If we’re going to bounce back from this pandemic, then we have to start by making sure our kids are better off than when we started this pandemic. Every kid in our state should have access to high-quality, public education. Period. But it has to start early—we know the first few years of our kids’ lives help define their future. And for many Wisconsin families, quality childcare is something that isn’t available or affordable.

That’s why last week I announced that my budget will invest $140 million to support our kids and our families—to address quality, access, and equity in our early education and childcare system for our kids, all while supporting the folks who care for them.

And those investments can’t stop when our kids grow up and head off to kindergarten.

So, for the second budget in a row, our Badger Bounceback agenda proposes that this state delivers on its commitment to two-thirds funding for our schools. Look, Republicans and Democrats agree on this issue, including two years ago when two-thirds funding was backed by a Republican-led, bipartisan commission. It should’ve been passed in our last budget or in the special session of the Legislature I called last year. Unfortunately, the Legislature couldn’t get it done in either case. Well, here’s the bottom line: if members of the Legislature are going to make promises on this, then they sure ought to keep them. Let’s stop talking about it and just get it done.

And two-thirds funding isn’t the only place we’ve seen public education investments sidelined by politics despite having broad public support—the same goes for special education. I was proud my last budget provided $95 million more for special education funding—it was the first increase in more than a decade. And that was a big step forward, but the fact of the matter is, after a decade of failing to provide more funding, we still have a lot more to get where we need to go. That’s why this budget proposes trying to help close that gap with a more than $709 million investment in special education aid.

And, finally, we’re also going to invest in supporting our rural schools by fully funding sparsity aid with a $20 million investment. The reality is that our public schools from Kickapoo to Cashton have been doing much more with far less for far too long, and these investments will not only enhance direct support to some of our most vulnerable students, but provide schools with the budget flexibility to fund things like mental health services, keeping buses running, technology, and other critical needs.

And our work can’t stop when our kids finish high school—our higher education institutions have always been an economic driver for our state, and we need to double down if we’re going to bounce back.

Our universities and technical colleges systems have a proud and proven history of not only preparing students to enter the workforce, but of generating billions of dollars of economic activity statewide and bringing thousands of jobs to communities all across our state. It’s a direct pipeline to the skills, innovation and research, and creativity that will help our families, communities, and our state bounce back, and it’s an investment that will pay dividends for our future.

So, we’re going to build on the success of our state’s technical colleges for the more than 280,000 students they serve and employers who count on them for Wisconsin’s highly skilled workforce by providing an additional $36 million investment over the next two years.

But we also have to make sure higher education is something that’s accessible, affordable, and therefore attainable to all those who choose to pursue it.

So, we’re going to keep the tuition freeze for our System campuses. And we’re also going to expand Bucky’s Tuition Promise to all UW System campuses statewide ensuring students from low-income households can get a 4-year education at no cost to them or their families.

And while we’re going to freeze tuition, we’re also going to fund that freeze and invest $190 million into the UW System over the next two years. So at the end of this biennium when all is said and done, the state will again be investing more GPR dollars annually in the UW System than the Department of Corrections.

And that’s important, because we can’t keep doing things the way we’ve always done them if we want to bounce back and better than we were before this pandemic hit. That’s why our Badger Bounceback agenda is about investing in people, not prisons.

We know our justice system has put a strain on our state. We’ve failed to adequately fund alternatives to incarceration, especially for folks who need mental health services or substance abuse treatment. Our prisons have been overcrowded, which costs more of your tax dollars in the long run. And we haven’t given folks enough resources or tools to be safe and successful when they re-enter our communities from education to affordable housing to workforce training. And perhaps most importantly, we have yet to address the disproportionate impact the last more than two decades of laws have had on our communities of color.

It’s time to face the facts: we have got to change.

If we’re going to bounce back from this pandemic, we have to get our priorities straight. We can’t keep throwing your taxpayer dollars into a system that doesn’t help our state or our people thrive—it’s holding us back. And here’s the deal, you know I’m a big believer in science. We can keep our communities safe by holding violent offenders accountable, save money, and reform our justice system all at the same time. Because in the 21st Century, we can use science and evidence to help us make better decisions.

And it starts with our kids.

It’s been years since 2017 Wisconsin Act 185 was passed and the Legislature made promises to close Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake—many of those changes and promises have yet to be realized due to legislative inaction. By focusing only on physical buildings and not on holistic change throughout the system, Act 185 was always going to fall short. That’s why in this budget, I am going to propose that we truly overhaul our juvenile justice system by focusing on best practices and a community-based approach to facilities.

We’re once again proposing that our juvenile justice system treat youth under 18, with some limited exceptions, as kids, not adults. We are one of the only states in the nation that has not made this evidence-based change in ensuring that youth are treated as youth, and that needs to change now.

And right now, there’s no foundational training for how to interact with and engage justice-involved kids. So, we’re going to make sure that across our state, youth justice agencies have the training they need to help our kids be successful from understanding adolescent brain development to best practices on engaging kids to evidence-based practices for delinquency to understanding the unique needs of girls and LGBTQ youth.

We’re also going to invest nearly $9 million in a pilot program to start increasing services in our communities so kids who are at moderate or high risk can get intensive, evidence-based treatment closer to home. Because we know that we should be providing kids and families with as much support as we can to get on the right track and prioritizing investments in rehabilitation and treatment for our kids.

That’s why we are also going to change the way we sentence our youth, to require that courts truly consider the youth’s risk, treatment needs, and the severity of the offense. Our justice system should be about both accountability but also about the opportunity for treatment and rehabilitation. And any meaningful reform of the juvenile justice system must include this approach.

Finally, we’re going to again propose to close Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake so that we get our kids closer to home as soon as we safely and responsibly can. And we’re going to do it by eliminating Act 185’s outdated two-tier correctional system and creating smaller, community-based facilities across our state and make sure that our kids get the same evidence-based treatment and behavioral support no matter what part of the state they’re from.

And when it comes to our adult justice system, we have work to do there, too. We can save more tax dollars in the long run by investing in treatment and alternatives to incarceration. A study conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Justice found that by investing in state treatment and diversion, for every single dollar we invest in diversion programs, we save more than $8 in return.

Expanding access to treatment and diversion isn’t just the right thing to do for people, it’s the right thing to do for our pocketbooks, too. That’s why in our last budget, we increased the funding for the Treatment Alternatives and Diversion programs to the highest funding level ever. And we’re going to double down on this investment in this budget by providing an additional $15 million to expand this program.

A decade-long study on “Race and Prison Sentencing in Wisconsin” found that, compared to their white counterparts, individuals convicted of felonies in Wisconsin, Black men are 28% more likely to end up in prison. Hispanic men were 19% more likely. Native American men are 34% more likely to end up in prison. The last wholesale rewrite of Wisconsin’s criminal code hasn’t happened in more than a decade. So, we’re going to start by having a Sentencing Review Council go through every section of our state’s criminal code to focus on equity, rehabilitation, and evidence-based sentencing practices that will result in better outcomes and make this system fairer while keeping our communities safe.

We’re also going to expand the earned release program to include programs that are evidence-based to reduce recidivism like education, work training, and treatment programs so that when folks re-enter our communities, they have the tools they need to be successful.