work requirements, eligibility determinations and provider taxes.

Under the new work requirements, individuals covered by Medicaid are required to prove they are working 80 hours per month — parents with dependent children or people who are medically frail are exempted.

As a result, some 230,000 Wisconsin residents could lose coverage while the state incurs administrative costs to account for the new requirements, according to an estimate from U.S. Senate Democrats based on data from the Congressional Budget Office.

The work requirements don’t stop at individuals covered by Medicaid alone; it also extends to coverage through marketplace subsidies, affecting over 200,000 Wisconsin residents. 

Work requirements used to be required for Wisconsin residents to access coverage through federal waivers, but in 2021 then-President Joe Biden removed the work requirement. 

The labor force participation rate has dipped from about 68% in 2017 to a little over 65% as of May 2025 but has remained higher than the national average, which is about 62%. Some reports suggest that decline is due to the aging workforce in the state.

Work requirements have also been found to increase the uninsured rate.  

The Wisconsin Policy Forum reports that one of the main reasons work requirements may lead to higher uninsured rates is that they are confusing and time-consuming. Some people may choose to get rid of coverage altogether to avoid unnecessary paperwork. 

What could happen with the federal bill?

The Kaiser Family Foundation also found that implementing work requirements will be costly for states, costing anywhere from $10 million to over $270 million, depending on the size of the state. DHS estimates the state will pay $6 million annually to implement work requirements, while receiving a lower federal match rate than fully expanded states to reimburse for administrative costs.

With a lower federal match rate, Wisconsin has increased Medicaid funding through hospital taxes, which the new state budget just increased from 1.8% to the federal maximum of 6% for the 2025-27 biennium budget.

Republican lawmakers in the state were quick to approve the hospital tax increase, despite their previous opposition to Medicaid expansion as a means for drawing down additional federal funding. If they hadn’t, the state’s 1.8% tax would have been frozen under Trump’s big bill. The increase will raise some $1 billion more annually in federal matching funds that the state can use to pay hospitals for care they provide Medicaid patients.

States that expanded will not lose the 90% federal match rate, but those like Wisconsin that didn’t will now miss out on an additional incentive to expand created during the Biden administration.

The incentive would have raised the federal match rate to 95% for two years, but was eliminated by Trump’s big bill. Instead Wisconsin will remain at about 60% reimbursement, while still facing the same bureaucratic requirements as expansion states.

Wisconsin still losing out from not expanding Medicaid — even under Trump’s big bill is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Child care provider Corrine Hendrickson addresses a rally in front of the state Capitol Friday demanding a re-do on the state budget to increase child care funding. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

While Gov. Tony Evers has touted the new state budget’s child care funds as a compromise victory, some providers say they’re deeply disappointed. 

“This was not a win,” said Bloomer child care provider Caitlin Mitchell at a rally outside the Capitol Friday morning organized by Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN). “It was a temporary fix with long-term consequences.”

A press release from Evers’ office after he signed the budget early on July 3 said the document contains “Over $360 million to support Wisconsin’s child care industry and help lower child care costs for working families, a third of which is in direct payments to providers.”

A majority of Democratic lawmakers voted against the budget, citing shortcomings in funding for public schools as well as for child care. Assembly and Senate Democrats who voted in favor of the plan described it as a compromise. 

“I really really wish that the governor and the Democrats had just admitted that this was the best that they could do and that it’s still not good,” Corrine Hendrickson, a child care provider and WECAN co-founder, told reporters at the Friday morning rally.

“Everything we’re being told about the budget absolutely does not help children in our state at all,” said WECAN’s other co-founder, Brooke Legler. “The only compromise was the children’s safety. And this isn’t OK.”

WECAN members say that the budget’s child care funding is well short of what they need, and that regulatory changes are bad for providers, families and children. 

A pilot program increases Wisconsin Shares payments by up to $200 a month if providers agree to higher ratios of four children to one teacher for children 18 months or younger, and seven children to one teacher for children 18 months to 2½ years old. Wisconsin Shares subsidizes child care for low-income families.

According to Hendrickson, the ratio increase lowers the quality of care, and tying it to the subsidy program treats the poorer children differently than the rest of the children in care.

“Those children deserve to have more time and attention,” she said in her address to the rally. “Their parents are loving, their parents are caring, but their parents are stressed because they’re in poverty and that affects those kids.”

Child care providers should refuse to participate in that pilot, she said. 

Another provision lowers the minimum age for an assistant child care teacher to 16 from 18, while retaining the education requirements for the position.

“Sixteen-year-olds are wonderful human beings but they are not teachers of young children,” said Hendrickson.

“Those exact same policies were presented two years ago through the normal process of creating a bill. And we as a state overwhelmingly said no,” said Legler. “It did not even make it out of committee.”

In addition to $110 million in direct payments to providers, the child care total’s other big ticket items include $123 million to increase reimbursements that providers get for children in the Wisconsin Shares subsidy program and $65 million for providers who participate in a new “school readiness” program similar to 4-year-old kindergarten.

The $110 million direct payments, which would end after the budget’s first year, amount to about one-fourth of the $480 million that Evers originally sought. His budget proposal aimed to continue the state’s Child Care Counts program, funded by federal pandemic relief money.

At its height, Child Care Counts paid out $20 million a month and was credited with helping providers boost wages for child care teachers without raising tuition for parents. Two years ago the Evers administration dialed the program back to $10 million a month to stretch out its payments. The federal funds have now run out.

In a survey of child care providers earlier this year the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty reported that about one in four said they could close without continued payments. Evers cited the survey during the spring while campaigning for his original $480 million child care proposal.

WECAN leaders sent Evers a statement Friday, calling on him to order a special session of the Legislature and seek the full amount of child care support that he originally submitted for the 2025-27 state budget.

“We’re asking Gov. Evers to finish what’s been started,” Mitchell said in her rally speech. “Temporary funding and weakened standards are not enough. We need a comprehensive long-term investment in child care.”

After the 2023-25 budget was enacted without the child care investment that Evers sought, the governor called a special session and introduced a bill that included funding for child care, education and other priorities. The Legislature’s Republican majority rewrote the bill, replacing his provisions with tax cut measures that Evers vetoed. 

Hendrickson acknowledged the outcome of the special session call two years ago, but said in an interview that Evers should pursue  effort anyway. 

“This is the only thing that we can do to keep this in front of everybody, to keep it top of mind,” she said. 

“The $110 million over the next 11 months is around 20% less than we are currently receiving,” WECAN’s letter to the governor states. “So, no, tuition prices will not be lowering; in fact, they will be going up next month to cover this loss, or providers will be closing their doors, especially in rural areas.”

The WECAN statement tells Evers that his public assertion that the child care provisions will lower costs “creates confusion and parents will blame us; disrupting our important relationship due to the distrust your words have sown.”

Legler told the Wisconsin Examiner later Friday that when the WECAN group delivered the letter and spoke with Evers’ communications director, Britt Cudaback, the conversation didn’t go well from her perspective.

“We felt very minimized, unheard and condescended to,” Legler said.

Evers’ office has not responded to requests for comment.

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Wisconsin lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers approved a $111 billion state budget early Thursday morning that will increase spending on child care and the Universities of Wisconsin system, while cutting taxes by $1.5 billion. 

The budget was the first since Democrats gained 14 seats in both chambers of the Legislature under new legislative maps and reflected a stronger bipartisan compromise than in previous cycles. 

Senate Republicans, with only one vote to spare, needed Senate Democrats at the negotiating table to pass the budget after multiple Republican senators indicated their disapproval with the budget. Four Republican state senators voted against the budget, and five Democratic state senators voted for it.

The budget was approved in both chambers on Wednesday evening and signed by Evers after 1 a.m. because lawmakers wanted to finish the state budget before President Donald Trump’s big federal bill passed. The federal bill capped Medicaid reimbursement for state taxes on hospitals at 6% and would have frozen tax rates on states like Wisconsin, which previously was at 1.8%. The move helped Wisconsin secure $1.5 billion in additional federal funds.

Evers called 2025 the “year of the kid,” prioritizing more funding for child care, K-12 education — particularly special education reimbursement — and higher education. While those areas received significant funding increases, and Republicans got their desired tax cut, postpartum Medicaid extension, renewal of the popular Knowles-Nelson public land acquisition fund and several other items, many with bipartisan support, were missing from this budget.

Postpartum Medicaid eligibility not extended to a year

Notably missing from the budget is extending postpartum Medicaid coverage to 12 months — an item that every single senator on the budget committee voted for when it was last brought before the Senate. 

“The governor called this budget the ‘year of the kid,’ and the year of the kid really needs to include mothers and parents and their mental health because the first indicator of a child’s well-being is their parents’ mental health, their mother’s mental health,” said Casey White, marketing and communications manager for Moms Mental Health Initiative. 

Evers asked for the state to allocate over $24 million to extend postpartum Medicaid eligibility to 12 months. Advocacy groups and women’s health experts say the most risky time for a mother’s health is six to nine months postpartum, but eligible new mothers currently only receive about two months of coverage. 

Wisconsin is one of only two states that do not extend eligibility for 12 months, despite the severe maternal morbidity rates rising in the state and increases in perinatal depression diagnoses. 

Extending postpartum Medicaid has received bipartisan support in both the Senate and Assembly. In April, the Senate passed a stand-alone bill that would extend postpartum Medicaid coverage. But the bill has stalled in the Assembly. 

Former Rep. Donna Rozar, R-Marshfield, told Wisconsin Watch in January she authored the bill because she wanted to support new mothers. Even with bipartisan support in his chamber, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, refused to schedule it for a hearing last session. 

This time around, Joint Finance Committee Republicans did not remove Evers’ proposal to extend postpartum Medicaid eligibility from budget consideration, meaning the committee could have introduced and passed a motion including the provision. 

But as the committee wrapped its work last Tuesday, the extension was missing. Now, the stand-alone legislation awaits an unlikely hearing in the Assembly. 

Child care provisions enough?

Late in the budget process it became clear that one of Evers’ highest priorities was funding a child care program supported by expiring federal pandemic relief dollars. The budget includes more than $361 million to fund direct payments to providers, increase child care subsidies for low-income families and fund an early school readiness program.

While the bipartisan willingness to address the ongoing issue of child care access in the state is a significant step, Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, explained the $110 million in direct payments to providers is far from enough to stabilize the field. 

Another critical part of the budget was the early school readiness program. Schmidt said allocating general purpose revenue to this program demonstrates lawmakers trust in the provider community to supply a school readiness curriculum to families around the state.

The third major piece of funding approved this budget cycle is raising the Wisconsin Shares child care program to the 75th percentile of market rates, allowing low-income families to access affordable, quality care. 

“I always will argue that we can do more, and we can and other states do more, but for us to be at a place where we are restoring payments to 75% of the market is hugely important,” Schmidt said. 

Schmidt noted that not all of the provisions are what is recommended by child care advocates, particularly the ratios of children to caretakers. 

The budget would increase the class size for 18- to 30-month-olds by instituting a ratio of one caregiver to seven children rather than the recommended one-to-four. Schmidt said that is not something WECA would stand behind as best practice in the state and is not necessarily the right move for long-term investment into child care.

WECA is preparing to provide additional training to the facilities that take on this pilot program over the biennium. 

Environmental advocates look to fall session for stewardship, PFAS fund

Two major environmental initiatives — reauthorization of the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund and increased funding for the PFAS trust fund created in the last budget cycle — failed to make it into the final budget.

But Republican lawmakers have shown a willingness to reauthorize the stewardship fund, with a separate bill by Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, and Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, aiming to fund the stewardship program through 2030. The fund supports land conservation and outdoor recreation through grants to local governments and nonprofits and also allows the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to purchase and maintain state land. 

Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin, D-Whitefish Bay, shared her disappointment that the budget deal did not reauthorize the stewardship fund and pointed to it as one of the reasons she voted against the budget. 

“Beyond the long-time importance of this program to me personally, Knowles-Nelson funding has stood out as the single-most popular issue I have heard from my constituents during my first six months in office – from voters across the political spectrum,” Habush Sinykin said.

The state Supreme Court recently limited the power of the state budget committee to block conservation projects. Although funds for the program are currently set to expire on June 30, 2026, most funds are already awarded, and a lapse in funds could impact planning for land trusts and local governments hoping to access the funds, according to the program.

Paul Heinen, policy director at environmental policy organization Wisconsin Green Fire, and a lobbyist for the first stewardship fund in 1989, said the battle over reauthorization mirrors past debates over the fund. 

“The stewardship fund is, could very well be, the single most loved state program,” Heinen said. “But oftentimes it’s leadership who says, no, we’re spending too much money. We’re not going to spend money on this, and then invariably, the other 120 legislators overrule them at some point, and the stewardship fund is reauthorized. That’s where we’re at right now.”

Heinen said he was “99% sure” the fund would be reauthorized in future legislative sessions but was uncertain at what level the fund would be restored. Evers’ budget proposed reauthorizing the fund with $100 million of bonding authority per year through 2036. The Republican bill proposes $28 million per year for the next four years.

UW system funding rebounds with some strings attached

Just two weeks ago, Republican lawmakers floated an $87 million cut to the Universities of Wisconsin budget, yet in the final deal between lawmakers and Evers, the system will see a $256 million increase, the largest increase in over two decades. 

Republican lawmakers conditioned their support for additional funding on several things, including a required transfer credit policy between system schools, the continuation of a cap on state-funded positions and workload requirements for faculty. 

UW-Madison faculty advocacy group PROFs celebrated the increased funding for the system, but called the updated workload requirements an overreach “that would intrude on the responsibilities of both institutions and their faculty members.” 

The budget also specifies certain funding to be directed toward lower-enrollment universities. The funding formula the UW system uses to distribute state aid among schools has been a source of controversy among Republican lawmakers who have argued for more transparency. 

Jon Shelton, president of AFT-Wisconsin and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, said he was frustrated faculty and staff were not part of negotiations over work requirements.

“It takes something that otherwise could have been, I think, relatively positive for the UW system and created a poison pill that was unnecessary,” Shelton said. 

Although the $256 million increase is a significant boost to the system, the funding is only a fraction of the $856 million that Evers and UW requested. 

UW system President Jay Rothman had indicated that if the $856 million request was fulfilled, the remaining two-year branch campuses, several of which have closed in recent years, battling funding shortfalls and enrollment decreases, would stay open, and tuition would not increase. System spokesperson Mark Pitsch did not respond to a request for comment on the potential impacts on branch campuses or tuition.

DAs but no public defenders

Republicans voted to increase assistant district attorneys in Wisconsin counties, notably adding seven ADAs in Brown County, but they didn’t add any public defender positions. Without filling these positions, the American Civil Liberties Union reports current public defenders are overburdened and cannot conduct thorough investigations into a case. 

Brown County already faces a backlog of cases, with reports saying there has been an increase of over 2,000 open criminal cases in the past decade. While adding ADAs may allow the prosecutors to bring more cases to the courts, failing to add public defenders will not address the backlog of criminal cases. 

That means as more cases are presented by ADAs, there might not be enough public defenders to actually represent the individuals, so those accused of a crime may spend more time in jails as they await an attorney. 

Republicans also added 12.5 ADA positions in Milwaukee County. 

Milwaukee has been addressing backlogs but still faces challenges. By adding more ADAs to bring cases forth, while ignoring a shortage of public defenders, backlog challenges could be exacerbated.

Here’s what didn’t make it into Wisconsin’s $111 billion state budget is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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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.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signs budget in early morning to secure Medicaid funds is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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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.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers reaches budget deal with Republicans to cut taxes, fund university system is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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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. 

Here’s how Wisconsin’s Republican budget compares with public opinion is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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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.”

Wisconsin budget progress stalls amid Senate GOP resistance is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Republicans revealed their big-ticket tax cut plan for this budget cycle, passing through the Joint Finance Committee on Thursday a $1.3 billion tax cut over the next biennium and offering incremental increases in special education and technical college funding. Read on for some bite-sized budget updates:

Middle class income and investment tax cuts approved

Currently, taxpayers pay 4.4% in taxes on income between $14,680 and $29,370 and 5.3% on income between $29,370 and $323,290. Under the new plan, which would begin in tax year 2025, the 4.4% tax bracket would expand to include income up to ​​$50,480. For married couples filing jointly, the income covered in that bracket would rise from $39,150 to $67,300. 

The proposal would reduce taxes by about $190 for a single filer and $253 for a joint married filer. 

Older retirees would also see a tax cut, as they wouldn’t have to pay taxes on up to $24,000 of retirement income that comes out of 401(k)s, IRAs and pensions. That doesn’t include retirement income that is already not taxed, such as Social Security.

The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates that those with a retirement account of $1.2 million or more would receive the maximum benefit.

Republican K-12 education plan points to property tax increases

The budget committee voted 12-4 along party lines to increase funding for special education reimbursement, though at a rate lower than recommended in Gov. Tony Evers’ budget and advocated for by parents of special education students. 

Currently, the state reimburses about 30% of the costs associated with providing students special education services to public school districts, and under the Republican proposal, this rate would increase to 35% in the first and 37.5% in the second year of the biennial budget. 

Democratic legislators, Evers and school districts across the state advocated for a 60% special education reimbursement, citing the record number of Wisconsin school districts that have gone to referendum and the state’s over $4 billion surplus.

K-12 education traditionally takes up the largest portion of the state budget; however, the proportion of funding allocated to school districts across the state has decreased from over 43% of the state’s general fund in 2002 to 36% in the last budget cycle.

Democratic and Republican legislators sparred over “right-sizing” the budget, with Republican legislators pointing to the increase in special education funding and desire for fiscal responsibility and Democrats reading testimony from students, parents and school administrators across the state expressing a need for stronger state support. 

Republican legislators also approved 90% reimbursement for high-need special education students — about 3% of special education students — and no funding increase in general school aid. 

Democrats highlighted how by not increasing general school aid, the Republican proposal would likely lead to higher property taxes across the state. If the state increases aid, property tax increases would be limited. 

Republicans pointed to Evers’ 400-year veto as the reason why property taxes will likely increase. That’s because in the previous budget, Evers used a creative veto to increase state-imposed caps on K-12 funding each year for 400 years. 

Technical colleges get modest increase

Republicans proposed an increase of more than $8 million to general aid for technical colleges over the next two years, a fraction of  Evers’ $45 million proposal.

Unlike per-pupil aid for students in the Universities of Wisconsin system, which ranks 43rd in the country, the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) is currently funded at about the median rate for technical college systems. 

In an interview with the Cap Times, WTCS President Layla Merrifield said increased demand for fire and EMS training in rural areas of the state, in addition to a bounceback in enrollments since the COVID-19 pandemic and workforce shortages, necessitates the $45 million increase in state funding.

Supreme Court police force denied

Credible threats against Wisconsin judges are on the rise. There were 30 in 2022, 46 in 2023 and 29 in 2024, but 22 in just the first three months of this year.

Despite that, Republicans last week rejected the Supreme Court’s state budget proposal to create the Office of the Marshals of the Supreme Court — a law enforcement agency to serve the Supreme Court specifically. The proposal would’ve cost $2.3 million over the biennium to fund 8.4 positions.

Judges are responsible for making decisions impartially, even in the face of intimidation. Democrats on the state budget committee warned additional threats could sway rulings. 

“Given the role that they play in our judiciary and in order to be impartial, we shouldn’t want them to be in danger, or to fear for their safety, or to have any outward pressures on them that would influence the case,” Rep. Tip McGuire, D-Kenosha, said. 

Threats to federal judges have doubled since 2021. The increase has been attributed to the politicization of courts. In Wisconsin there were also contentious Supreme Court elections in 2023 and 2025.

Legislative Republicans argue it would be redundant to allocate funds to create a new police agency. 

“The Capitol Police protects the Capitol for visitors, employees, legislators, the court, whoever happens to be here,” Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, told reporters. “I think they’ll continue to provide top-notch work here at the Capitol.”

Private health insurance market gets a boost

To address the rising costs of private insurance premiums in Wisconsin, the budget committee approved legislation to raise the cap on a reinsurance fund the state created to help insurance companies pay high-cost claims. The Wisconsin Healthcare Stability Plan — a program aimed at making insurance more affordable — would receive an additional $35 million, setting the cap at $265 million. 

In 2024, insurance claims exceeded the cap by $26 million, leading insurance agencies to raise premiums for consumers. The new cap, which is $15 million more than what Evers proposed, aims to address the rising costs of insurance. 

Due to insurance claims exceeding that $26 million cap, JFC Republicans also passed a provision to direct the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance to cover those additional claims up to $265 million for 2025. 

But Republicans decided against Evers’ proposal to automatically adjust the cap based on inflation, meaning if claims once again exceed the cap, raising it would be dependent on what happens in the next budget cycle. 

In recent years, the cost of insurance premiums have increased due to inflation raising the price of goods and services. Federal dollars cannot be used for claims exceeding the cap, putting the burden of higher premiums on consumers.

Big Wisconsin Republican budget plans on taxes, K-12 education come into focus is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Wisconsin’s budget committee voted unanimously Thursday to increase the bonding authority of the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program and the Clean Water Fund Program by $732 million, which could provide increased assistance to Wisconsin communities for wastewater treatment infrastructure projects.

The vote was the only unanimous decision at the Joint Finance Committee meeting, approved just after Republican lawmakers halted budget negotiations with Gov. Tony Evers Wednesday evening.

The Clean Water Fund Program provides subsidized loans for local governments to plan, design, construct and replace waste or drinking water projects. Demand for the clean water fund program exceeded available funds by almost $90 million in 2025, according to the Department of Natural Resources. 

Before the vote, JFC co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, addressed the need for water treatment infrastructure across Wisconsin.

“I look at some of the unfunded projects around the state, and I’ve got several in my district, so this is going to be very good for a lot of our local communities when it comes to clean water,” Marklein said. 

In a Thursday statement, conservation organizations, including the Wisconsin Conservation Voters, celebrated the JFC’s unanimous decision. 

“Every Wisconsinite deserves equitable access to safe, affordable drinking water,” said Peter Burress, government affairs manager. “Increasing the revenue bonding authority of the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program and the Clean Water Fund Program is a smart, substantive way to make progress on this goal.” 

Catch up on previous bite-sized reports on the state budget here.

Wisconsin budget committee unanimously approves increasing bonding authority for water infrastructure grants is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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The Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS), the agency responsible for licensing about 200 credentials, including in health care, business and the trades, would face a 31% staff cut starting Oct. 1 under the budget Republicans advanced in committee last week. 

The reduction would mean longer wait times for licenses and worse call center customer service, DSPS Communications Director John Beard said.

During Thursday’s Joint Finance Committee meeting, Republicans rejected the agency’s proposal to add 14 full-time call center positions and 10 licensing positions for DSPS to replace the temporary positions funded through federal stimulus set to expire this fall.

DSPS warned lawmakers that without the additional staff, licensing wait times could double from about eight to 16 days and answer rates at the call center could fall below 40%, reaching pre-pandemic lows. In 2018 only a little over half of the calls were answered.

Gov. Tony Evers granted DSPS federal stimulus funding in 2023. At the time, licensees were stuck waiting months at a time to receive their licenses. After DSPS used the stimulus to hire additional, temporary staff, they saw those wait times decline sharply, now averaging about 2-5 days to review application materials.

The agency’s recommendations highlighted the impact additional staff members would have on the agency, including maintaining high answer rates for the agency’s call center and minimizing wait times for licensees. 

If the agency were to fall back into a similar backlogging crisis from 2023, DSPS warns it could lead to drastic reductions in licenses issued to Wisconsin workers.

“That’s a staffing shortage in our clinics, in our hospitals, and it’s a problem for us individuals who are depending on these individuals to be licensed as quickly as possible and move onto the floor,” Sen. LaTonya Johnson, D-Milwaukee, said during the budget committee meeting. 

The day before the meeting, the Wisconsin Medical Society and health care providers and institutions sent letters to lawmakers, urging them to vote in favor of the agency’s budget proposal, which Evers included in his budget recommendation. 

“If the DSPS request is not approved, we fear a return to increased license processing times, longer call center hold times, and less responsiveness overall,” Wisconsin Medical Society Chief Policy and Advocacy Officer Mark Grapentine wrote. “These types of delays in the past resulted in applicants choosing to practice in other states due to languishing frustrations.”

DSPS said more efficient licensing created $54 million in additional wages for Wisconsin workers in 2023, compared with a projected $2 million annual cost to create the permanent positions.

Wisconsin Watch previously reported on an alcohol and drug counselor from Minnesota who waited 16 months before being told she had to take additional courses through University of Wisconsin-Superior to be eligible. 

The DSPS legislative liaison at the time boiled it down to inadequate staffing, reducing the efficiency of the agency. 

The Republican-controlled committee approved only five limited term positions for the agency. The JFC co-chairs said in a press release Thursday the committee voted to fund important government services, while limiting spending.

“We provided funding for DSPS call center staff who work to help credential holders and the public navigate licensure platforms. This investment ensures the department can operate effectively and provide these critical services to professionals,” Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, and Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said. 

Republican lawmakers have previously rejected Evers’ recommendations to add staffing to the agency, even though the funding comes from department licensing fees — not taxpayer dollars. As a result, the agency’s surplus of unspent licensing fees increased from $4.4 million to $47 million, all while its services deteriorated.

In 2021, the committee approved two of the 13 positions Evers recommended. In 2023, the committee granted 18 of the 80 positions Evers requested. 

Evers used federal stimulus funding for temporary positions, including adding additional project positions. But the funding for those temporary positions will run out this year. 

Beard said by Oct. 1 the call center staff will go from 28 to 11 positions and total staff will go from 58 to 40. 

Republicans also voted to transfer $5 million in program revenue — the money collected from the fees paid when applying for, obtaining and maintaining a license — to the general fund, which is expected to have a $4.2 billion surplus at the end of the month.

At the end of the last fiscal year, the DSPS surplus was around $39 million, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Despite having the huge surplus of program revenue — including money accumulated from fees applied to permit and license applications — DSPS can’t use those funds to hire more staff without JFC approval.

“Licensees pay fees so that they can be appropriately regulated, and what we are doing is starving that system and making it harder for every single one of us to access needed professional services,” Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, said in support of adding 24 permanent positions using program revenue.

Republican budget plan could pour sand back into licensing agency gears is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.