The Joint Committee on Finance (JFC) met twice this past week, completing our work on twelve more state agencies. One of the most important areas we focused on was education, which continues to be the largest expenditure in our state budget.

One of the top issues we heard about at our public listening sessions across the state was the cost of special education. At every stop we heard that rising special education costs are stretching school budgets to their limits. Based on this feedback, we made a significant investment: we increased the special education reimbursement rate from 32.4% to 37.5% (the highest percentage since 1996!) by 2026-27 and the high-cost special education reimbursement rate from 24.2% to 90% by 2026-27. This means that the state will pay for 90% of the costs of our students with the highest needs. Half of the school districts in the 17th Senate District receive high-cost special education funding and will see a major benefit from this historic investment. When our work on K-12 education wrapped up this week, we invested more than $321 million of new money into our schools.

While our students are in school, we want to ensure they have the best opportunity to prepare for the next chapter of their lives. That is why we made it more affordable for students to earn college credit during high school, helping them save money later. We also invested in the Youth Apprenticeship Grants Program, where demand is rapidly increasing across our high schools. Since our last state budget, the participation in the Youth Apprenticeship Program has risen by 38%! Our additional investment of $6 million in new funding will allow even more students to benefit from this outstanding program.

In addition to preparing our students while they are in school, we are going to continue to invest in them after they leave school. We allocated more funding toward the Commercial Driver Training Grant program focused on addressing Wisconsin’s truck driver shortage. We also expanded the Fast Forward grant program, which aims to develop talent in high demand fields such as construction, advanced manufacturing, and healthcare.

We made significant investments in our Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS), including funding to jump start their work with artificial intelligence (AI). We also invested $3 million to support the development of instructional resources and materials created by WTCS staff for use by students as alternatives to purchasing expensive textbooks. WTCS estimates that this will save students more than $15 million over the next two years, roughly $152 per student.

Following our investments in education, we were able to cut taxes by more than $1.3 billion! We accomplished this with a combination of three tax cuts:

• We increased the amount of income you can earn before moving into a higher tax bracket, allowing more of your earnings to remain taxed at a lower rate. Under the revised tax brackets, married couples filing jointly that earn at least $67,000 annually will see an average tax cut of $270. Any individual making more than $29,370 or couple making more than $39,150 will see a tax cut under our budget.
• We exempted the first $24,000 of retirement income from state taxes for each individual in the state 67 and older.
• We tripled the adoption expenses deduction, increasing the maximum from $5,000 to $15,000. Adoption is an admirable and life-changing choice for a family to make, but it is costly. This change will ease the financial burden for families making that commitment.

Beyond our investments in education and workforce development, we also took steps to make insurance more affordable for Wisconsinites. We raised the maximum amount of reinsurance payments under the Wisconsin Healthcare Stability Plan. In addition to lowering insurance premiums, this program encourages insurers to stay in the market, giving you more choices.

Finally, we took action to protect public health by addressing food safety and animal-borne diseases. We added two new meat inspectors to the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) to help ensure meat safety and support local producers get their products to market quickly. During our votes on DATCP, we also created a new team within the Division of Animal Health dedicated to preventing and responding to animal disease outbreaks, which have been on the rise in Wisconsin.

I am very proud of our work on the state budget so far. We have made impactful investments in Wisconsin’s priorities and were still able to return over a billion dollars of your money to you. We have a few more weeks of work ahead of us, and I look forward to sharing our progress with you!

As always, if you need assistance with any state-related matters, please call my team at the State Capitol – 608-266-0703 – or email me – Sen.Marklein@legis.wisconsin.gov. My team is ready and willing to help navigate your state government, clear obstacles, and receive your input.