• Invests in our correctional facilities to ensure they have the staffing necessary to carry out their duties to adequately staff newly created programs and reduce overtime.
• Provides funding to work towards meeting the state’s obligations to close Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake schools and moving youth into the least restrictive appropriate setting as soon as practicable.
What’s Best for Kids
• Doubles state support for school mental health programs over the biennium to provide increased access to professionals to assist children in our schools in need.
• Provides nearly $330 million, the largest nominal dollar increase in state general aid since the 2005-07 biennium.
• Increases state special education categorical aid funding for the first time since 2008-09 by providing over $95 million over the biennium in additional state support.
• Provides over a quarter of our lower-spending school districts the ability to increase their revenues if they choose without having to go to referendum.
• Provides the largest revenue limit adjustment for all school districts in a decade, which, over the biennium, provides districts with an increase in spending flexibility that is larger than all revenue limit increases over the prior eight years combined.
• Through my vetoes this budget will increase per pupil state categorical aids by nearly $100 million over the biennium.
• Increases the state share of the school day milk program for the first time in more than a decade, which reimburses school districts for serving milk to students daily.
• Doubles state support for robotics league participation grants, which helped 180 middle school and high school teams across the state offset the cost of fees, kits and supplies necessary to participate in robotics competitions, to $500,000 annually.
• Provides $1.4 million over the biennium for the Wisconsin Reading Corps, which provides one-on-one reading tutoring to our youngest students, particularly in Milwaukee, where achievement gaps persist.
• Increases high cost transportation aid for rural districts by $1.6 million over the biennium to raise reimbursement rates to 90 percent of eligible costs.
• Enhances our rural teacher talent program, which provided placements, stipends and/or travel reimbursement to approximately 700 student teachers last year, by providing $2 million in additional funding over the biennium.
• Further increases school library aids by $5.7 million over the biennium, which will help school districts purchase books, instructional materials, library computers and software.
• Increases state aid for our Very Special Arts and Special Olympics programs by 33 percent over their existing funding levels.
• Invests $5.5 million over the biennium to support work-based learning for high school students, where demand for our local youth apprenticeship program continues to grow – the number of participating students has increased 94 percent over the past five years.
• Doubles state support by providing $3 million annually for school districts to continue to increase offerings for career and technical education as the number of claims for these grants more than doubled from 2014 to 2018.
• Provides $1 million over the biennium to assist school districts in purchasing equipment for advanced manufacturing classes and programs.
• Increases funding for county-run child welfare programs by more than $30 million over the biennium, the largest increase in history.
• Provides over $85 million over the biennium to support increases to the Wisconsin Shares child care program.
• Provides $1.4 million in targeted investment over the biennium for improved child care options in the poorest zip code of the state, 53206 in Milwaukee.
• More than doubles the amount of funding to the Boys and Girls Clubs to expand the BE GREAT: Graduate program by providing $2.7 million in each year to help more Wisconsin students graduate.
• Provides an increase of $2.25 million over the biennium to support county child support agencies in their work to establish and enforce child support orders.
Higher Education and Workforce
• Increases state general aid for the Wisconsin Technical College System by $25 million, the largest nominal increase since at least 1993.
• Trains offenders for reentry and employment by providing funding from Wisconsin Fast Forward to the Department of Corrections that could be used for institutional job centers and mobile classrooms.
• Commits over $1 billion in bonding authority, the largest nominal increase ever, to modernize aging University of Wisconsin buildings and improve learning environments, which will help the system attract and retain students, faculty, and researchers.
• Provides $45 million over the biennium to the University of Wisconsin (UW) System for capacity building initiatives, while continuing to freeze resident undergraduate tuition to keep higher education affordable and mitigate student debt. Additionally, this investment in the UW will help the system use innovative programs to enroll more students and produce more graduates in high-demand fields.
• Continues to support worker training activities to boost Wisconsin’s economy through our Fast Forward program and investing in Project SEARCH, which supports collaboration among school districts and local businesses that provide training and education youth with disabilities need to obtain employment.
Agriculture, Tourism and Economic Development
• Provides $48 million throughout the biennium, the largest amount ever, to expand the Broadband Expansion Grant program to reach more underserved areas of the state.
• Recognizes that the dairy industry is a critical part of our state's economy, which is why this budget invests $8.8 million over the biennium in a Dairy Innovation Hub at the University of Wisconsin System. This investment will draw top dairy farming researchers to our state, and ultimately help our dairy farmers grow their businesses.
• Provides $750,000 annually for farmers to engage in best management practices under the producer led watershed protection grant program.
• Provides additional staffing and equipment to the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to speed up the approval process for growers of industrial hemp.
• Provides an additional $200,000 for the successful Buy Local, Buy Wisconsin grant program to continue to promote the sale of Wisconsin foods to local buyers.
• Invests $100,000 to further research on chronic wasting disease in our state.
• Creates an automatic license renewal option for hunters and anglers.
• Creates a new Office of Outdoor Recreation at the Department of Tourism, which will enhance our state's outdoor economy by promoting outdoor activities and building partnerships with outdoor-related businesses.
• Provides $1.6 million over the biennium for the Department of Tourism to conduct marketing and directs resources to tourism video production, which is critical in raising our profile as a tourism destination; tourism had a $21.6 billion impact on our economy in 2018.
Transportation
• Provides more than $465 million overall for transportation projects across the state, mirroring the vast majority of my proposals, and makes significant progress towards sustainable funding for transportation with the largest dedication of new, ongoing revenue to the transportation fund in a generation.
• Invests more ongoing revenue than ever before in our transportation infrastructure, while at the same time maintaining bonding at our lowest level in the last 20 years. Commitment of new, ongoing revenue will allow more dollars to go to roadway users instead of bond holders.
• Invests $320 million in additional funding for our State Highway Rehabilitation program, as I proposed, to continue maintaining this critical piece of our infrastructure.
• Provides $75 million in flexible funding for transportation and transit projects that best meet local needs.
• Provides an historic 10 percent increase ($66 million over the biennium) in available funding for general transportation aids, paid to counties, towns, villages, and cities.
• Invests in badly needed state support for our tribal transit aids, paratransit aids, seniors with disability aids, and mass transit aids at significantly higher levels than in recent years.
• Enumerates two important interstate highway projects in the southeastern and northeastern portions of our state.
• Finishes off the Zoo Interchange project as it was designed.
• Provides additional necessary bonding authority for passenger and freight rail preservation along with additional funding to repair railway crossings in our state.
• Continues to invest in our harbor assistance and aeronautics air traffic control system to fund harbor and airport improvements.
Tax Fairness
• Along with AB 251, a bipartisan proposal, provides $518 million in individual income tax relief in the form of income tax rate reductions targeting lower and middle income earners.
• Provides a meaningful, progressive shift in the state’s individual income tax structure that we will seek to build upon in the future. Overall, approximately 92 percent of these income tax cuts for non-married filers will go to filers with adjusted gross income below $100,000 annually and 76 percent of tax cuts for married-joint filers will go to filers with adjusted gross income below $150,000.
• Typical middle class single filers will see an income tax reduction of approximately $136 annually while middle class married-joint filers will see a reduction of $182 annually when the tax rate reductions are fully implemented in tax year 2020.
• Keeps property taxes affordable for Wisconsin homeowners by aligning changes with estimated inflation.
Clean Communities
• Enhances science staffing at the Department of Natural Resources by providing an additional 2.0 FTE SEG science positions to research water and sources of contamination.
• Further enhances our work on addressing PFAS by providing $150,000 to develop a model to identify and prioritize sites with likely PFAS contamination.
• Provides $50,000 to conduct a survey of local and state emergency responders on the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam.
• Authorizes $6.5 million in bonding authority for the Targeted Runoff Management (TRM) program, which provides municipalities with financial assistance for infrastructure projects to reduce nonpoint source pollution.
• Authorizes $4 million in bonding authority in the urban nonpoint source and storm water grant program, and the municipal flood control program.
• Authorizes $4 million in bonding authority for dam safety grants for the repair or removal of dams.
• Issues revenue bonds to fund the state match requirements and additional loans in the Safe Drinking Water Loan Program, which will result in future increased loan capacity for more drinking water projects and a reduction in general obligation debt service, and also extends the maximum loan period under the Safe Drinking Water Loan program from 20 to 30 years.
• Extends the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program.
• Allocates up to $10 million of the remaining $25 million in Volkswagen emissions settlement funds for an electric vehicle charging station grant program administered by the Department of Administration and at least $15 million for the replacement of public transit vehicles.
Good Government
• Recognizes the value of our state workforce in serving the people of Wisconsin by providing almost $80 million in state funds to fund 2 percent annual general wage adjustments for most state employees.
• Provides nearly $36 million in state funds over the biennium to institute an hourly wage increase and pay progression for certain correctional officers and youth counselor positions, effective January 1, 2020.
• Provides over $1 million in state funds over the biennium for long-term service awards for Department of Corrections and Department of Health Services protective service positions, effective January 1, 2020.
• Directs emergency funding of $2 million to the Washington Island Electrical Cooperative to construct a more permanent solution in response to the natural disaster which damaged the utility lines that bring power to the island.
• Enhances customer service at the Department of Safety and Professional Services by providing $5 million to support ongoing information technology projects that will improve online services and processing times.
While the Joint Committee on Finance first began voting on individual items in the budget, the Legislature was told there was an anticipated $753 million increase in revenues above and beyond what I had to work with in my budget in January largely due to a one-time change in federal law. Clearly, this was an opportunity for us to talk about the most responsible way to use these new projected funds, though again there was little to no apparent interest by Republican legislative leadership to work collaboratively in doing so. With these funds, I directed the Department of Administration to retire $56.2 million in additional state debt incurred in prior years that will save Wisconsin citizens $57.2 million over the next decade. Finally, my vetoes will also increase the state general fund ending balance over what the Legislature left going forward.
While this budget makes critical investments in areas that were included in The People’s Budget, this is a down payment on the progress we must make in the next biennial budget. In the meantime, I will not stop fighting for items that Republican leadership took out of The People’s Budget.
Wisconsin residents look to us as elected officials to be fiscally responsible and invest tax dollars wisely in our health, our schools, our natural resources, our roads, and our local governments that directly provide services to our communities. The budget I submitted earlier this year did each of those things. That is why I cannot begin to understand why Republicans in the Legislature are refusing to expand Medicaid and choosing to send $2 billion of Wisconsinites’ hard-earned federal tax dollars to pay for Medicaid expansion in other states like New Jersey and Illinois.
Healthcare is the number one issue I hear about around the state. And 70 percent of Wisconsin citizens support expanding Medicaid because they understand it will allow us to expand coverage to more than 80,000 Wisconsinites, save $324 million in state tax dollars, and bring in $1.6 billion in new federal investment into our healthcare system in Wisconsin, allowing us to invest in healthcare initiatives that would improve the health and wellness of all Wisconsinites, and make healthcare more affordable by lowering premiums for folks who have private insurance.
Expanding Medicaid saves Wisconsin taxpayers money, and we all know that there are other important priorities that need investments, like our roads and our schools. Achieving better outcomes for everyone through Medicaid expansion is just common sense. We can’t keep sending $1 billion per year of our residents’ hard-earned federal tax dollars to subsidize Medicaid expansion in other states. These are our dollars. We should bring them home.
When we bring those dollars back to Wisconsin, that money can help support our efforts like cleaning up our water and addressing lead poisoning around the state. We know we have work to do. There are 176,000 lead lines that need to be replaced across the state. These pipes carry contaminated water to Wisconsin families and lead to long-term developmental problems for our children. That is why my budget provided $40 million under the Safe Drinking Water Loan program to help communities fund lead service line replacement. Tackling this crisis is not cheap, but the cost of doing nothing is far greater—the health and well-being of our kids is at stake. By accepting federal funds and expanding Medicaid, we can increase workforce training for lead abatement workers, offer incentives for providers to ensure that children are tested for lead poisoning twice by age two, and expand the Birth to 3 Program to provide services to more children.
I kept my promise to the people of Wisconsin to withdraw our state from the Republican-led attack on the Affordable Care Act, but that was only one step in our fight for affordable, accessible healthcare for all Wisconsinites. Republicans are not listening to the will of the people who are asking us to expand Medicaid in Wisconsin. I am. That is why I will continue to fight for Medicaid expansion through separate legislation, future budget bills, and otherwise through every executive power I am afforded.
I have always said that what’s best for our kids is best for our state. That is why I am glad that this budget includes a $97 million increase in funding for special education—the largest ever—as well as a $330 million investment in general school aids—the biggest increase in more than a decade. This budget also increases funding for those seeking access to mental health services, kids participating in our school day milk program and our rural schools incurring the highest transportation costs. But this progress does not go far enough. That is why I used my broad veto authority to add nearly $100 million more in per pupil aid for our schools compared to the budget passed by the Legislature. I will not stop fighting for our kids, meaningful investments in our schools, and school finance reform that I have sought for more than a decade.
This proposal has about a third of The People’s Budget’s $1.4 billion investment in our kids, educators, and schools, and Republicans failed to keep their promise that their own Blue Ribbon Commission recommended to get to two-thirds funding for our schools. I proposed a larger but appropriate investment, particularly in special education, because we cannot continue asking folks to tax themselves at the local level to pay for priorities the state should fund.
More than one million Wisconsinites have voted to raise their own property taxes to support their schools in recent years because Republicans have failed to fully fund public education, and according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, voters approved more than $2 billion in debt and revenue increases for local schools in 2018 alone. This is not sustainable, and more districts like the Palmyra-Eagle Area School district will continue to have to make unfair, difficult decisions, or potentially even dissolve due to lack of funding because we are not making the necessary investments. That means we have work to do. My door remains open to any legislator from either side of the aisle who wants to get serious about achieving two-thirds funding, investing more in special education, and ensuring that rural and urban schools alike have the resources they need to provide every kid, no matter their zip code, with access to high-quality public education.
We also need to do more to make sure that higher education is affordable and accessible. The Republican Legislature’s unwillingness to move an inch on addressing our student loan debt crisis is inexplicable. Student loan debt has significant effects on young and middle-aged adults and, as a result, on our state economy. These effects worsen each day, which is why we need to find a way to allow borrowers to refinance student loans, just like we can do with our mortgages or many other debts. I put forward a thoughtful first step for us to work together to address this issue and will continue to seek the assistance of those interested in doing so.
Although we are implementing significant middle class tax relief in this budget, I will continue my efforts to index our homestead tax credit to where it should be and provide relief to hard-working families with children through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to address the reductions in these credits that occurred under the prior administration. The EITC has historically earned bipartisan support at the state and federal level and remains an effective anti-poverty measure that puts more money back into the pockets of working families. Those dollars are then reinvested in our local economies, making it a win-win.
Finally, I am going to bring the fight for a nonpartisan redistricting process to the Legislature. The reason I am signing a budget that does not go far enough to fund our schools, that fails to accept federal funds to expand Medicaid, and leaves behind important priorities is because we have a comfortable Republican majority who consolidated power for themselves long before I took office, leaving minimal accountability for failing to listen to the people of Wisconsin. They got to pick their voters and draw their districts, and as a result, are able to ignore the 70 percent of Wisconsinites who support Medicaid expansion, the 74 percent of Wisconsinites who want to see a significant increase in special education funding, and the 83 percent of Wisconsinites who believe medical marijuana should be legal.
While many see the conclusion of our work on the budget as an ending, this budget is just the first step on the road ahead. There is much work to do and many Wisconsinites who are counting on us to work together to get things done.
As I was preparing this message, my office received a packet of letters from a class of fourth graders. While all the letters were thoughtful and creative, there was one that stood out. It said, “Please look outside and examine how cracked the roads are…I really believe that the roads need to be fixed because horrific accidents could happen…So please, fix our roads.”
“Maybe, just maybe, you could pay the schools more?” the student asked, because “the janitors, the teachers, the nurses and every other worker at a school work hard. They deserve a bit more money.” And “a bit more money for healthcare” she said, because “so many children fall ill with the flu and some families cannot afford the medication.”
