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Please see http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov for the production version.
The bill appropriates $1.166 billion in general purpose revenue for the
broadband expansion grant program administered by the Public Service
Commission. The bill also creates an appropriation to fund the operations of the
state broadband office within PSC. Currently, the state broadband office enhances
the availability, adoption, and use of broadband across the state.
Broadband line extension and planning grants
The bill requires PSC to make grants to residents of properties that are not
served by a broadband service provider to assist in paying the customer costs
associated with line extension necessary to connect broadband service to the
properties. The maximum size of a broadband line extension grant is $4,000. The
bill also requires PSC to give priority to primary residences and to establish other
criteria for awarding the grants.

The bill also requires PSC to make grants to cities, villages, towns, counties,
school districts, tribal governments, regional planning commissions, nonprofit
organizations, and local economic development councils for the following: 1)
broadband planning; 2) feasibility engineering related to broadband infrastructure
construction; 3) broadband adoption planning; and 4) digital inclusion activities.
The maximum size of a broadband planning grant is $50,000. The bill also requires
PSC to provide training, technical assistance, and information on broadband
infrastructure construction, broadband adoption, and digital inclusion.
Internet assistance program
The bill requires the Department of Children and Families to establish an
Internet assistance program, under which it makes payments to Internet service
providers on behalf of low-income individuals to assist with paying for Internet
service. The bill requires that other assistance program options be exhausted before
assistance is provided under this program. The bill allows DCF to contract for the
administration of the program. The bill requires DCF to promulgate rules to
implement the program, including a requirement that the family income of a
recipient not exceed 200 percent of the federal poverty line. Under the bill, the new
program is funded through an appropriation from the general fund and from
$20,000,000 that the bill requires DCF to allocate from federal moneys, including
moneys received under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block
grant program.
Prohibiting discrimination in broadband and broadband subscriber rights
The bill prohibits a broadband service provider from denying access to a group
of potential residential customers because of their race or income. Under the bill, the
Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has authority to enforce
the prohibition and to promulgate related rules. The bill also authorizes any person
affected by a broadband service provider that violates the prohibition to bring a
private action.
The bill also establishes various requirements for broadband service providers,
including the following: 1) broadband service providers must provide service
satisfying minimum standards established by PSC, and subscribers may terminate
contracts if broadband service fails to satisfy those standards; 2) broadband service
providers must provide service as described in advertisements or representations
made to subscribers; 3) broadband service providers must repair broadband service
within 72 hours after a subscriber reports a broadband service interruption that is
not the result of a major systemwide or large area emergency; 4) broadband service
providers must give subscribers credit for interruptions of broadband service that
last more than four hours in a day; and 5) broadband service providers must give
subscribers at least 30 days' advance written notice before instituting a rate
increase.
Allowing electric providers to use easements for broadband service
The bill allows electric providers to use easements that they hold to do the
following: 1) install or maintain broadband infrastructure; and 2) lease or provide
excess capacity in broadband infrastructure to a supplier of broadband services.
Under the bill, “electric provider” includes both electric public utilities and electric

cooperatives. The bill also provides that except for an easement that expressly
prohibits, by its terms, using the easement for those purposes, the terms or
conditions of an easement held by an electric provider that inhibit it from using the
easement for those purposes do not apply.
Before an electric provider uses an easement for the purposes allowed under the
bill, it must provide notice to the owner of the property subject to the easement. After
providing notice, an electric provider may record a memorandum including certain
information in the office of the register of deeds of the county where the property
subject to the easement is located. The bill also establishes requirements for actions
brought by a property owner against an electric provider, subsidiary of an electric
provider, or supplier of broadband services because of the electric provider's use of
an easement for a purpose allowed under the bill, and the bill prohibits owners from
bringing such actions if the bill's requirements are not satisfied.
Municipal construction, ownership, or operation of broadband facilities
Current law prohibits, with several exceptions, a municipality from
constructing, owning, or operating a facility for providing video service,
telecommunications service, or broadband service to the public unless 1) the
municipality holds a public hearing on the proposed action; 2) notice of the public
hearing is given; and 3) the municipality prepares and makes available for public
inspection a report estimating the total costs of, and revenues derived from,
constructing, owning, or operating the facility for a period of at least three years.
This bill eliminates the requirement that a municipality prepare and make available
for public inspection that report if the facility is a broadband facility intended to
serve an area designated as underserved or unserved by PSC.
Currently, under another of the exceptions, the public hearing and cost report
do not apply to a facility for providing broadband service to an area within the
boundaries of a municipality if the municipality asks, in writing, each person that
provides broadband service within the boundaries of the municipality whether the
person currently provides broadband service to the area or intends to provide
broadband service to the area within nine months and 1) does not receive an
affirmative response within 60 days; 2) determines that a person who responded does
not currently provide broadband service to the area, and no other person makes the
response to the municipality; or 3) determines that a person who responded that the
person intended to provide broadband service to the area within nine months did not
actually provide the service within nine months, and no other person makes the
response to the municipality. Under the bill, for this exception in the case of an
underserved or unserved area, rather than asking whether a person plans to provide
broadband service to the area within nine months, the municipality must ask
whether the person actively plans to provide broadband service to the area within
three months.
School district funding; fair funding for our future
The bill also makes a number of changes in the laws relating to public school
financing, including the following:
1. Currently, the amount appropriated each fiscal year for general school aid
is a sum set by law. Beginning in the 2022-23 school year, the bill directs the

Department of Public Instruction, the Department of Administration, and the
Legislative Fiscal Bureau annually to jointly certify to the Joint Committee on
Finance an estimate of the amount necessary to appropriate in the following school
year to ensure that state school aids equal two-thirds of partial school revenues (in
general, the sum of state school aids and school property taxes). Under the bill, JCF
determines the amount appropriated as general school aids in each odd-numbered
fiscal year and the amount is set by law in each even-numbered fiscal year.
2. For purposes of determining a school district's general school aid amount,
the bill changes how a pupil enrolled in a four-year-old, full-day kindergarten
program is counted for purposes of general school aid from 0.5 pupil to one pupil.
Additionally, for purposes of the general school aid formula, the bill requires each
pupil who is eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch to be counted as an additional
0.2 pupil solely for the purpose of determining a school district's property value per
member.
3. Currently, if a school district would receive less in general state aid in any
school year than 85 percent of the amount it received in the previous school year, its
state aid for the current school year is increased to 85 percent of the aid received in
the previous school year. The bill increases the percentage to 90 percent.
4. The bill provides that a school district's state aid in any school year may not
be less than an amount equal to the school district's membership multiplied by
$3,000.
5. Under current law, there is a per pupil adjustment for purposes of calculating
a school district's revenue limit of $175 per pupil for the 2019-20 school year and
$179 for the 2020-21 school year, and there is no per pupil adjustment for the
2021-22 school year or any school year thereafter. Under the bill, there is a per pupil
adjustment of $204 for the 2022-23 school year and, in the 2023-24 school year and
thereafter, the per pupil adjustment is the per pupil adjustment for the previous
school year as adjusted for any increase in the consumer price index.
6. Current law provides a minimum per pupil revenue limit for school districts,
known as the revenue limit ceiling. Current law also provides that during the three
school years following a school year in which an operating referendum fails in a
school district, the school district's revenue limit ceiling is the revenue limit ceiling
that applied in the school year during which the referendum was held. The bill
eliminates this consequence for a failed operating referendum.
7. The bill creates a revenue limit adjustment for a school district that incurs
costs to remediate lead contamination in drinking water in the school district,
including costs to test for the presence of lead in drinking water, to provide safe
drinking water, and to replace lead pipe water service lines to school buildings in the
school district.
8. Currently, if at least 50 percent of a school district's enrollment is eligible for
a free or reduced-price lunch under the federal school lunch program, the school
district is eligible for a prorated share of the amount appropriated as high-poverty
aid. The bill eliminates this aid beginning in the 2022-23 school year. The bill
provides additional state aid for the 2022-23 school year to hold school districts
harmless from the loss of high-poverty aid.

9. Under current law, in the school district equalization aid formula, the
guaranteed valuations represent the amount of property tax base support that the
state guarantees behind each pupil. There are three guaranteed valuations used;
each applies to a different level of expenditures. The first level is for expenditures
up to the primary cost ceiling of $1,000 per pupil. The second level is for costs per
pupil that exceed $1,000 but are less than the secondary cost ceiling, which is set at
90 percent of the prior school year statewide shared cost per pupil. The bill changes
the secondary cost ceiling to 100 percent of the prior school year statewide shared
cost per pupil.
10. The bill eliminates the school levy property tax credit and the first dollar
property tax credit in 2023.
11. The bill provides additional funding of $1,090,000,000 in the 2022-23
school year for general school aid for purposes of maintaining compliance with
maintenance of effort requirements of the federal Consolidated Appropriations Act
and the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
Technical college and two-year UW campus fee remission program
The bill creates a one-year fee remission program to cover resident tuition and
fees at technical colleges and two-year University of Wisconsin System schools (UW
branch campuses).
The bill creates a Freedom to Learn Program to provide full fee remission in the
2022-23 academic year to resident students enrolled in technical colleges or UW
branch campuses who have completed the federal Free Application for Federal
Student Aid. Under the program, students receive full remission of the balance of
tuition and fees after other grants and scholarships awarded to the student are
applied. The bill creates a sum sufficient appropriation for the UW System to fund
the program for UW branch campus students and a sum sufficient appropriation for
the Technical College System Board to make grants to technical colleges to fund the
program for technical college students. The UW System and TCS Board must
establish requirements for the completion of community service as a condition of
receiving fee remission under the program.
For further information see the state and local fiscal estimate, which will be
printed as an appendix to this bill.
The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do
enact as follows:
SB1104,1 1Section 1. 20.005 (3) (schedule) of the statutes: at the appropriate place, insert
2the following amounts for the purposes indicated: - See PDF for table PDF - See PDF for table PDF - See PDF for table PDF
SB1104,2 1Section 2. 20.155 (1) (a) of the statutes is created to read:
SB1104,7,52 20.155 (1) (a) State broadband office; planning and line extension grants. The
3amounts in the schedule for the operations of the state broadband office within the
4public service commission, for broadband planning grants under s. 196.504 (2g), and
5for financial assistance grants for broadband line extension under s. 196.504 (2r).
SB1104,3 6Section 3. 20.155 (3) (a) of the statutes is created to read:
SB1104,7,97 20.155 (3) (a) Broadband expansion grants; general purpose revenue. As a
8continuing appropriation, the amounts in the schedule for broadband expansion
9grants under s. 196.504 (2).
SB1104,4 10Section 4. 20.155 (3) (r) of the statutes is amended to read:
SB1104,8,211 20.155 (3) (r) Broadband expansion grants; transfers. From the universal
12service fund, all moneys transferred under s. 196.218 (3) (a) 2s. a., 2015 Wisconsin
13Act 55
, section 9236 (1v), 2017 Wisconsin Act 59, section 9237 (1) and (2) (a), and 2019

1Wisconsin Act 9, section 9201 (1), for broadband expansion grants under s. 196.504
2(2).
SB1104,5 3Section 5. 20.155 (3) (rm) of the statutes is amended to read:
SB1104,8,64 20.155 (3) (rm) Broadband grants; other funding. From the universal service
5fund, as a continuing appropriation, all moneys transferred under s. 196.218 (3) (a)
62s. b., for broadband expansion grants under s. 196.504 (2).
SB1104,6 7Section 6 . 20.255 (2) (ac) of the statutes is amended to read:
SB1104,8,138 20.255 (2) (ac) General equalization aids. The amounts in the schedule A sum
9sufficient
for the payment of educational aids under ss. 121.08, 121.09, 121.095, and
10121.105, 121.137 and subch. VI of ch. 121 equal to the amount determined by the joint
11committee on finance under s. 121.15 (3m) (c) in the 2022-23 fiscal year and
12biennially thereafter, and equal to the amount determined by law in the 2023-24
13fiscal year and biennially thereafter
.
SB1104,7 14Section 7 . 20.255 (2) (ag) of the statutes is created to read:
SB1104,8,1615 20.255 (2) (ag) Hold harmless aid. A sum sufficient for hold harmless aid to
16school districts under s. 121.10.
SB1104,8 17Section 8 . 20.285 (1) (cm) of the statutes is created to read:
SB1104,8,2018 20.285 (1) (cm) Freedom to learn program. A sum sufficient for the program
19under s. 36.27 (3t). No moneys may be encumbered under this paragraph after June
2030, 2023.
SB1104,9 21Section 9 . 20.292 (1) (b) of the statutes is created to read:
SB1104,8,2422 20.292 (1) (b) Freedom to learn program. A sum sufficient for the program
23under s. 38.24 (6m). No moneys may be encumbered under this paragraph after June
2430, 2023.
SB1104,10 25Section 10. 20.437 (2) (eg) of the statutes is created to read:
SB1104,9,2
120.437 (2) (eg) Internet assistance program. The amounts in the schedule for
2the Internet assistance program under s. 49.168.
SB1104,11 3Section 11 . 36.27 (3t) of the statutes is created to read:
SB1104,9,74 36.27 (3t) Freedom to learn program. (a) Definition. In this subsection,
5“branch campus" means any branch campus associated with a university as a result
6of the system's restructuring plan approved by the Higher Learning Commission on
7or about June 28, 2018.
SB1104,9,118 (b) Establishment of program. There is established, to be administered by the
9board, a freedom to learn program to grant full remission of academic fees and
10segregated fees to students who meet the eligibility criteria specified in this
11subsection.
SB1104,9,1412 (c) Eligibility for fee remission. Subject to pars. (e), (f), and (g), a student is
13eligible for fee remission under this subsection if the student meets all of the
14following criteria:
SB1104,9,1615 1. The student is enrolled in a branch campus and is considered to be a resident
16of this state under sub. (2).
SB1104,9,1817 2. The student has completed the federal Free Application for Federal Student
18Aid, as described in 20 USC 1090 (a), for the applicable academic year.
SB1104,9,2319 (d) Full fee remission. 1. Subject to subd. 3., the board shall grant full remission
20of the balance of an eligible student's academic fees and segregated fees after first
21deducting the total amount of all grants and scholarships awarded to the student
22intended to cover all or part of the student's academic fees and segregated fees, as
23determined by the branch campus in which the student is enrolled.
SB1104,9,2524 2. All fee remissions under this subsection shall be funded from the
25appropriation account under s. 20.285 (1) (cm).
SB1104,10,2
13. The board shall grant fee remissions under this subsection only for the
22022-23 academic year.
SB1104,10,53 (e) Limitations. 1. A student is not eligible for any fee remission under this
4subsection after the student has met all requirements for an associate degree or
5diploma in the student's program at a branch campus.
SB1104,10,106 2. The board may not grant any fee remission under this subsection to a person
7whose name appears on the statewide support lien docket under s. 49.854 (2) (b),
8unless the person provides to the board a payment agreement that has been
9approved by the county child support agency under s. 59.53 (5) and that is consistent
10with rules promulgated under s. 49.858 (2) (a).
SB1104,10,1311 (f) Community service. The board shall establish requirements for the
12completion of community service, which may include mentoring, as a condition of
13receiving any fee remission under this subsection.
SB1104,10,1614 (g) Application of other grants and scholarships. As a condition of receiving any
15fee remission under this subsection, a student enrolled in a branch campus shall do
16all of the following:
SB1104,10,1817 1. Attempt to secure available federal, state, and institutional grants and
18scholarships.
SB1104,10,2019 2. Authorize the disclosure to the board of the type and amount of any other
20grant or scholarship awarded to the student as a result of subd. 1.
SB1104,10,2321 3. Disclose to the financial aid office of the branch campus any grant or
22scholarship received by the student, from any source, that is not disbursed through
23the financial aid office, including the type and amount of the grant or scholarship.
SB1104,10,2524 (h) Forms and guidelines. The board may establish forms and guidelines to
25administer the program under this subsection.
SB1104,12
1Section 12. 38.24 (6m) of the statutes is created to read:
SB1104,11,62 38.24 (6m) Freedom to learn program. (a) Establishment of program. There
3is established, to be administered by the board, a freedom to learn program to provide
4grants to district boards for the purpose of granting full remission of fees under sub.
5(1m) to students enrolled in technical colleges of the district who meet the eligibility
6criteria specified in this subsection.
SB1104,11,97 (b) Eligibility for fee remission. Subject to pars. (d), (e), and (f), a student is
8eligible for fee remission under this subsection if the student meets all of the
9following criteria:
SB1104,11,1110 1. The student is enrolled in a technical college and is considered to be a
11resident of this state for purposes of determining the student's fees under sub. (1m).
SB1104,11,1312 2. The student has completed the federal Free Application for Federal Student
13Aid, as described in 20 USC 1090 (a), for the applicable academic year.
SB1104,11,1814 (c) Grants to district boards; full fee remission. 1. From the appropriation
15under s. 20.292 (1) (b), the board shall award grants to district boards to cover the
16expense to district boards of granting full fee remission under this subsection. The
17board may not award grants to district boards under this subdivision after June 30,
182023.
SB1104,11,2319 2. Subject to subd. 3., for students enrolled in the technical colleges of a district,
20the district board shall grant full remission of the balance of an eligible student's fees
21under sub. (1m) after first deducting the total amount of all grants and scholarships
22awarded to the student intended to cover all or part of the student's fees, as
23determined by the district board.
SB1104,11,2524 3. Each district board shall grant fee remissions under this subsection only for
25the 2022-23 academic year.
SB1104,12,3
1(d) Limitations. 1. A student is not eligible for any fee remission under this
2subsection after the student has met all requirements for an associate degree or
3diploma in the student's program at a technical college.
SB1104,12,84 2. A district board may not grant any fee remission under this subsection to a
5person whose name appears on the statewide support lien docket under s. 49.854 (2)
6(b), unless the person provides to the district board a payment agreement that has
7been approved by the county child support agency under s. 59.53 (5) and that is
8consistent with rules promulgated under s. 49.858 (2) (a).
SB1104,12,119 (e) Community service. The board shall establish requirements for the
10completion of community service, which may include mentoring, as a condition of
11receiving any fee remission under this subsection.
SB1104,12,1412 (f) Application of other grants and scholarships. As a condition of receiving any
13fee remission under this subsection, a student enrolled in a technical college shall do
14all of the following:
SB1104,12,1615 1. Attempt to secure available federal, state, and institutional grants and
16scholarships.
SB1104,12,1817 2. Authorize the disclosure to the district board of the type and amount of any
18other grant or scholarship awarded to the student as a result of subd. 1.
SB1104,12,2119 3. Disclose to the financial aid office of the technical college any grant or
20scholarship received by the student, from any source, that is not disbursed through
21the financial aid office, including the type and amount of the grant or scholarship.
SB1104,12,2322 (g) Forms and guidelines. The board may establish forms and guidelines for
23district boards to use in administering the program under this subsection.
SB1104,13 24Section 13. 49.168 of the statutes is created to read:
SB1104,13,7
149.168 Internet assistance program. (1) The department shall establish
2an Internet assistance program under which it shall, from the appropriation under
3s. 20.437 (2) (eg) and the allocation under s. 49.175 (1) (x), make payments to Internet
4service providers on behalf of low-income individuals to assist with paying for
5Internet service. Assistance under this program may be provided only after other
6assistance program options have been exhausted. The department may contract for
7the administration of the program.
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