• Simplifies the school accountability report through the establishment of a star rating system.
• Recognizes individual learning styles of students by permitting school districts to grant high school credits based on competency or a learning portfolio.
• Permits districts to choose their own reading readiness assessments.
Transforming Higher Education
• Ensures affordability of, and access to, a University of Wisconsin education for Wisconsin residents by extending the freeze on undergraduate in-state tuition.
• Modernizes the concept of tenure by authorizing the Board of Regents to enact such policies.
• Reforms shared governance to provide Chancellors with greater authority and accountability at individual campuses, while maintaining student oversight of student-set fees.
• Provides additional flexibilities to allow the University of Wisconsin System to maximize efficiencies while maintaining excellence in education and research.
Reforming Government
• Continues to protect property taxpayers by maintaining levy limits on counties and municipalities and limiting levy increases to the rate of growth due to new construction.
• Maintains the state's commitment to counties and municipalities by funding shared revenue at current levels.
• Consolidates all food safety, recreational facility, lodging and food protection activities into the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, creating efficiencies in regulation of these programs and reducing consumer confusion by assigning oversight to one agency.
• Reduces overtime, enhances security and modernizes security methods at adult correctional institutions with proven technology and strategic ground patrol.
• Permits members of certain religious sects to apply for a waiver from certain modern building code requirements when the requirement is contrary to their established religious beliefs.
• Reduces the risk of a data security breach by providing additional resources for information technology services.
• Realizes efficiencies by combining the Department of Administration's Division of Energy Services and Division of Housing, and by transferring most functions of the State Energy Office to the Public Service Commission.
• Capitalizes on existing expertise and increases efficiency by transferring Workers' Compensation adjudicatory functions to the Department of Administration's Division of Hearings and Appeals.
• Creates an Office of Marketing in the Department of Tourism to utilize the expertise of the department to provide centralized marketing services to state agencies.
• Authorizes the Department of Administration to provide Lean government consulting services to implement efficiencies across state government.
• Reduces offender recidivism by authorizing the Department of Children and Families to leverage social impact bonding in the city of Milwaukee.
• Reduces the size of government by eliminating numerous long-term vacant positions.
• Reduces state health insurance costs by modernizing health plan design and providing an opt-out option and corresponding stipend to state employees.
Investing in Infrastructure
• Invests a total of $6.14 billion to support Wisconsin's transportation infrastructure.
• Provides $415 million for continued construction of the Zoo Interchange and I-94 North-South Corridor. Maintains the scheduled completion date of the Zoo Interchange project.
• Invests $16.8 million in the Hoan Bridge and $13.2 million in the state's harbor system.
• Provides over $1.5 billion for state highway rehabilitation and over $485 million for major highway development.
• Provides $35 million for Freight Rail Preservation.
• Increases the state's investment in broadband expansion by providing up to $1.5 million annually from the universal service fund for broadband expansion grants and providing up to $18 million over the 2015-17 biennium for two grant programs to assist rural schools in financing information technology infrastructure improvements and training teachers in the use of educational technology.
Preserving Wisconsin's Heritage
• Provides a total $21 million of Stewardship borrowing authority for land acquisition and $9.75 million of borrowing authority for property development and local assistance in each year, beginning in fiscal year 2015-16 and ending in fiscal year 2019-20.
• Provides up to $19.6 million of unobligated existing Stewardship borrowing authority for the Kettle Moraine Springs Fish Hatchery to continue the modernization of the facility.
• Protects the integrity of segregated natural resources funds by eliminating $958,300 of earmarks for various organizations.
• Provides $750,000 forestry SEG and authorizes the Department of Natural Resources to participate in the federal Good Neighbor Authority program, to initiate additional watershed restoration and forest management services on federal land.
Medicaid Entitlement Reform
• Preserves essential safety net programs, including SeniorCare and Medicaid, while implementing reforms to slow expenditure growth and maintain essential health care services.
• Expands the Family Care program statewide and improves the integration of long-term care and acute care services, while maintaining the self-direction option for long-term care benefits.
• Fully funds the FoodShare Employment and Training program to provide able- bodied adults with education, skills and work experience necessary to obtain employment and become self-sufficient.
• Strengthens support for senior citizens by providing additional funding and positions for ombudsmen at the Board on Aging and Long-Term Care.
• Provides resources to support dementia care specialists in selected aging and disability resource centers across the state.
• Expands Medicaid coverage to the treatment portion of residential substance abuse treatment to ensure individuals with substance abuse disorders receive the appropriate level of care in the most appropriate setting.
• Expands the settings in which immunizations may be provided for Medicaid beneficiaries to include pharmacies.
• Improves program integrity in the use of personal care and other Medicaid services while ensuring members receive essential services on a timely basis.
• Provides $30 million GPR for disproportionate share hospital payments to ensure access to care for low-income patients.
• Establishes a pilot program for pediatric and adult emergency dental care.
• Provides annual increases to the children's long-term support services and autism services programs, and utilizes excess funds for children's long-term care services or other children's programs.
• Increases Medicaid reimbursement for nursing homes through an acuity adjustment.
Investing in Wisconsin's Veterans
• Strengthens support for residents in Wisconsin veterans homes by providing additional funding for an ombudsman at the Board on Aging and Long-Term Care.
• Provides funding for equipment purchases and operational improvements at veterans homes.
• Waives fees for a Commercial Driver License for veterans who hold a military Commercial Driver License.
• Transfers the Veterans Grant Program from the Department of Workforce Development to the Department of Veterans Affairs to enhance program awareness and efficiency.
• Provides one-time funding from the veterans trust fund to the Wisconsin Technical College System Board to create a veteran grant jobs pilot program. Requires the board to create a competitive grant process to distribute grants to districts that request funding for veterans services and identify matching funds.
• Creates an appropriation under the Higher Educational Aids Board for payments to tribal colleges equal to the amount per student the tribal college has received or expects to receive from the Bureau of Indian Education in the federal Department of the Interior based on the number of Native American students who were enrolled in the previous academic year and the number of full-time equivalent Wisconsin resident students who were enrolled in the college in the previous academic year for whom the college will not receive Bureau of Indian Education funds.
• Provides an appropriation during the biennium for payments to towns, cities or villages that provide municipal services to state veterans homes and authorize the Department of Veterans Affairs to transfer unappropriated balances from other PR appropriations in state veterans homes to the appropriation.
Improving Mental Health Programs
• Redesigns the state's juvenile community supervision to provide services based on a juvenile's individual risk and needs.
• Expands existing drug addiction programming in the Department of Corrections by creating a voluntary pilot program for eligible offenders with an opioid addiction- related conviction. Provides $836,700 GPR in each year for the program.
• Increases access to mental health care for our rural residents by providing resources to such services remotely.
• Provides financial assistance to counties to establish robust crisis services programs, pairing law enforcement with mental health professionals to create a best practice model.
• Improves response to mental health crises by requiring counties to provide community-based crisis assessment by a mental health professional prior to an emergency detention, while maintaining Milwaukee County's 24-hour rule for emergency detention.
• Extends the sunset date for the Milwaukee County emergency detention pilot program from May 1, 2016, to July 1, 2017.
Protecting Wisconsin's Citizens
• Improves access to breast and cervical cancer screenings for low-income women without insurance by increasing funding for the Wisconsin Well Women Program.
• Increases services for individuals with HIV or AIDS by increasing funding for Mike Johnson life care and early intervention services grants, which provides funding to AIDS service organizations.
• Provides an additional $5 million for domestic abuse grant funding.
• Provides $1 million over the biennium to the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation for legal services to low-income families for cases related to domestic abuse, sexual abuse, restraining orders and injunctions for at-risk individuals.
• Provides $2 million for residential and/or community-based services for child victims of sex trafficking.
• Increases Sexual Assault Victims Services to $2.1 million in fiscal year 2016-17.
• Provides $421,300 annually for additional global positioning system offender tracking for individuals convicted of serious child offenses and those who violate domestic abuse or harassment temporary restraining orders.
• Enhances services to abused and neglected children by providing $160,000 over the biennium to the Wisconsin Court Appointed Special Advocates.
• Permits county boards to impose a $20 surcharge on felony or misdemeanor convictions, and creates crime prevention funding boards to distribute such revenues to nonprofit organizations whose purpose is to prevent crime.
In exercising my constitutional authority, I have made 104 vetoes to the budget. These vetoes will reduce overall spending, constrain earmarks, allow the executive branch to efficiently perform its statutory duties, and correct legislative errata. These vetoes increase the general fund balance by $44,495,400 GPR over the biennium.
I commend the Legislature for delivering on our collective priorities: six consecutive years of property tax relief, four consecutive years of University of Wisconsin System tuition freezes, continued workforce development, compassionate entitlement reform, educational reform based on parental options, responsible infrastructure management and enhanced government efficiencies. These achievements demonstrate our commitment to preserving the freedom of our citizens, expanding opportunities to achieve the American dream, and meeting the competitive challenges of a globalized economy while overcoming the failed leadership of our federal government.
Respectfully submitted,
SCOTT WALKER
Governor
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Veto Message
Table of Contents
11.
Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation Funding to the Joint Committee on Finance Supplemental Appropriation 22.
Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation Grants to Various Organizations 33.
Definition of Bona Fide Angel Investments 44.
Conduit Revenue Bonds BB.
TRANSFORMING EDUCATION 55.
Statewide Assessment System 66.
Participation in Athletics and Extracurricular Activities
