The bill makes the following changes to the Wisconsin grant program:
1. The bill extends and clarifies the limit on the total number of semesters for which a UW System, technical college, or tribal college student may receive a Wisconsin grant. The bill limits these grants to 12 semesters of full-time enrollment or the equivalent. If a student receiving the grant is enrolled less than full-time, only the fraction of the student’s enrollment, in proportion to full-time enrollment, is counted toward this 12-semester limit.
2. The bill changes the enrollment requirement for a Wisconsin grant from at least half-time to at least quarter-time for students enrolled in technical colleges.
3. The bill raises the maximum amount that may be awarded through a Wisconsin grant during one academic year for UW System students. The bill raises the maximum amount of a Wisconsin grant for students enrolled in a UW System institution or college campus from $3,150 in an academic year to an amount not to exceed half of the in-state, undergraduate tuition and fees charged at UW-Madison for an academic year.
4. The bill modifies the method that HEAB uses to determine the amount of a Wisconsin grant awarded to a student enrolled in a private nonprofit college. The bill eliminates the statutory mathematical calculation used to determine the amount of such a grant and replaces this calculation with the same standard used for the award of grants to students enrolled in UW System schools, technical colleges, and tribal colleges.
5. The bill changes the meaning of the phrase “expected family contribution,” as discussed below.
Updating terminology used in calculation of student financial aid
The bill changes the meaning of the phrase “expected family contribution” in higher education statutes.
Under current state and federal law, the phrase “expected family contribution” describes a metric used in determining the amount of financial aid a college student may receive. The federal FAFSA Simplification Act of 2019 changed the name of “expected family contribution” to “student aid index,” and accompanied the name change with a change in how the federal government calculates the metric. Similar to the “expected family contribution,” the student aid index will “reflect an evaluation of a student’s approximate financial resources to contribute toward the student’s postsecondary education for the academic year.” The terminology change is set to go into effect on July 1, 2024, and will apply starting with the 2024-25 financial aid award year.
The bill changes the definition of “expected family contribution” to incorporate the changes to the federal terminology once the FAFSA Simplification Act of 2019 is implemented.
Health care provider loan assistance program
The bill makes four new categories of health care providers eligible for the health care provider loan assistance program and provides additional funding for loans to these health care providers.
Under current law, the Board of Regents administers the HCPLA program under which it may repay, on behalf of a health care provider, up to $25,000 in loans for education related to the health care provider’s field of practice. The repayment occurs over three years, with 40 percent of the loan or $10,000, whichever is less, repaid in each of the first two years of participation in the program and the final 20 percent or $5,000, whichever is less, repaid in the third year. A health care provider is defined as a dental hygienist, physician assistant, nurse-midwife, or nurse practitioner. The Board of Regents must enter into a written agreement with the health care provider in which the health care provider agrees to practice at least 32 clinic hours per week for three years in one or more eligible practice areas in this state or in a rural area. An “eligible practice area” is defined as a free or charitable clinic, a primary care shortage area, a mental health shortage area, an American Indian reservation or trust lands of an American Indian tribe, or, for a dental hygienist, a dental health shortage area or a free or charitable clinic. Money for loan repayments is derived from several sources, and loan repayments are subject to availability of funds. If insufficient funds are available to repay the loans of all eligible applicants, the Board of Regents must establish priorities among the eligible applicants based on specified considerations, including factors related to the degree of the health care need and shortage in the area. However, some funding for loan repayments is available only for health care providers who practice in rural areas.
The bill adds medical assistants, dental assistants, dental auxiliaries, and dental therapists to the health care providers who are eligible for loan repayment under the HCPLA program. These health care providers are eligible under the current terms of the program, except medical assistants. Medical assistants are eligible for loan repayment of up to $12,500 in total, with repayments of 40 percent of the loan or $5,000, whichever is less, in each of the first two years and 20 percent or $2,500, whichever is less, in the third year. For purposes of an eligible practice area, dental assistants, dental auxiliaries, and dental therapists are treated similarly to the way dental hygienists are treated under current law. The bill creates a new appropriation from the general fund to provide additional funding for loans to medical assistants, dental assistants, dental auxiliaries, and dental therapists.
UW foster youth support programs
The bill provides funding to establish or maintain support programs at UW System institutions for students who formerly resided in a foster home or group home. Support programs may offer these students scholarships, jobs, emergency funds, basic supplies, mentorships, career planning, and other forms of support.
Grant to support a center at Mid-State Technical College
The bill requires the TCS Board to award a grant of $250,000 in each fiscal year to Mid-State Technical College for an Advanced Manufacturing Engineering Technology and Apprenticeship Center to train and maintain a workforce to meet the needs of the state’s paper, pulp, and converting mills. Grants may be used for the center’s maintenance of capital equipment and supplies, information technology equipment, equipment for student learning infrastructure and student learning support, and the center’s ongoing operations.
Grants to reimburse technical colleges for health care–related dual enrollment courses
Under current law, technical colleges may offer dual enrollment programs or courses designed to provide high school students the opportunity to earn credits in both technical college and high school. The bill requires the TCS Board to award grants to technical colleges to reimburse the technical colleges for expenses related to providing to high school students dual enrollment courses related to health care.
Medical College of Wisconsin
The bill provides funding, through a new appropriation, to the Medical College of Wisconsin, Inc., (MCW) for a psychiatry and behavioral health residency program to support resident recruitment and training.
The bill also provides funding to MCW to make violence prevention grants supporting activities that enhance the safety and well-being of children, youth, and families throughout this state.
Support services for veteran students enrolled in the UW System
The bill creates a continuing appropriation to provide support services to students who are veterans at UW System institutions.
Institute for Sustainable Technology at UW-Stevens Point
The bill requires the Board of Regents to provide funding to the Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Technology at UW-Stevens Point to broaden the institute’s support for, and further technical contributions to, this state’s forest and paper industries and for the institute’s ongoing operations.
Funding for financial education provided through the UW System
The bill creates a continuing appropriation for the UW System to provide funding for a Financial Futures Incentive Program in UW-Madison’s Division of Extension (UW Extension) that makes financial education and coaching available to Wisconsin residents.
Funding for a rural Wisconsin entrepreneurship initiative
The bill creates a continuing appropriation for the UW System to provide funding for a rural Wisconsin entrepreneurship initiative in the UW Extension that provides business development assistance, rural entrepreneurship ecosystems, and access to finance for rural entrepreneurs in this state.
UniverCity Alliance program
The bill creates an appropriation funding the UniverCity Alliance program within the UW-Madison. The UniverCity Alliance program connects in partnership communities, towns, cities, and counties with UW-Madison education, service, and research activities in order to address the communities’ biggest local challenges.
UW Missing-in-Action Recovery and Identification Project
Under the bill, the Board of Regents must provide funding to the UW Missing-in-Action Recovery and Identification Project (MIA Recovery Project) for missions to recover and identify Wisconsin veterans who are missing in action. At the conclusion of the mission for which funding is provided, the MIA Recovery Project must submit to the Board of Regents, JCF, each legislative standing committee dealing with veterans matters, the governor, DVA, and DMA a report on the mission’s findings and an accounting of expenditures for the mission. The Board of Regents must provide the funding through a new UW System appropriation.
Administration of the Wisconsin National Guard tuition grants
Under current law, an eligible Wisconsin National Guard member may apply to receive a tuition grant that covers 100 percent of the tuition charged by a qualifying school. The national guard member must submit an application for the tuition grant no later than 90 days after completion of a course, and DMA must pay to an eligible individual moneys from the grant no later than than 30 days after DMA receives certification from a qualifying school that the individual has met eligibility requirements. DMA has a sum sufficient appropriation from which it funds the tuition grants. The bill gives DMA the authority to use the appropriation from which it funds the tuition grants to also fund the administrative costs associated with the payment of the tuition grants.
Transferring risk management positions from the UW System to DOA
The bill transfers, from the UW System to DOA, 5.0 full-time equivalent positions and the employees holding those positions who perform duties in the UW Office of Risk Management.
Grants to students with visual or hearing impairment and talent incentive grants
Under current law, HEAB administers programs to award grants to postsecondary students with visual or hearing impairments and to award talent incentive grants.
The bill makes clarifying changes relating to these grants that do not substantively affect HEAB’s administration of these grant programs.
Other educational and cultural agencies
Library intern stipend payments
The bill requires the Division for Libraries and Technology in DPI to provide stipend payments to students who are pursuing a degree in library science and are placed as an intern in a public library. The stipend payments are $2,500 per student per semester, and begin in the 2024-25 school year.
ELECTIONS
Automatic voter registration
The bill requires the Elections Commission to use all feasible means to facilitate the registration of all individuals eligible to vote in this state and to maintain the registration of all eligible voters for so long as they remain eligible. Under the bill, the Elections Commission must attempt to facilitate the initial registration of all eligible voters as soon as practicable. To facilitate that initial registration, the bill directs the commission and DOT to enter into an agreement so that DOT may transfer specified personally identifying information in DOT’s records to the commission. The bill requires the commission to maintain the confidentiality of any information it obtains under the agreement and allows a driver’s license or identification card applicant to “opt out” of DOT’s transfer of this information to the commission.
Once the commission obtains all the information required under current law to complete an eligible voter’s registration, the commission adds the voter’s name to the statewide registration list. The bill also permits an individual whose name is added to the registration list or who wishes to permanently exclude his or her name from the list to file a request to have his or her name deleted or excluded from the list or to revoke a deletion or exclusion request previously made. In addition, the bill directs the commission to notify an individual by first class postcard whenever the commission removes his or her name from the registration list or changes his or her status on the list from eligible to ineligible.
The bill also directs the commission to report to the legislature and the governor, no later than July 1, 2025, its progress in initially registering eligible voters under the bill. The report must contain an assessment of the feasibility and desirability of integration of registration information with information maintained by DHS, DCF, DWD, DOR, DSPS, and DNR; the UW System; and the TCS Board, as well as with the technical colleges in each technical college district.
Under current law, a qualified voter with a current and valid driver’s license or identification card issued by DOT may register to vote electronically on a secure website maintained by the commission. To register electronically under current law, a qualified voter must also authorize DOT to forward a copy of his or her electronic signature to the commission. The authorization affirms that all information provided by the voter is correct and has the same effect as a written signature on a paper copy of the registration form. Finally, current law requires the commission and DOT to enter into an agreement that permits the commission to verify the necessary registration information instantly by accessing DOT’s electronic files.
Early canvassing of absentee ballots
Under current law, absentee ballots may not be canvassed until election day. The bill authorizes a municipal clerk or municipal board of election commissioners to begin the canvassing of absentee ballots on the day before an election, subject to the following requirements:
1. The municipality must use automatic tabulating equipment to process absentee ballots.
2. Prior to the early canvassing of absentee ballots, the municipal clerk or municipal board of election commissioners must notify the Elections Commission in writing and must consult with the Elections Commission concerning administration of early canvassing of absentee ballots.
3. Early canvassing of absentee ballots under the bill may be conducted only between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. on the day before the election, and ballots may not be tallied until after polls close on election day.
4. Members of the public must have the same right of access to a place where absentee ballots are being canvassed as early as is provided under current law for canvassing absentee ballots on election day.
5. When not in use, automatic tabulating equipment used for canvassing absentee ballots and the areas where the programmed media and the absentee ballots are housed must be secured with tamper-evident security seals in a double-lock location such as a locked cabinet inside a locked office.
6. Subject to criminal penalty, no person may act in any manner that would give him or her the ability to know or to provide information on the accumulating or final results from the ballots canvassed early under the bill before the close of the polls on election day.
7. Certain notices must be provided before each election at which the municipality intends to canvass absentee ballots on the day before the election.
Residency requirement for voting
Under current law, with limited exceptions, an otherwise eligible voter must be a resident of this state and of the municipality and ward, if any, where the voter is voting for 28 days before an election in order to vote in the election in that municipality and ward. The bill shortens that residency requirement from 28 days to 10 days.
Voting absentee in person
Current law allows an individual to complete an absentee ballot in person no earlier than 14 days preceding the election and no later than the Sunday preceding the election. The bill eliminates the 14-day restriction on how soon a person may complete an absentee ballot in person.
Voter bill of rights
The bill creates a voter bill of rights that municipal clerks and boards of election commissioners must post at each polling place. The bill of rights informs voters that they have the right to do all of the following:
1. Vote if registered and eligible to vote.
2. Inspect a sample ballot before voting.
3. Cast a ballot if in line when the polling place closes or, if voting by in-person absentee ballot on the last day for which such voting is allowed, when the municipal clerk’s office closes.
4. Cast a secret ballot.
5. Get help casting a ballot if disabled.
6. Get help voting in a language other than English as provided by law.
7. Get a new ballot, up to three ballots in all, if the voter makes a mistake on the ballot.
8. Cast a provisional ballot as provided by law.
9. Have the voter’s ballot counted accurately.
10. Vote free from coercion or intimidation.
11. Report any illegal or fraudulent election activity.
Office of Election Transparency and Compliance
The bill creates under the Elections Commission the Office of Election Transparency and Compliance. The office is under the direction and supervision of a director appointed in the classified service by the commission administrator.
The bill requires the office, as directed by the commission by resolution, to provide assistance and research to the commission concerning sworn complaints of election law violations, including violations by election officials. The bill further requires the office to provide assistance and research to the commission with respect to the following, as directed by the commission administrator:
1. Procedures at polling places.
2. Election processes.
3. Audits of election systems and equipment, including with respect to accessibility requirements for individuals with disabilities.
4. Responding to public records requests.
5. Responding to legislative inquiries and requests for assistance.
6. Responding to inquiries from the public.
Voter registration in high schools
Prior to 2011 Wisconsin Act 240, state law required that all public high schools be used for voter registration for enrolled students and members of the high school staff. Prior law also authorized voter registration to take place at a private high school or a tribal school that operates high school grades if requested by the principal. The bill reinstates those provisions. Under the bill, the municipal clerk must notify the school board of each school district in which the municipality is located that high schools will be used for voter registration. The school board and the clerk then appoint at least one qualified voter at each high school to be a special school registration deputy. The bill allows students and staff to register at the school on any day that classes are regularly held. The deputies promptly forward the registration forms to the clerk and the clerk adds qualified voters to the registration list. The clerk may reject a registration form, but the clerk must notify the registrant and inform the registrant of the reason for being rejected. Under the bill, a form completed by an individual who will be 18 years of age before the next election and who is otherwise qualified to vote must be filed in such a way so that the individual is automatically registered to vote when the individual is 18.
