On February 18, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (D) gave his biennial budget address to the Wisconsin Legislature.  During that speech, he outlined the priorities that are included in his FY2025-2027 budget request submitted to the Legislature at that time. 

The Governor and the Legislature will likely have considerable latitude in crafting a FY2025-2027 budget as the non-partisan Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) recently projected the state will have a $4.3 billion surplus at the start of fiscal year 2025, which is $300 million more than what the Evers Administration projected in November 2024. In addition, LFB also projected that the state government will receive an additional $1.85 billion in tax revenue during FY2025-2027 (biennium). 

It's also worth noting that the Governor’s budget request includes $2 billion in tax relief, including lowering property taxes, eliminating income taxes on tips, and eliminating sales taxes on “everyday expenses.”

This bill was immediately sent to the Wisconsin Legislature and referred to the budget-writing Joint Committee on Finance (JFC), which is controlled by Republicans and will very likely make major changes to it.  The next step is for JFC to hold public, in-person hearings in locations across the state to hear from Wisconsinites regarding their FY2025-2027 budget priorities.  These hearings generally occur in April.  Following that, the committee amends and votes on various portions of the budget during the May – June timeframe and then sends the consolidated budget bill to the full Assembly and Senate for votes on final passage.  The intention is for both chambers to pass the budget bill and send it to the Governor before the end of June, as the next fiscal year begins on July 1.

The following is a summary of Governor Evers’ FY2025-2027 budget priorities that will likely be of interest.  For additional details, please review the Budget in Brief document.   

DOING WHAT’S BEST FOR KIDS

• Do what's best for kids while supporting our economy, enabling workers to stay in Wisconsin's workforce, keeping provider doors open and bolstering staff, and lowering every day, out-of-pocket costs for working families by making child care more affordable statewide through Child Care Counts. Expand access to quality, affordable child care for Wisconsin's working families and kids by continuing the successful Child Care Counts program, providing $480 million over the biennium to make Child Care Counts a permanent state program and provide the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families with associated administrative resources.

• Provide $162,400 in fiscal year 2025-26 and more than $5.3 million in fiscal year 2026-27 and 2.5 additional full-time positions to establish an employer-sponsored child care grant program to support businesses that choose to invest in child care for their employees.

BUILDING A 21^ST-CENTURY ECONOMY & WORKFORCE

• Propose nearly $2 billion in tax relief across the Governor's efforts to lower property taxes, exempt many everyday expenses from the sales tax, and cut income taxes for middle-class Wisconsinites.

• Hold the line on property taxes and prevent increases in tax bills on the typical Wisconsin homeowner in both years of the biennium by providing nearly $1.1 billion in aid to local governments and direct property tax credits to taxpayers over the biennium. Additionally, increase property tax relief programs under the individual income tax by $237 million over the biennium for veterans, seniors, those with disabilities, and others struggling to afford the property taxes on their homes. In total, these initiatives will provide over $1.3 billion in property tax relief to Wisconsinites over the biennium.

• Remove the income tax on cash tips. Exempt cash tips from the individual income tax beginning with tax year 2025. The fiscal impact of this provision is an estimated reduction in income tax revenue of $6.7 million in fiscal year 2025-26 and $6.9 million in fiscal year 2026-27.

• Provide more than $3 million over the biennium to support the Qualified Treatment Trainee Grant program, which facilitates the licensure and certification of those in the process of obtaining or already with a graduate degree in psychology, counseling, marriage and family therapy, social work, nursing, or a closely related field, to help address a shortage in the behavioral health workforce.

• Provide $4.3 million in fiscal year 2025-26 and $4.3 million in fiscal year 2026-27 to the WisCaregiver Career program, which addresses the shortage of certified nursing assistants in the state by supporting recruitment, training, and retention of individuals to care for nursing home residents across Wisconsin.

• Provide $7.5 million in fiscal year 2025-26 to support employer-based workforce development solutions with Provider Innovation Grants to increase workforce recruitment and retention.

• Provide $5 million over the biennium to fund healthcare provider training grants and make technical changes to existing grants.

• Expand the nurse educators’ program at the Higher Educational Aids Board and provide $4 million over the biennium to help increase the state's nursing workforce. This program provides forgivable loans to nursing professors who stay in Wisconsin to teach the next generation of nurses. Under the expansion, loans would be available to both full-time and part-time faculty, and to educators in allied health, behavioral health, dental health, and nursing.

• Create a pilot program in the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services to provide tuition reimbursement for former nurses who are not actively practicing but wish to participate in a nurse refresher course at a technical college. Provide $300,000 over the biennium to offset the costs of these courses.

• Increase the state's healthcare workforce by providing the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development with more than $2.25 million in fiscal year 2025-26 on a one-time basis to support a healthcare on-the-job learning reimbursement pilot program, with the goal of reducing financial barriers related to training apprentices in healthcare pathways. Additionally, provide $1.5 million in ongoing funding to be utilized for on-the-job reimbursement grants in all workforce industries.

• Provide $1 million over the biennium for a Wisconsin Fast Forward Health Care Industry Grant Program to support healthcare workforce development through apprenticeships, training programs, and innovative education models.

• Ensure the effective and efficient processing of license applications within the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services by providing more than $1.7 million over the biennium and 10 additional full-time positions.

• Improve Wisconsin's ability to compete for, recruit, and retain workers by requiring that all private and local employers offer eight weeks of paid family and medical leave income replacement benefits. Additionally, ensure compliance with this directive by providing one additional full-time position in fiscal year 2026-27 to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Equal Rights Division.

• Strengthen the enforcement of employment discrimination law prohibitions by allowing the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, or an individual who is alleged or was found to have been discriminated against, including on the basis of equal pay for equal work, or subjected to unfair honesty or genetic testing, to bring an action in circuit court to recover compensatory and punitive damages caused by an act of discrimination, unfair honesty testing, or unfair genetic testing in addition to or in lieu of filing an administrative complaint.

• Clarify that employment discrimination under the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act includes an employer asking about an applicant's conviction record before selecting them for an interview, with the intent to prevent qualified individuals from being unfairly screened out while still allowing employers to notify applicants of disqualifying convictions for certain positions.

• Allow the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services to adjust credential renewal schedules to better align with industry needs.

SUPPORTING HEALTHIER WISCONSINITES

• Expand Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act by covering all low-income Wisconsin residents who earn incomes between 0 percent and 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Medicaid Expansion will result in 95,800 low-income individuals becoming eligible for Medicaid, while saving $1.9 billion in state funding and drawing down an additional $2.5 billion in federal funding over the biennium.

ADDITIONAL KEY PRIORITIES

• Allow the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services and affiliated credentialing boards to streamline their licensure investigations when the underlying conduct is related to a subset of minor arrests, convictions, or other offenses to more efficiently credential individuals without sacrificing applicant quality.