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.”
Our kids understand what is important. And overall, this budget delivers on many of the important promises I made to the people of Wisconsin and makes progress toward fixing our roads, supporting schools, increasing funding for healthcare, and cutting taxes for working families. It is a budget that I hope will help countless families, businesses, and communities across Wisconsin. I remain optimistic about the future of our state. And I remain committed to working together to ensure that we do not let opportunities, like Medicaid expansion, pass us by. There is too much at stake to put politics first. We have much more work to do to ensure our state and our kids’ success in the future.
Respectfully submitted,
TONY EVERS
Governor
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VETO MESSAGE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. JUSTICE, ENVIRONMENT AND AGRICULTURE
1. Establishment of a Correctional Facility
2. Type 1 Facility
3. Construction Projects
4. Center Bonding
5. Corrections Bonding
6. Assistant District Attorney Position Distribution
7. One Step Pay Progression
8. Diversion Pilot Program
9. Beat Patrol Program
10. Treatment Alternatives and Diversion
11. Chronic Wasting Disease Research
12. Repair of State Trails
13. Well Compensation Grant
14. Producer Led Watershed Grants
B. EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
15. Per Pupil Aid
16. Supplemental Per Pupil Aid
17. Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Research Facility
18. University of Wisconsin – Green Bay Cofrin Library Renovation
19. Health Professional Scholarship Program
20. University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point Paper Science Program
21. Safety and Building Operations Transfer
22. Grants for Training in County Jails from Wisconsin Fast Forward
23. Northcentral Technical College Earmark
24. Grants for Personal Care Worker Training from Wisconsin Fast Forward
25. Grants for Shipbuilders from Wisconsin Fast Forward
26. Youth Summer Jobs Programs
27. Approval of the Wisconsin History Museum and Reporting Requirement
28. Grants to Lakeland STAR Schools
29. Personal Electronic Computing Devices Grant Program
30. Grants for Robot-Assisted Educational Programs for Pupils with Autism
C. GENERAL GOVERNMENT, CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
31. Report on Capitol Security
32. Capital Planning and Building Construction Balance Lapse
33. Discretionary Merit Compensation Awards for the Department of Corrections
34. Volkswagen Settlement Funds
35. Appropriation for Board of Commissioners of Public Lands Operations
36. Milwaukee County Shared Revenue Reduction for Child Welfare Services
37. Child Care YoungStar Bonuses
38. Elections Commission Materials and Services Lapse
39. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission Program Revenue Lapse
D. HEALTH SERVICES AND INSURANCE
40. FoodShare Employment and Training for Able-Bodied Adults with Dependents
41. FoodShare Employment and Training Drug Screening Funding
42. Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments
43. Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center
44. Medicaid Reestimate
45. Physician and Behavioral Health Funding
46. Crisis Intervention Services
47. Qualified Treatment Trainee Grants
48. Telehealth Expansion
49. Physical Health Service Provider Reimbursement
50. Hub-and-Spoke Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment Model
51. Racine County Nursing Home Labor Region
52. Suicide Prevention Grant
53. FoodShare Employment and Training Administrative Funds
54. FoodShare Employment and Training Cost-to-Continue
55. Authority to Reallocate Positions
56. Birth to 3 Program
57. Nitrate Testing for Private Wells
58. Wisconsin Statewide Public Safety and Interoperable Communications System
E. TRANSPORTATION, TAX, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
59. Expansion of Auditing Activity
60. Defining Vapor Products
61. Tolling and Mileage-based Fee Study
62. Registration Fees by Weight Classification
63. Discretionary Supplement
64. Fuel Suppliers Administrative Allowance
