“It really blew up our world,” public schools advocate Heather DuBois Bourenane says of the failed school funding and tax-cut deal that Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Tony Evers trumpeted as a “blockbuster” before it fizzled in the state Senate, ending in finger-pointing and recriminations. 

“It was the first time the carrot had been dangled so close to public schools,” DuBois Bourenane says, describing the “moment of utter euphoria” when her group, the Wisconsin Public Education Network, made up of parents, teachers and school officials from every corner of Wisconsin, first heard about the deal. “It seemed like what we’d been fighting so hard for for so long was finally about to happen.”

But then DuBois Bourenane and the other members of her organization got the details.

The funding for special education was not locked in at 50% in the second year of the plan as they’d hoped. Instead of a “sum-sufficient” or guaranteed allocation to cover a set percentage of costs, the 50% was an estimate. If costs go up, that percentage would go down. As for the $300 million increase in general aid to schools, as a Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis explains: “the additional aid would provide property tax relief but not additional resources for school districts.”

Tax cuts made up the lion’s share of the deal — about 80% of the total $1.8 billion. Those included property tax cuts, interest earnings reductions, no tax on tips and overtime and, biggest of all, an $870 million income tax rebate that would have put $300 checks in the mail to people who earned enough money to qualify. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau projected that the deal would leave the state with a nearly $3 billion deficit. 

Most of that deficit would be caused not by school spending, but by what Dubois Bourenane describes as a wasteful tax giveaway. “What the heck?” she says. “You’re wasting the surplus while pretending to fix the thing [school funding] you broke the worst!”

School funding in Wisconsin was broken by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s historic budget cuts. The damage has compounded each year for more than a decade and a half as school budgets haven’t kept pace with inflation. In such dire circumstances there were, DuBois Bourenane acknowledges, public school advocates who felt anything was better than nothing. But the two-year stopgap deal Evers and Republican leaders reached did not come close to fixing the long-term problem. 

On the bright side, says Dubois Bourenane, at least politicians in both parties have stopped pretending the last several budgets actually funded schools sufficiently. The need to address the funding crisis in Wisconsin public schools has become a bipartisan talking point. Even Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany (who, as a legislator, voted for former Walker’s massive cut to schools) lists it as a top priority.

A recent Marquette poll showed that 80% of Wisconsinites who were contacted about the rushed deal right after it failed, with little time for discussion or analysis, and asked if they would like to receive $300 in the mail from the state, said yes. But voters deserve a full, public discussion of their options, and whether tax rebates worth $278 to most individual Wisconsin tax filers and $574 to most married joint filers, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, are worth putting the state in a $3 billion hole with no long-term fix for the school funding crisis. 

DuBois-Bourenane wishes the Legislature would take up a bill introduced in March that would guarantee a 60% special ed reimbursement from the state, easing the burden on local property taxpayers, who have been filling the hole by passing local referendum requests at record rates, raising their own taxes as the state reneges on its obligation to fund schools. 

But couldn’t committing the state to once again cover the real costs of public education put us in a deficit? Maybe, says DuBois Bournenane. “We’d have to cut money in other ways. But we would stop balancing the budget on the backs of children” — instead of acting as though the state can always avoid paying its biggest bill.

“There’s not really a surplus here,” she adds. “There’s just a pool of money that used to be used to fund public schools that now is not used at all.”

That’s the pool of money Walker “saved” by cutting funding for schools, and Evers and Republican leaders wanted to dole out over the next two years — 80% of it in the form of tax cuts and 20% to schools. 

She finds Evers’ public expressions of frustration with Democrats for not supporting his deal mystifying. “It seems to me it’s a predictable problem he could have solved in advance by consulting with his colleagues on the deal before moving forward.”

But most of all, for public schools, kids and communities across Wisconsin, the whole thing was “incredibly cruel,” she says.

“If we were being led by adults they’d laugh it off and get back to the table and get a new deal,” she says. Instead, the long-term problems threatening public education in Wisconsin continue, with no real fix in sight. 

“I know it doesn’t look like it from a distance, but it’s not about the money,” DuBois Bourenane says. “It’s about are the kids OK? Can we meet their needs?”

The answer, coming from districts that are facing steep cuts, growing class sizes, fewer extra curricular activities and school consolidations and closures, is no. The kids are not OK.

Compounding the damage is a looming crisis that was not part of the budget deal discussion at all. In 2026 all caps come off Wisconsin’s school voucher program. An unlimited number of families will be able to send their kids to private schools at taxpayer expense, and the funding for that program, under a law signed by Walker and supported by Tiffany, comes off the top of state funds. As school voucher programs have steadily grown in Wisconsin, most new students enrolled come from families that already had their kids in private school. The potential explosion in new families joining that group will put the current school funding crisis in a long shadow.

Still, DuBois Bourenane is optimistic Wisconsin can fix the problem. Her group is part of a lawsuit charging the state with failing its obligation to provide a “free, adequate public education” to all Wisconsin children. 

She believes the problem could be solved right now, and that “it’s irresponsible to walk away from the table” after the budget deal disaster. And that the pride and anger of the politicians who don’t want to keep trying is hurting Wisconsin kids.

But she also sees a huge opportunity for voters to put pressure on the politicians running for office this fall to change the attitude in the statehouse and “elect people with more energy to do things for our communities.”

“I don’t think all is lost. We will fix it in the long run. But we could fix it now,” she says. “And we’re choosing not to.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Fidelity bonds protect businesses if an employee steals or commits fraud. 

• The state issues the bonds, and research shows they’re one of the most effective ways to persuade employers to hire people with criminal records.  

• But Wisconsin issues few fidelity bonds. 

• Experts are divided on the issue, with some saying the free insurance can’t hurt and might help. 

• Others say it doesn’t address all the concerns employers have or educate them about the benefits of giving people with criminal records a second chance.

For every 10 people released from Wisconsin’s prisons, just seven find jobs within two years — even as the state’s ongoing worker shortage leaves many employers scrambling to find the help they need. 

The struggle isn’t unique to Wisconsin. Formerly incarcerated people nationwide are far more likely to be unemployed than the general population. One reason: Though people with criminal records often outperform their colleagues, many employers worry they’ll be unreliable or even dangerous. 

That’s why, 60 years ago, the U.S. government began insuring employers against that risk, for free. 

The Federal Bonding Program, established in 1966, offers “fidelity bonds” to reimburse businesses for losses if the covered employee steals or commits fraud. 

Recent research suggests these bonds are one of the most effective ways the government can persuade employers to give jobs to people with criminal records. Those jobs have ripple effects.  Families become more financially stable, communities become safer — as people with jobs are less likely to commit new crimes — and taxpayers save money as fewer people return to prison.  

So why aren’t Wisconsin employers requesting these bonds? While some states issued hundreds last year, Wisconsin issued just three — even though an estimated 1.4 million Wisconsinites have a criminal record. 

Demand in the state is so low that when the federal government in 2019 offered Wisconsin $100,000 to spend on bonds, workforce officials used just $15,000.

To figure out what’s going on, Wisconsin Watch spoke to economists, insurance experts, criminologists and workforce development officials, who ranged from enthusiastic to cynical about bonding. 

Some said the coverage limits may be too low to address employers’ worries, or that bonds don’t help when employers are worried about safety or a bad work ethic. Some said employers overestimate the risk of hiring people with criminal records and that education — not insurance — is the solution. But most said offering this free insurance can’t hurt and might help. 

In a worker-strapped state, is this insurance program a little-known lifeline or an irrelevant relic? 

Bonding basics

Imagine you’re a hiring manager who wants to offer a job to an applicant with a criminal record. If you’re in the same boat as many businesses, your commercial insurance may not cover any theft or other act of dishonesty if the employee in question has a criminal record. 

To fill that insurance gap, you contact your state’s bonding coordinator to apply for a six-month, no-deductible fidelity bond that will reimburse you for up to $5,000 in losses. In special circumstances, you can apply for additional coverage of up to $25,000. The state handles the paperwork and the $100 cost. 

The program boasts a claim rate of just 1%, meaning businesses in the program seldom report losses. At the end of the six months, you may now be satisfied that your new employee is trustworthy — or you can buy additional coverage. 

In Wisconsin, these bonds are the only incentive available to encourage what’s often called “second chance” or “fair chance” hiring.

“It is a unique tool to help a job applicant get and keep a job,” the state’s Department of Workforce Development says on its bonding webpage. “It is like a ‘guarantee’ to the employer that the person hired will be an honest worker.” 

The same bonds are also available to other job applicants whose background could make it hard to get or keep a job. That includes people in treatment or recovery for alcohol or drug addictions and people with little or no work history. 

In practice, the program is almost exclusively used for people with criminal records, according to program administrator Kevin Kulling. 

Wisconsin focuses much of its outreach effort on prisons, making sure people know how to take advantage of the program when they get out. The stakes are high: Of those released in 2023, nearly 1 in 3 were rearrested within a year and 1 in 8 ended up back behind bars. 

Recent research backs bonds 

Governments have tried a variety of ways to persuade employers to hire people with criminal records. 

Nationally, there’s the $2-billion-a-year federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit, which rewards employers for hiring people with felony convictions. But new research finds the tax credit doesn’t increase pay or hiring for the workers it’s designed to help. It expired in December but could be reinstated.

Meanwhile, a growing number of states have tried to boost job seekers by barring employers from asking about criminal records on job applications. In about a dozen states, public and private employers are subject to such “ban-the-box” measures. 

Evidence is mixed. Several studies find these laws reduce hiring for Black and Hispanic men, suggesting that when employers can’t check an applicant’s criminal record, they instead make assumptions based on demographics.

Enter the bond, a policy that predates the others by decades. In 1975, the U.S. Department of Labor commissioned a study of the then-new program. Participating workers reported major salary increases after joining the program, and a majority held on to their bonded job longer than one year. 

New evidence supports the program. In a 2023 article, researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research teamed up with an online hiring platform to survey businesses. The platform asked users about their willingness to hire people with criminal records and how that might change if the platform offered wage subsidies or insurance coverage. 

Researchers found employer willingness to hire someone with a criminal record rose 12% when offered up to $5,000 in crime and safety insurance. It would take an 80% wage subsidy to get the same result. 

Mitchell Hoffman, an economics professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, co-authored that study. He said policymakers have often tried to solve these hiring challenges by trying to change the workers, like with training or therapy. This research suggests it’s possible to change employers’ behavior, too.

That matters, he said, because employers hold the cards. “If firms don’t want to employ people with a record, then it’s hard to move them to employment and to good jobs,” Hoffman said.

The findings are welcome news to Jen Doleac, executive vice president of criminal justice at the philanthropy Arnold Ventures and author of the book “The Science of Second Chances: A Revolution in Criminal Justice.” Doleac, who researches crime and discrimination, was surprised when she first learned about the Federal Bonding Program.

“It’s such a smart idea. Employers say they’re worried about the risk of hiring someone with a record. How do we deal with risk? We provide insurance,” Doleac said. A critic of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, she said the new research shows why bonds are a better bet. 

“Insurance just moved the needle more, and much more dollar for dollar,” Doleac said.   

Experts divided

Even in states issuing hundreds of bonds a year, that’s just a fraction of those released from prison annually, and a smaller share of all people with criminal convictions. 

“The total number of firms nationally that were involved, it seemed like a very small number,” Hoffman said. “There's interesting variation across states, but overall, just not that much usage.”

Just 27 Wisconsin employers participated in the program in the last five years, according to federal records obtained by Wisconsin Watch. Those businesses range from national retailers like Dollar Tree to smaller agricultural businesses like Rine Ridge Farms. 

Why haven’t bonds proven more popular? Wisconsin Watch asked more than a dozen Wisconsin businesses and industry groups about their experience with the Federal Bonding Program. Just one responded, and none agreed to answer questions. 

Hoffman thinks maybe employers just aren’t that worried, or that the risk they’re worried about isn’t covered by the bonds. They may worry the applicant will be unreliable or even dangerous, despite evidence to the contrary. In a 2021 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, more than 80% of business leaders said second-chance hires perform the same as or better than other employees. 

“If someone does something bad to a customer,” Hoffman said, that customer might sue, or customers might take their business elsewhere. Bonds don’t cover that risk. “That is very difficult to quantify. What is the cost of that sort of event?”

Another possibility, Doleac said, is that employers don’t know about the bonds. Some states may be doing more to get the word out than others, but marketing costs money that state workforce departments may not have.

The more likely explanation, she said, is that the process is too cumbersome for employers who are used to buying insurance that covers all their employees. Although job applicants and employers do not have to complete any paperwork to get a bond, employers still need to keep track of the policies that were issued to a specific employee. 

“It’s just too inconvenient and too much paperwork to keep track of,” Doleac said. She and her colleagues are exploring whether standard policies could include riders covering these workers, without a separate process or schedule. 

Meanwhile, some advocates for formerly incarcerated people worry that the bonds can backfire, making employers worry even more. 

Craig Coleman, a case manager for Forward Service Corporation, helps formerly incarcerated Wisconsinites get trained and find work. He doubts bonds will help them. 

“You’re saying to your employer, ‘If I steal from you, then you'll be reimbursed,’” Coleman said. “I’m not an HR person, but if I had someone come in with an insurance policy saying, ‘If I steal from you,’ that’s the end of the conversation. I'm not hiring you.”

Genevieve Martin of Talent Nova agrees. Before starting a website designed to help formerly incarcerated people prepare for the workforce, she worked at Dave’s Killer Bread, which built its brand on hiring people with criminal records. 

There, she trained more than 50 other companies on “fair-chance hiring,” teaching them that hiring people with criminal records isn’t risky. Talking about extra insurance policies undermines that message, she said.

“Rather than hiring the person because they’re the best person for the job, but they happen to have a record. Now we’re trying to say, ‘Here’s an insurance policy. Please do it,’” Martin said. 

The fact that Wisconsin employers seldom use fidelity bonds might even be a good sign. The state has unusually strong organizations that prepare applicants for work and match them with employers, said Josh Morby, who represents such groups as spokesperson for the Wisconsin Workforce Hub. If those organizations are doing their jobs well, employers will trust their participants — no insurance policy necessary. 

“Wisconsin employers are looking for candidates who are screened, prepared and supported so hiring justice-impacted talent becomes a reliable workforce solution, not a risk,” Morby said in an email.

Wisconsin bond use lags 

The bonding program’s popularity varies among states, according to data Wisconsin Watch obtained from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. In 2025, New Jersey issued 277 bonds, and Washington, D.C., issued 192. 

Meanwhile, 12 states didn’t issue any in 2025. 

Wisconsin Watch requested interviews with workforce officials in New Jersey, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia to learn why employers there are using more bonds. None responded. A U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson also declined an interview. 

One possible explanation for the higher numbers is that those states have higher unemployment rates. But Wisconsin’s unemployment rate was at a historic low in 2018, when the state issued 27 bonds, more than 12 times as many as it did in 2025. 

In 2019, Wisconsin workforce officials requested the maximum $100,000 federal grant to buy more bonds. They said they planned to buy 1,000 bonds over four years, plus more with other funds. They estimated more than 5,500 Wisconsinites with criminal records were eligible. The bonds, they said, would help break “the cycle of recidivism.”

But the COVID-19 pandemic — which shuttered businesses and locked down prisons — derailed the state’s plans. 

“With the unemployment rate at an increased rate in Wisconsin, many recruitment efforts for employers to use Fidelity Bonds (have) slowed,” officials wrote in each quarterly grant report from April 2020 to February 2021.

When the grant period ended in 2023, Wisconsin had issued just 59 bonds. Officials wrote that, despite their outreach efforts, their bond numbers were “extremely low.”

The bond’s popularity has since further waned. In each of the last two years, Wisconsin issued no more than three bonds. Department spokesperson Haley McCoy attributed that to the state’s tight labor market. 

“Given the strong demand to fill vacant positions, employers have not needed the added incentive of fidelity bonds to hire justice-involved employees during this historically strong economic period,” McCoy wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.

Asked whether the Department of Workforce Development plans to make any changes to Wisconsin’s bonding program, McCoy said the bonds are “just one tool in the toolbox that can help a job seeker secure a job.” 

“We’ll continue to work with our partners to provide opportunities and prepare job seekers and workers for their next opportunity in Wisconsin,” McCoy wrote.

From a job market ‘hidden force’ to a lever against bias

Meanwhile, Arnold Ventures researchers are trying to figure out how to get more businesses across the country to use federal fidelity bonds or something similar. 

Criminal justice director Carson Whitelemons has been studying ways to improve the federal program. But she said just trying to understand how bonding works and how it fits with existing business policies can be “incredibly difficult.”

“Even for business owners who are trying to ask their insurers what is covered and what is not covered, it's not always clear, and often that realm of uncertainty, I think, is what makes employers cautious,” Whitelemons said.

But it’s not just about bonding. The work is part of a new effort she’s organizing with experts from a variety of fields, trying to understand the biases that can keep people from getting all kinds of coverage and how to fix them.  

“(Insurance) is such a powerful lever in terms of what people feel safe or empowered to do, what they feel protected from. This has come up again and again in terms of different issues in the United States, in home ownership and redlining — insurance is often this hidden force, especially in areas where there is stigma or discrimination.”

Hoffman, the HR economist, said if more employers use bonds, that could help dispel misconceptions about people with records. 

“Employers … think they’re less productive than they actually are,” Hoffman said. That’s not the problem bonds are designed to solve, but if bonding gets more employers to hire these applicants, the experience may change how they view similar applicants in the future, he said. 

Meanwhile, officials from Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections will continue teaching prisoners about these seldom-used bonds and encouraging them to pitch the opportunity to their potential future bosses — for better or worse.  

Hongyu Liu is a data investigative reporter for Wisconsin Watch. Email him at hliu@wisconsinwatch.org. 

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.

‘Second chance’ bonds show promise. Few Wisconsin businesses use them 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.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Wisconsin Watch has launched a new, searchable dashboard to track layoffs across the state — the latest release in a broader rollout of news applications, which began this week with a national immigration court data tracker.

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) maintains a public dataset of layoff notices submitted by employers; our tool aims to make that information more accessible and to highlight statewide or county-level patterns. The tool draws from data dating to 2018 and allows for searches by employer, industry, county and year.

These tools can always be improved, and we welcome questions, suggestions or feedback. If you or your organization find a way to use these tools, please tell us about it.

We’ll release a few more new tools in the coming months, so keep an eye out.

New Wisconsin Watch tool makes statewide layoffs easier to track 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.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Track statewide layoffs across Wisconsin 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.

Wisconsin lawmakers agree on the importance of providing public access to state government meetings through livestreams, but they finished their work this year without an agreement on a short-term or long-term plan to fund the Capitol livestreaming service WisconsinEye. The nonprofit organization faces an uncertain financial future. Jon Henkes, president and CEO of WisEye, now says the organization is hoping for further action in a special or extraordinary session.

Henkes, who was not available for an interview, said in a statement that WisconsinEye “remains hopeful of some level of support from the state, but right now that’s a big question given both houses of the legislature adjourned without agreement on a plan to be supportive.” 

WisconsinEye was started as an independent nonprofit in 2007 to livestream and archive government meetings and legislative sessions. For most of its history, WisconsinEye has relied on donations and is run independently from the state Legislature, but since the pandemic, Henkes has said the organization has had trouble raising funds for its operations. It has a budget of about $900,000 a year. 

The organization, which shut down it operations and pulled its archives offline for several weeks in December and January, turned to state lawmakers for help at the end of last year, but the path to a solution reached a halt as lawmakers deadlocked on what to do.

On March 23, WisconsinEye released a public statement saying that “access to the WisconsinEye archive may be curtailed to facilitate needed preparations for a possible permanent shutdown of the network.” It also said on its GoFundMe that “coverage of upcoming events is being reduced due to funding constraints.”

“There was much hope as leadership of both parties and houses energetically expressed support and gratitude for the mission and work of WisconsinEye,” Henkes wrote in his April message. “Bringing their good intentions across the finish line can still happen but it’s going to take an extraordinary or special session of the legislature, and the support of Governor Evers to come through for us. And by ‘us’ I mean all citizens who care about transparency and access, and who appreciate the network’s 18 years of exceptional public service.”

Gov. Tony Evers and lawmakers have talked previously about taking additional action in a special or extraordinary session this year, but those discussions have been centered around property tax relief and school funding, not WisconsinEye. It’s unclear whether additional issues could become wrapped up in those negotiations, though one Republican leader previously said a bill would focus on taxes and wouldn’t be a “mini budget.” 

There were two legislative efforts to address the crisis at WisconsinEye leading up to the final regular floor session this year.

A bipartisan Assembly bill would have placed $10 million, which had already been set aside in the form of matching funds for WisconsinEye, in a trust fund to accrue interest that the nonprofit would then be able to use for its operational costs, without the requirement that it match those funds. WisconsinEye still would have needed to raise a few hundred thousand dollars each year for its operations. 

The Wisconsin Senate passed a separate bill, which was amended to provide some stopgap funding for WisconsinEye and would have opened up the possibility of replacing WisconsinEye with another streaming service, launching a “request for proposals” (RFP) — or a bidding process for the job of livestreaming government proceedings. 

Neither body took up the other body’s proposal.

Other states have also navigated conflict over livestreaming government proceedings, including disagreements over funding, what is shown and how it is shown, according to a 2016 Stateline report. There are two legislative chambers in the U.S. that don’t livestream floor proceedings: the North Carolina Senate and the Missouri Senate. The latter has been debating allowing video livestreaming.

It’s unclear whether there is enough of an appetite from Wisconsin lawmakers for further action this year to ensure continued streaming into the future. The state Legislature finished its regular session business this year in March, meaning that action from lawmakers will be limited for the remainder of the year as many turn their attention to running for reelection.

Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit), who voted for the state Senate proposal, told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview that he is open to exploring a long-term solution over the next nine months. 

“We’re not back in session till 2027 and so the opportunity really to implement the results of an RFP wouldn’t really be there, and so I have no objection to spending the next nine months exploring, what might be out there to provide this service through an RFP,” Spreitzer said, “The real question… is what are we doing between now and next January? Are we providing some funding to keep WisconsinEye going?”

Spreitzer voted for the Senate proposal after amendments addressed some of his key concerns including providing stopgap funding to WisconsinEye to get it through the next year and the inclusion of some accountability measures. He said the sense of urgency to come to a solution faded after the session came to an end.

“I mean to be really blunt there was a sense that perhaps the only reason that they got stopgap funding for the month of February was that [Assembly] Speaker [Robin] Vos wanted his farewell address to be on WisconsinEye,” Spreitzer said. “I think once the legislators, who want their own speeches to be televised aren’t in session anymore, even though there are other government meetings, I think the urgency does fade, which is a problem.”

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), who is retiring at the end of his term, said at a WisPolitics event last month that he prefers having an independent organization responsible and that he thinks the Assembly proposal is the better option. 

“The idea that we’re going to go out to bid for a money-losing proposition that requires you to cover every hearing for free… doesn’t seem to be one that’s workable,” Vos said. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I don’t know.”

The bill’s lead author Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin) did not respond to requests for an interview. Spreitzer noted that Bradley has said he is open to providing state funding, but it would be open to those submitting proposals to speak to that. 

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), who is also retiring at the end of his term, also did not respond to a request for comment. 

Vos said that while he hopes WisconsinEye will “survive” and “make it to the next budget cycle,” after that, “frankly, I’m gone” next session. 

Spreitzer said there should be some urgency attached to the recent update provided on March 23 from WisconsinEye. He said maintaining access to the archives is important, even when there are fewer legislative meetings going on to be livestreamed. 

“People don’t just want to watch meetings live. They want to be able to go back and see what happens,” Spreitzer said. “There’s an election coming up, and voters want to see what their elected officials were actually saying and doing during the session, and to not be able to go back and do that and have that accountability, I think would be a huge loss.”

In February, the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization voted to provide $50,000 to WisconsinEye to resume coverage, but the organization hasn’t received additional funds in the following months despite saying that it needed them. 

Spreitzer said he would support providing a “minimal monthly amount” to WisconsinEye to keep operations going until at least 2027, whether that has to be done through committee action or through a special session as suggested by WisEye. The Senate bill would have set aside over $580,000 and, if approved by JFC, the money would be paid out to WisconsinEye in monthly payments of about $48,000.

“That’s, you know, obviously up to Republican leadership,” Spreitzer added.

Spreitzer said taking the time to think through the long-term solutions is important, especially with a number of concerns about WisconsinEye and how it has navigated its advocacy efforts. He noted that the organization appears incapable of doing the fundraising that it has done in the past. 

“I did not feel like they were as up front or direct in communicating about that as they should have been, particularly with the Legislature,” Spreitzer said, adding that he received no direct communication and only saw press releases and messages posted to WisconsinEye’s website. “I just found that really inappropriate. We’d go on their website and we’d see — “if we don’t get money by this date we’re going to turn the archives off,” then they did turn the archives off. It felt more like extortion than somebody actually coming forward and saying, ‘Here’s our business model, here’s what’s not working, please help us.’ I just am not a big fan of handing a check to somebody that acts that way, at least not without accountability measures to make sure that doesn’t happen in the future.”

Ahead of the temporary shutdown in December and January, WisconsinEye said it had raised no funds for the year. It then launched a GoFundMe for small-dollar donations, and as of April 13, the nonprofit’s GoFundMe has raised over $94,000. The amount is less than half of WisEye’s $250,000 goal, which would cover three months of its operating budget.

The organization has said that coupled with a “solid state commitment” that raising the additional funds for its operating budget would be achievable, and donors view that approach with “confidence.” 

While he wants to see a short-term solution to continue access, Spreitzer said he thinks the conversation about a long-term solution should not be led by LeMahieu or Vos. 

“Speaker Vos and Majority Leader LeMahieu are not going to be the two people in charge next session,” Spreitzer said, adding they have been “running point” on the issue and were incapable of finding an agreement. “We should let them provide some gap funding to get us to next year, but I don’t see any reason why they should be part of a long-term conversation here when they’re not going to be here next year.”

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who would need to sign off on any legislation, is also on his way out of office at the end of his term. 

Spreitzer said he thought his bill was a good starting point for the conversation, but he didn’t know whether he would pursue creating a state-run public affairs network next year. Democrats are putting their efforts towards winning the Senate majority, which would put them in a better position to shape legislation.

“That’s a conversation we would all need to have as Democrats if we’re in the majority again — whether you do something fully public, or you do something that is more similar to the Assembly bill this session [and] WisconsinEye makes some changes to its board and how it operates in order to get public money,” Spreitzer said.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Jobs for data centers happen in three phases: development, construction and operations. 

• The largest numbers of workers are on site when a data center is being built, experts said. 

• The number of long-term jobs a data center brings depends on the size of the facility. 

• It’s difficult to measure the ripple effects data centers have on the economy; however, experts say local businesses can benefit from producing components and products for data centers. 

• Data center technicians will be in high demand as more facilities come online.

As data center developers stake out land in Wisconsin communities, much debate has surrounded whether the computer-packed warehouses will deliver economic benefits locally. 

Waves of opposition and concerns about land, water and electricity use routinely follow data center proposals, while supporters echo that the centers will create jobs and help the economy. 

But what jobs? How many of them? And will they last?

To answer those questions, Wisconsin Watch talked to three professors:

• Xiaofan Liang, who specializes in urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan.
• Scott Adams, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee labor economist. 
• Dijo Alexander, who specializes in information technology, digital transformation and artificial intelligence at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 

Here are some takeaways.

What kinds of jobs do data centers bring?

Data center jobs fall into three major categories that represent phases in their creation: 

• Development
• Construction
• Operations

A data center first needs people to plan for its existence. Developers, engineers, designers and planners lay that groundwork. 

“The data center industry as an ecosystem is pretty big … When they first introduce a data center to a place, they have to figure out the design standard, how to construct all kinds of facilities, how it connects to city systems,” Liang said.

Then, developers must hire heaps of hands-on laborers to construct the gigantic warehouses from the ground up — the largest portion of workers needed in creating and operating a data center. Among other professions, this includes electricians, plumbers and pipefitters, carpenters, structural steel and iron workers, concrete workers and earth drillers.

The job boom from early phases fizzles out once the building is complete, Liang said. 

“(During) construction time, you usually have a lot more jobs — maybe 10 times in magnitude more so than operations,” Liang said. 

Operations jobs, fewer in quantity, are largely “unglamorous,” Adams said. 

Some of these roles have relatively low barriers to entry, such as maintenance workers and security guards. Meanwhile, electricians and HVAC workers are needed, considering that power and cooling are data centers’ “two most important inputs,” Adams said. 

Adams echoed a popular analogy likening data centers to warehouses full of rotting bananas that need constant cooling and replacing.

“You need banana technicians, more or less, that take the rotted bananas out and replace them with new bananas,” Adams said. “Now, granted, they’re much more expensive bananas in there, and they’re doing a whole lot, and it requires a little more expertise. But again that expertise, by and large, can be developed pretty quickly.”

Those workers will be data center technicians — people who install servers, replace hardware and cables, monitor systems and notice when things break down.

How many jobs do data centers bring? 

The number of jobs created depends on a data center’s size, Liang said.  

That can initially mean thousands of jobs at gargantuan developments like in Mount Pleasant. Microsoft says it has employed 3,000 people to construct the location, compared to 500 full-time workers once the plant is operating. But these numbers are expected to climb as the company constructs a cluster of additional centers at the site. 

Not all of these workers will be local. Given the temporary high demand, the projects will likely need out-of-town construction laborers who travel to the area and don’t stay long term.

Smaller projects will employ far fewer people. For a typical data center, Microsoft estimates it hires about 50 full-time employees. What those numbers mean for the local area depends on the community’s size. 

“In a bigger city, like Atlanta, it’s like a drop in the ocean, right? It doesn’t really affect much,” Liang said. “In a rural area, in a smaller town, hundreds of jobs … are a big deal.”

What about the trickle-down economic benefits? 

A sizable new employer entering communities could ripple across other nearby industries, though Liang notes this is hard to measure. 

“(A data center) just has such a big infrastructure need that trickles down in many different ways,” Liang said. “Now we need expanded utility infrastructure, grid, fiber, water, all these things. Construction of these infrastructure, even though it’s not directly related to (a) data center, could increase local employment in those areas.”

Inside a data center are “cabinets after cabinets of steel frames holding computers” that need to be built, Alexander said. This can boost local manufacturing, especially the metal fabrication industry. 

Wisconsin manufacturers have already begun cashing in on the construction boom nationwide. As Wisconsin Watch previously reported, just three Wisconsin companies alone have amassed more than $1 billion in equipment sales — such as motors, generators and cooling systems —  to data centers.

Massive developments like Microsoft’s in Mount Pleasant can potentially lead to a “tech corridor,” a cluster of warehouses and manufacturers near the data center they serve, Alexander said. 

“If we take the initiative and if we bring a few big enough component manufacturers, we can create locally created components for these data centers to consume,” Alexander said. “It’s like if you have a big restaurant or food manufacturer here, you will have agriculture around there, because it is easy for you to bring your produce for their consumption. Just like that. ”

The trend could also activate industries like nuclear power, Adams said. Building data centers  in conjunction with nuclear reactors to generate their power would fuel even more construction and energy jobs, he added. In Kewaunee County, an energy company wants to rebuild Kewaunee Power Station, a defunct nuclear power plant, anticipating energy demand from AI and data centers.

In more rural communities or near smaller data centers, the trickle-down effects could prove more modest — perhaps a few new restaurants and housing units, Adams said. 

Alexander also noted the effects could also be less concentrated, with growth spilling into neighboring cities as employees work at the center but live elsewhere.

But will enough permanent jobs be created to sustain the growth sparked during the early labor-intensive development phase? That’s unclear, Adams said. 

“We don’t have a firm enough grasp about the indirect effects in the longer term,” Adams said. “Short run, that’ll be great. Longer run, can we sustain the new development that might happen around these? I don’t know the answer to that. I think if the power generation side of it comes in connection with them, there’s more of a chance that that will work.”

Who are data center technicians?

Data center technicians are perhaps the most novel job introduced by the data center boom. The roles are more specialized than others needed inside the warehouses.

Job postings for data center technicians at Microsoft’s Milwaukee location say the workers will be “preparing, installing, performing diagnostics, troubleshooting, replacing, and/or decommissioning equipment under the guidance of more experienced data center colleagues.” 

The posting states the job requires a high school diploma, knowledge of computer hardware and some experience with IT equipment. Pay for lower-level technicians ranges from $23 to $36 per hour, with more experienced workers making up to about $48 per hour.

Adams said likely candidates will include engineers and computer coders and people now entering college with their sights on data center work. Microsoft and Gateway Technical College in Kenosha launched a “Data Center Academy,” preparing students to work in data center operations. Adams believes partnerships like this will become more common.

Are these good jobs?

You can use the interactive table below to explore many of the jobs data centers are expected to create, including wages, employment totals and required education.

Here’s what the data center boom means for Wisconsin’s workforce 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.

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• The federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit rewards companies for hiring people who often struggle to get jobs.

• Lawmakers are currently in the process of reauthorizing the $2 billion tax credit, which has been around since 1996.

• Proponents of it argue that it helps people get jobs and get off government assistance. 

• However, a new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Southern California found that the credit fails to increase hiring or pay for workers. 

• Furthermore, large businesses disproportionately use it.

A new study of Wisconsin data finds what some researchers and policy wonks have long suspected: The $2 billion Work Opportunity Tax Credit doesn’t work. 

Congress created the credit in 1996 as it overhauled the country’s welfare system. It rewards companies for hiring people who often struggle to get jobs, including some people who receive government aid, have disabilities or felony convictions or have been out of work for a long time. Employers can typically claim up to 40% of the wages paid to qualifying workers, with a maximum credit of $2,400. 

The credit subsidizes around 4% of all new hires, according to 2022 federal data cited in the study. Overwhelmingly, they’re low-wage, short-term jobs at large employers, including major retailers and temporary staffing agencies, researchers have found. 

Researchers have wondered for decades whether the credit pays off, but most states don’t offer the kind of records that would answer that question. Wisconsin does. 

Thanks to an unusual collaboration between the state government and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researchers can track the earnings and employment status of participants in certain social safety net programs. 

In a 2025 working paper, researchers from UW-Madison and the University of Southern California studied two decades of records of Wisconsinites who received food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the most common way an employee qualifies for the tax credit. Researchers compared SNAP recipients who were eligible for the credit with similar recipients who weren’t. 

Their findings were unequivocal. 

“We find that these subsidies do not increase hiring or earnings among eligible groups,” the authors wrote. In fact, they said, their findings rule out even so much as a 0.2 percentage point effect on hiring. 

They estimate 97% of the hiring subsidized by the tax credit would have happened anyway, a phenomenon known as “windfall wastage.” It’s possible, they wrote, that every one of the subsidized jobs falls into that category. 

The companies that take advantage of the credit are disproportionately large. In Wisconsin, they found, half of the subsidies go to just 48 businesses. Nationally, they estimate the credit costs more than $2 billion a year.

“Without reform, the program will continue as a costly transfer to firms with little benefit to the populations it is meant to support,” the researchers wrote.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers wants to increase the credit, which expired in December. 

In November, legislators introduced a bill to extend the credit and expand eligibility to older SNAP recipients and spouses of military service members. The legislation would increase the amount companies can receive and automatically raise the credit amount with inflation. 

In a statement, co-author Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., called the credit “a proven tool” that serves workers and employers. “WOTC is a bipartisan, commonsense approach that every Member of Congress should champion,” Smucker said.

Neither Smucker nor co-author Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., responded to a request for comment. 

Troubleshooting the tax credit

So why doesn’t the Work Opportunity Tax Credit work? The authors think one important reason is that hiring managers often don’t know which job applicants qualify. 

To receive the credit, employers must certify that they knew the applicant was eligible on or before the day they hired the person. Researchers surveyed 170 companies that use the credit. Less than 1 in 5 screened for eligibility on job applications. At companies that do collect this information, it might stay in the human resources office, never reaching the person who decides who to hire.

That may well be intentional, said UW-Madison economist Corina Mommaerts, one of the authors of the study. Federal and state law bars employers from considering certain factors in hiring decisions. That includes age and, in some cases, criminal record. There are ways to screen applicants without violating such laws, Mommaerts said, “but you can see why employers might still be very concerned.”

In addition, she said, some job applicants may hesitate to tell a prospective employer that they’re eligible. People with felony convictions, for example, may prefer not to draw attention to their criminal records. In the last two years, Wisconsin authorities certified the hires of just over 3,000 people with a felony conviction as qualifying for the credit.

“The concern is that there might be this stigmatizing effect,” Mommaerts said, explaining that some employers try to minimize that by asking applicants to review all the WOTC eligibility categories and indicate whether any apply to them. 

Melissa Riccio, director of inclusive hiring at the national re-entry nonprofit Center for Employment Opportunities, is an expert on that stigma. It’s her job to convince employers that hiring a formerly incarcerated person may not be as risky as they imagine.

Asked about the tax credit, she said such policies won’t singlehandedly make the kind of change she’s looking for, in part because many employers may see them as more work than they’re worth.

“You would never hear any of us say that it would be a bad thing,” Riccio said. “But I don’t think that that alone is enough to move the needle in encouraging employers to make a change in their hiring practices.”

Some policy experts say the new study proves that the temporary tax credit shouldn’t come back. 

Until now, there was little evidence on how well the Work Opportunity Tax Credit works, said Jen Doleac, executive vice president of criminal justice at the philanthropy Arnold Ventures, who researches strategies to reduce recidivism and help formerly incarcerated people get jobs. She and former colleague George Callas penned an October op-ed in Tax Notes calling the credit “completely ineffective.” 

“The evidence is clear: The WOTC does not serve its stated purpose and is a waste of taxpayer dollars,” they wrote. “Encouraging the hiring of workers from disadvantaged groups is a worthy goal. We must devote scarce public resources to solutions that actually achieve it.”

Lobbyists hail a proven, bipartisan tool

Initially authorized for just one year, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit has stuck around far longer — in part because of a powerful lobby. Major backers include payroll processing companies, temp agencies and groups representing the hospitality and retail industries. 

In 2022, a variety of industry groups seeking “solutions to the U.S. labor shortage” joined forces to form the Critical Labor Coalition. One of the coalition’s top priorities: lobbying for WOTC. The group spent $60,000 on lobbying last year, according to watchdog Open Secrets.

“Members of the Critical Labor Coalition — representing restaurants, retail, hotel and lodging, construction, food manufacturing, and other sectors — consistently affirm that strengthening and reauthorizing WOTC is essential both to their industries and to addressing the nation’s ongoing labor shortage,” Critical Labor Coalition Executive Director Misty Chally said in an email. 

Asked about the new Wisconsin study, Chally questioned its “narrow” focus on SNAP recipients. She said her group places “greater confidence” in a 2025 study commissioned by multinational talent management company Allegis Group. The authors of that study estimate renewing WOTC would subsidize 131,000 jobs, but they note it’s not clear how many of those jobs would have existed regardless.

“The exact impact of WOTC on net new job creation is uncertain … While some studies find that WOTC leads to meaningful employment gains among eligible groups, a significant share of the cost may stem from subsidizing hires that would have occurred anyway,” Allegis Group wrote. For their analysis, they assume more than 85% of those jobs would have existed without the credit. 

Why has WOTC stuck around?

Sarah Hamersma has been worried about WOTC for more than 20 years.

In the early 2000s, she was an economics graduate student at UW-Madison interested in programs designed to reduce poverty and help people work. She wanted to study the much larger Earned Income Tax Credit. Her adviser suggested she instead examine the smaller, newer and unstudied Work Opportunity Tax Credit. 

At the time, the credit was just 4 years old and limited to people who received cash welfare assistance. She asked state officials for access to the data. What she found matched what Mommaerts and her colleagues found decades later. Unlike the Earned Income Tax Credit, which gives money directly to low-income workers — and which studies show increases employment and boosts incomes — this tax credit seemed to just boost employers’ bottom lines.

“They’re not passing it along to the workers in the form of higher wages. They’re just sort of being like, ‘Awesome, I got more money,’” Hamersma said.

She wanted to do similar analyses on other places, but she couldn’t find any other states willing to share their data. Now an economist at Syracuse University, she researches programs like Medicaid and SNAP.

“I started studying other programs that seem to make more of a difference … but I always come back to this,” Hamersma said.

From time to time, reporters contact her to ask about it. Lawmakers, not so much.

“I still wait for them to someday call me and say, ‘What should we do, Sarah? Should we reauthorize this?’ Congress has never called,” Hamersma said.

She’s sure legislators didn’t read her research. But she hopes they might read the new study, and that it might sway them. 

“They’ve checked every angle you could possibly check, and the program is not working,” Hamersma said, calling it an “ironclad case.”

The new research was enough to convince Elena Spatoulas Patel, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, who saw the authors present their findings at a conference. “That really changed my mind about how we think about the credit,” said Patel, who co-authored a December op-ed calling for an end to WOTC. 

But Congress has reauthorized the credit each time it lapsed before, and it will likely do so again this year, Patel said. It’s not just that there’s so much industry power behind the credit (“a classic case of lobbying versus good tax policy”), she said — it’s also that lawmakers like the idea of it. 

“Unless and until something better is offered, it’s probably easier to renew the credit than to let it expire,” Patel said. “But again, it’s sort of ignoring the point, which is that we are spending taxpayer dollars on this by offering this credit, and it really isn’t helping employment.”

Exactly what the alternative might be is “the million-dollar question,” Patel said. Policy experts say options could include supporting evidence-backed job training programs or expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit.

“If you’re trying to reduce poverty, putting money in the hands of working people is a great way to do it, which is what the Earned Income Tax Credit does … Those low-income working families get more money to spend on the things they need, and we kind of cut out the middleman of the employer altogether,” Hamersma said.

Still, Hamersma doesn’t think Congress will follow her advice anytime soon. 

“This is my cynical take: It’s kind of the perfect program because it benefits corporations, which Republicans historically like, and it seems like it’s supposed to be for poor people, which Democrats historically like,” Hamersma said.

“The facts are kind of irrelevant, the facts where nobody gets helped — it doesn’t quite make it to the top.”

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.

Tax credit meant to help struggling workers mostly helps employers, Wisconsin study finds 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.