2023-25 State Budget

Read more: 2023-25 State Budget: Signed Into Law With 51 Partial Vetoes and Fiscal Bureau Provides Updated Budget Numbers for 2023-25

On July 5, Gov. Evers announced his signing of 2023 Act 19, the Wisconsin state budget for the 2023-25 fiscal biennium, which began July 1. The two-year budget, assembled by the Republican-led Joint Committee on Finance, appropriates $97.4 billion. For comparison, the 2021-23 budget allocated $87.5 billion.

The final version of the budget bill passed the Senate on June 28 by a vote of 20-13. Two Republicans, Sens. Hutton and Nass, joined all 11 Democrats in voting against the bill. The Assembly approved the bill along party lines (63-34) on June 29, and it was presented to Gov. Evers the following day.

Following the enactment of the budget, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau released several memos on the budget, including the effects of partial vetoes issued by Gov. Evers.

According to this memo, the state is projected to have a balance of just over $4 billion at the end of the 2024-25 fiscal year. The budget as passed by Legislature had a projected ending balance of $588 million. Most of this difference is due to Gov. Evers’ partial veto of individual income tax reductions and related tax withholding table updates (totaling $3.3 billion in revenue).

On May 2, the Joint Committee on Finance started voting on motions to reshape the 2023-25 state budget as originally proposed by Gov. Evers. The committee began the process by approving a motion to remove hundreds of spending proposals and non-fiscal policy items from the budget, effectively resetting spending levels to the 2021-23 baseline. The motion removed many significant changes to state law proposed by Gov. Evers. The finance committee took similar steps to remove most of Gov. Evers’ proposals from the 2019-21 and 2021-23 budgets.

The finance committee addressed most budget items by approving an overall or “omnibus” motion for each agency. Most of these motions were approved 12-4 along party lines, with the committee’s four Democratic members offering alternative motions that were rejected by the Republican majority.

See the following articles for more information about the finance committee process:

• Joint Finance Committee Takes Final Votes on 2023-25 Budget
• Joint Finance Committee Budget Votes: June 8, 13, 15
• Joint Finance Committee Budget Votes: May 23 and 25, June 1
• Finance Committee Begins Voting on 2023-25 Budget Motions, Removing Hundreds of Gov. Evers’ Proposals

As part of the 2023-25 state budget process, several bills were developed to implement new programs and policy changes. The Republican-led Legislature pursued this policy language in separate legislation to avoid giving Gov. Evers the opportunity to exercise his powerful partial veto authority, which only applies to appropriations bills such as the state budget.

On June 20, Gov. Evers signed two budget-related bills into law (Acts 11 and 12) and another the following day (Act 13). Acts 11 and 12, on education funding and shared revenue, respectively, were the centerpiece of negotiations between Gov. Evers and Republican legislative leaders.

On July 19, Gov. Evers signed Act 19, creating an early literacy assessment and intervention program. The budget set aside $50 million for this program. As of July 31, a bill to implement $125 million in PFAS-related funding was still in development.

See the following articles for more information about budget-related legislation:

• Gov. Evers Signs Shared Revenue, Education Funding Bills
• After Threatening to Pause Budget Votes, Republican Leaders Reach Shared Revenue Deal with Gov. Evers
• Environmental Policy: DNR Budget, PFAS Legislation, NRB Appointments
• Assembly Passes Shared Revenue Bill; Acts 6-10 Signed Into Law
• Assembly Republicans Release Shared Revenue Proposal

Read more: Fiscal Bureau Issues Budget Analysis; Finance Committee Schedules Agency and Public Hearings

In mid-March, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau released its plain-language summary of Gov. Evers’ executive budget proposal for the 2023-25 fiscal biennium. The document explains, in plain narrative terms along with simple financial tables, how state agencies, programs, and policies currently work and how the budget would affect them. Legislators rely on this document and will typically wait to begin altering or replacing the executive budget until it is released.

Following the release of the analysis, the co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Finance released a joint statement:

The non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s analysis of the Governor’s budget confirms what we have been saying all along. The Governor’s ideas increase spending significantly and dig us into a hole that would make future budgeting difficult. As the legislature writes the state budget, we will start from the current base budget and spend within our means for the next biennium and beyond. Our budget will invest in our state now and for the future, for the good of our whole state.

At the end of March, the Joint Committee on Finance held two days of agency briefings to hear testimony from and ask questions to four of Gov. Evers’ cabinet secretaries:

• March 28: Secs. Craig Thompson (Transportation) and Kevin Carr (Corrections)
• March 30: Secs. Blumenfeld (Administration) and Hereth (Safety and Professional Services)

The committee also held four hearings across the state in April for members of the public to address the committee on any budget-related issue.

Read more: Capital Budget 2023-25 and “Vision 2030” Highlights and State Building Commission Deadlocks on Gov. Evers’ Capital Budget

Gov. Evers released his 2023-25 capital budget recommendations on February 28. The capital budget includes plans for purchasing, constructing, maintaining, and disposing of state-owned buildings, facilities, and other properties. Gov. Evers proposed spending $3.8 billion on capital projects over the biennium, including nearly $1.8 billion for University of Wisconsin System projects. For comparison, state capital budgets since 2011 have enumerated between $850 million and $1.7 billion worth of capital projects.

The State Building Commission met March 23 (agenda) to review the proposals. At the beginning of the meeting, Republican members moved to forward the governor’s capital budget to the Joint Committee on Finance without any recommendations; this motion failed on a 4-4 vote. The commission then voted on Gov. Evers’ recommendations on an agency-by-agency basis. The commission failed to recommend any of the governor’s proposals, voting 4-4 each time.

This is very similar to what happened during the 2019-21 and 2021-23 capital budget processes. As with the last two budget cycles, Republican legislative leadership and the Joint Committee on Finance will adjust and set the 2023-25 capital budget as they see fit. The commission’s failure to recommend any of the governor’s proposals does not mean that these items have been removed from the capital budget or excluded from the process. Previous capital budgets during Gov. Evers’ tenure ultimately funded many of his requests.