(The Center Square) – The University of Wisconsin System has seen an increase of staff and salaries over the past 10 years while student enrollment has dropped by 16,000, according to an audit released by the chairs of the state audit committee.
Academic staff grew 33.4% with a 97.4% increase in salary costs over that time while limited appointees rose 39% with a 78.3% increase in salary costs.
“While the Universities of Wisconsin do a lot of good for our state, they have lost their way and are mired in breathtaking administrative bloat, wasteful spending, and discriminatory practices under the guise of DEI,” Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, said in a statement. “This data shows UW continues to protect its own bureaucracy at the expense of students. The challenge for Wisconsin remains cutting its bureaucracy and investing in the programs that best provide for our modern workforce, such as engineering and nursing degrees.”
Overall academic staff in the system went from 15,425 in 2015 to 20,818 in 2024. During that time, salary costs for all of the UW system academic staff went from more than $728 million in 2015 to more than $1.4 billion in 2024.
“As the Audit Committee co-chair, I recognize that waste and bloat are inherent in bureaucracies,” Wimberger said. “UW’s future rests on its ability to provide more value to our students and our state, and I trust that Republicans will find a way in this budget to help UW get back on track and do the job Wisconsinites need them to do.”
The data was released as the UW System is asking for an $855 million increase in funding in the next biennial budget.
Gov. Tony Evers did a promotional tour of the UW system campuses while touting his proposal for an $800 million funding increase for the system.
“Despite our best efforts, for more than a decade now we’ve watched a war be waged on public higher education in Wisconsin with devastating effects of which include campus closures, staff and faculty layoffs and program cuts and consolidation,” Evers said at the time.
The UW system had 163,589 students on campus in the fall, an increase of 1,000 students year over year.

(The Center Square) – While Wisconsin GOP Assembly leaders indicated they have been in communication with the state Senate and hope to soon resume key budget talks between both chambers and Gov. Tony Evers, Senate Republican leadership indicates the budget gridlock could still be around for some time.
Despite a GOP split Thursday that halted budget talks and cancelled Joint Finance Committee meetings ahead of the June 30 budget deadline, Assembly Speaker Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester says he and Joint Finance Committee co-chair Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, are in talks with the Senate “all the time.”
“The Senate has been great,” Vos said at a press briefing Tuesday. “They have been working with us, with the governor. We’ve been in there, trying to negotiate, finding a middle ground.”
Born added that he is in communication with Joint Finance co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green and hopes to resume meetings soon.
“I think if we are talking, actively talking and working on the budget in the next couple of days, we can hammer out details in a hurry,” Born said. “That’s how budgets work. If people are ready to work, we’ll get things done.”
However, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, told The Center Square that talks may take longer than wanted.
“The Senate Republican caucus is still concerned with the level of ongoing spending being negotiated,” LeMahieu said in a statement to The Center Square.
LeMahieu said the budget needs to responsibly invest in core priorities and cut taxes without creating an “unsustainable deficit.”
“The Senate side of JFC is ready to meet to continue deliberations, but it is hard to imagine that a budget will pass next week,” LeMahieu concluded.
Vos said the key issue Evers wants on the table before signing the budget was child care, noting that he had previously threatened to veto the entire budget if it didn’t “do something on child care,” according to Vos.
“Look, we’re already doing things on child care,” Vos said. “I know we’re gonna make investments in trying to help make sure that parents have access to child care, I know we are gonna make a historic investment in special ed funding, I know we’re gonna do some reforms at the university. Those are all things we would love to do as part of a bigger deal. We just have to make sure they can get all the way through both chambers to Governor Evers before it can get signed into law.”
Vos concluded that he thinks GOP legislators should “show leadership by finding out where our priorities are, getting them enacted into law, and compromising on some things that are important to the governor.”
If no budget is passed and sent to Evers by Monday, the current Wisconsin state budget will rollover.

(The Center Square) – Businesses that convert to employee ownership could soon receive a $100,000 tax credit in Wisconsin.
Assembly Bill 17, which passed the Assembly with unanimous bipartisan support Tuesday, would offer businesses that transition to worker-owner cooperatives a nonrefundable income tax credit amounting to 70% of conversion costs, while businesses that enact an employee stock ownership plan could receive tax credit for up to 50% of conversion costs.
Eligible businesses can claim up to $100,000 in tax credits and the total program would be capped at $5 million annually statewide.
“Selling to employees is not only a visible exit strategy for aging business owners, but may be the best option,” Kristin Forde, a member of the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives, previously said at a public hearing for the bill.
Forde argued the tax credit could help keep businesses local and prevent them from selling to out-of-state buyers, saying, “This legislation ties together education and financial incentives to ensure that employee-owned cooperatives are a feasible solution to retaining jobs and services in our communities.”
AB 17 would eliminate state capital gains taxes on the sale of a business to an ESOP or cooperative, provided the employee entity owns more than 50% of the company after the sale.
The bill would additionally require the Department of Revenue to run a statewide program promoting employee ownership through education, outreach, training and technical assistance.
Eligible businesses must apply and be certified by DOR, and cannot already be partially or wholly employee-owned at the time of conversion.
Bill co-author Sen. Jesse James, R-Thorp, stated incentivizing ESOPs would be good for both employees and the local state economy.
“ESOPs are much less likely to lay off employees en masse or move operations out of Wisconsin when it comes time for business succession,” James said in a statement.
James added that several states have recently enacted bipartisan legislation to incentivize such business transitions.
“This legislation is pro-growth, pro-small business, and pro-Wisconsin,” James concluded.
Ryan Kauth, executive director of Wisconsin Center for Employee Ownership, said the tax credit would remove significant obstacles to businesses that want to become employee-owned.
“Besides education, one of the main barriers to employee ownership is the upfront costs of required feasibility studies and other expenses to begin the employee-ownership transaction or conversion process,” Kauth said.
“The conversion costs tax credit and tax deduction on capital gains from the transfer of a business to employee ownership would absolutely help removing this barrier,” Kauth concluded.
The bill’s companion, Senate Bill 21, awaits approval via floor vote in the Wisconsin Senate before the tax credit could be signed into law.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s governor says he will be disappointed if there isn’t an agreement on a new state budget by the end of the week, but he has not yet said what it will take to get to that agreement.
Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday told reporters that Senate Republicans are not yet on-board with a new state spending plan.
“It is important for everybody to be involved,” Evers said.” Compromise is what happens when you have similar numbers of Democrats and Republicans.”
The governor said he’s not going to “point fingers” at who is to blame for last week’s budget negotiation breakdown.
Both Evers and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos last week said Senate Republicans need to come back to the table and hammer out an agreement. But the Senate Majority Leader, Devin LeMahieu, said Assembly Republicans need to focus on a responsible state budget.
Evers said he is ready to “get this done,” but he also said he will not sign a budget that doesn’t fully fund his Child Care Counts program.
“It’s necessary for people to understand, Republicans especially, how
important this is for the state of Wisconsin,” Evers said. “Its going to hurt not only kids, but our economy.”
Evers used COVID relief money to pump $630 million into Wisconsin’s child care system during and after the pandemic. But that extra money ran out, and many child care providers said they were having trouble staying open.
The governor asked for another $480 million for Child Care Counts in the new state budget. But Republicans have said they’d rather use state money to help parents afford child care, as opposed to paying child care providers.
Lawmakers are supposed to have a new spending plan to the governor by Monday. If they don’t, Wisconsin’s current state budget will simply rollover until they do.

(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled, in a 5-2 decision, that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources can enforce rules against companies deemed to have polluted the environment without going through a formal rulemaking process including defining the pollutants and amounts allowed with legislative oversight.
“Wisconsin’s Spills Law safeguards human health and the environment in real time by directly regulating parties responsible for a hazardous substance discharge,” the ruling stated. “Responsible parties must, on their own initiative, immediately report a discharge to the DNR, restore the environment to extent practicable, and minimize the harmful effects on our air, lands, and waters.”
The ruling went on to explain that the DNR has the power of enforcement and determination that hazardous substances are present.
“The DNR has explicit authority to enforce a threshold for reporting the discharge of hazardous substances,” the ruling stated.
The ruling was applauded by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and panned by groups such as the institute for Reforming Government.
“The liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court just handed over even more power to unelected bureaucrats,” Daniel Suhr, IRG Court Watch Legal Fellow, said in a statement after the ruling. “Tuesday’s ruling empowers bureaucrats at state agencies like the DNR to rule Wisconsin by letter and blog post, making important policy decisions while denying everyday citizens and the Legislature the opportunity to make their voices heard through the rulemaking process.”
IRG pointed to a recent IRG poll stating that 49% of voters said bureaucrats that exercise too much control over individuals’ lives are a threat to democracy.
Evers said in a statement that he believed the ruling will allow the DNR to protect Wisconsin from pollutants.
“This is a historic victory for the people of Wisconsin and my administration’s fight against PFAS and other harmful contaminants that are affecting families and communities across our state,” Evers said in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s decision today means that polluters will not have free rein to discharge harmful contaminants like PFAS into our land, water, and air without reporting it or taking responsibility for helping clean up those contaminants.”

(The Center Square) – A $500 million plan to build a new Milwaukee County criminal courthouse that would reinforce public safety standards and potentially introduce new cost savings was recently greenlit by county officials.
However, the Wisconsin budget gridlock in Madison has made the project’s funding uncertain.
The plan approved by the county would tear down the aging Milwaukee County Safety Building, built in 1929, and build the new courthouse complex on the site.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers originally wanted $25 million to help fund the new courthouse initiative in his proposed budget.
However, recent internal divisions between GOP leadership in the legislature that halted all committee budget meetings until further notice have some county officials thinking the project could be at risk of losing those proposed funds.
“The state budget is a dynamic process and our conversations with partners in the legislature are ongoing,” a spokesperson for Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley told The Center Square. “We are hopeful that there will be legislative support to help address the significant public safety needs within Milwaukee County.”
The spokesperson addressed the necessity of state funds to support judicial and public safety needs, citing the fact that Milwaukee County provides several public safety services that no other county is required to provide, including patrolling state and federal highways within the county.
The new courthouse would be another such service that the county would be mostly responsible for providing.
“This is a multi-generational building that we’re building that will be here for a very long time,” Aaron Hertzberg, director of Milwaukee County’s Department of Administration said at a meeting with the county board’s Committee on Community, Environment and Economic Development.
Hertzberg added that the location of the current Safety Building is the “right site for the long term.”
Kyle Ashley, a spokesperson for the Office of the County Executive, noted that the century-old Safety Building has needed to be updated for several years for public safety standards and that the county could potentially unlock cost savings by eliminating security concerns.
“Because of the infrastructure of [the Safety Building], there are higher staffing needs for bailiffs, particularly in transports,” Ashley said. “This is because we have unsecure pathways in the Safety Building and in the historic courhouse. We have criminal courts in both of those buildings and so we have to have these higher staffing ratios for occupant transports.”
The current building does not meet modern standards for a courthouse, including dedicated passageways for moving defendants in custody, witnesses, or other members of the court. Instead, people attending a specific court hearing in the Safety Building uses the same hallways to get there.
Ashley said because of the Safety Building’s higher security needs, Milwaukee County spends more, requiring a 1:1 ratio of bailiffs to occupants for safe transfer to court.
The 2024 county budget allocated more than $364,000 for hourly bailiff positions, where the standard hourly cost is $33.78-$43.31.
If the county were to build a new courthouse that is up-to-date with modern courthouse standards, where only a 1:5 ratio of bailiffs to occupants would be required for safe transfer to court, they could “unlock” a possible 80% reduction in staff costs for transfers while also further securing public safety needs, according to Ashley.
Additional cost savings would be introduced since the county budgets $500,000 yearly for emergency repairs for the Safety Building and spent almost $3.9 million on utilities for the courthouse complex in 2024.
By achieving an average energy consumption, Ashley said the new courthouse could save Milwaukee County over $880,000 a year.
At the time of publication, the current draft of the biennial budget did not include any funds for the new Milwaukee courthouse.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin diners tipped an average of 20.1% in the first quarter of this year, one of the highest rates in the country, according to data from restaurants that use the Toast platform in each state.
Only 10 states saw higher tip rates, led by West Virginia (21.0%) and New Hampshire (20.9%).
The data came from restaurant diners who used credit card to pay and added a tip on that card.
The average first-quarter tip nationally at full-service restaurants was 19.4%, up from 19.3% in the fourth quarter of 2024.
In Wisconsin, the average tip at full-service restaurants was 20.5% while it was 17.7% at quick service restaurants, where the national average was 15.8%.
The application also compared the cost of an omelette across states, with the average Wisconsin cost at $13.31, up 6% year over year from the first quarter of 2024. The year over year price increase nationally was 5.4% while the two-year national jump was from $13.24 in March 2023 to $14.71 in April 2025.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s retiring Supreme Court justice says she supports looking at every way to get money out of the races for the state’s highest court.
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley was a guest on UpFront over the weekend, and talked about how money is playing a role in selecting justices.
“It’s dangerous to the court,” she said. “It’s dangerous to our form of government. You know, one of the reasons we can exist as an institution is because we have the public trust and confidence of the people.”
Wisconsin saw the nation’s two most expensive judicial races, back-to- back.
Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s 2023 race against former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly saw more than $50 million in spending from both the candidates and outside groups. However, that price tag was dwarfed earlier this year when Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel, along with a long list of outside groups, spent nearly $100 million.
Walsh Bradley, whose retirement opened the door for the Crawford- Schimel race, said she supports looking at ways to move money away from judicial elections.
“There are initiatives that are being discussed in the Legislature now,” Walsh Bradley explained. “I think there are public groups that are also discussing some alternatives. They don’t come easily. The United States Supreme Court has a case called Citizens United that equates speech with money, and so there are difficulties in regulating some of this, but that doesn’t mean that it’s an impossible challenge”
Some of the options include changing how judges are elected or possibly appointing judges.
Wisconsin voters will see their next Supreme Court race next spring. They will also see a new Supreme Court race each year until 2030.
Liberals will hold a majority for at least the next three years, as the court’s conservative justices are on the ballot next.
The next race will see Justice Rebecca Bradley run for re-election. She has one, declared opponent. Former Madison lawmaker, and current Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor.
Walsh Bradley will leave the court next month, when Justice-elect Crawford is sworn-in.

(The Center Square) – Expanding Wisconsin’s second income tax bracket of 4.4% for all filers will reduce the state’s tax collections by $323 million next fiscal year and $320 million in 2026-27, according to estimates from Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
The tax reduction is part of a $1.2 billion package of tax cuts approved recently by the state’s Joint Finance Committee as it works toward a budget proposal.
The income tax cut applies to the majority of Wisconsin tax filers in different ways as the amount of income taxed at 4.4% compared to the next tax bracket of 5.3% increases.
For married couples, that will move the cap on 4.4% from $39,150 to $67,300 while for single filers the line moves from $29,370 to $50,480.
That amounts to a maximum tax reduction of $253 for married-joint filers, $190 for single/head-of-household filers and $127 for married-separate filers if the income cap for those tax brackets are reached.
The tax changes also include exempting the first $24,000 of retirement income for those who are at least 67 before the end of a tax year with a maximum exemption of $48,000 for married couples.
That tax cut would have an even larger overall impact, reducing state tax collections by $395 million in 2025-26 and $300 million in 2026-27.
“Every dollar of revenue that is foregone in offering exemptions to a small subset of the population is a dollar of revenue that has to be generated from someone else,” Katherine Loughead, research manager at the Tax Foundation’s Center for State Tax Policy, told Badger Institute.
She told Badger Institute that it would make more sense to have broad income tax rate reductions or raising that income level for a standard deduction phase-out.
Overall, the impact of those tax cuts is expected to be more than $700 million in the first year and $605 million in the second year for a combine $1.3 billion tax cut.

(The Center Square) – While the Milwaukee Public Schools balanced $1.5 billion budget would have the short-term benefit of avoiding large staffing cuts and limiting property tax hikes, a new report says long-term fiscal concerns still remain.
An estimated $72.5 million increase in state aid limiting the district’s property tax hike and a 2024 voter referendum giving the district a one-time $51 million boost brightened the short-term fiscal outlook.
However the report by Wisconsin Policy Forum, a nonpartisan research policy organization, says “this apparent fiscal stability does not tell the full story.”
The report says potential federal funding cuts, continued reliance on savings from vacant positions to balance the budget and the district’s growing structural budget deficit projected to hit $57 million by 2030 will pose serious threats if left unaddressed.
“The lack of considerable budget pain in 2026 should not mask the severity of MPS’ longer-term fiscal challenges, which are likely to emerge with greater intensity as soon as 2027,” the report said.
Superintendent Brenda Cassellius delivered the budget in less than three months since assuming the role in March.
If approved by the Milwaukee Board of School Directors, her budget would authorize a long-awaited $16 million project to stabilize lead paint in schools and fund 61 additional facilities maintenance positions.
Under the budget, a central office would be created and maintenance activities would be relocated there to ensure they are prioritized.
The budget would also address the national teacher shortage and the district’s low test scores in math and reading by hiring 10 teachers for instruction of English as a second language and 35 teachers for special education.
Additionally, more than two dozen administrative positions would be eliminated and a plan would be implemented to shift 40 teachers who perform districtwide duties into vacant positions in classrooms.
However, the report points to the budget’s reliance on $75.9 million in savings from vacant positions as a problem, which it calls “a less-than-ideal budget balancing tool.”
“We have urged MPS leaders to reduce the use of a vacancy adjustment,” the report says. “Over the next year, it will be a difficult but critical task” for Cassellius and her management team “to determine a more reasonable vacancy adjustment that is based on the number and types of positions the district genuinely needs.”
Cassellius acknowledged the difficulty of the next year’s budget in a statement first reported by CBS 58 News.
“I want to be real transparent with the public that next year is going to be a really hard year for us,” Cassellius said. “We are going to have to make budget cuts if, in fact, we don’t see new revenues from the state Legislature that are keeping pace with what our students need.”
While Wisconsin Policy Forum concludes the 2025-26 budget cannot be the exact mold for future plans, it applauds Cassellius’ ability to hit the ground running by delivering on lead paint and maintenance issues while staving off academic and workforce challenges for a later budget.
Final adoption of the budget is set to be voted on by the Milwaukee Board of School Directors on Tuesday.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin is sending $2.5 million for three housing developments as part of the Vacancy-to-Vitality loan program.
The funding includes $1 million for Kelly Station in Dane County, $757,752 for South Shore Landing in Milwaukee County and $562,807 for Indianhead Conversion in Chippewa County.
The Dane County project will include 76 units, 20 units will be built in South Shore Landing and 27 units in Indianhead Conversion.
“Housing is one of the issues I hear most about everywhere I go, and it’s an issue that connects dots between some of the most pressing issues facing our state, from our kids’ success in the classroom to bringing talented folks to our workforce,” Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement.
The workforce housing units were funded through grants awarded by the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority.
Overall, the program received $525 million in funding during the 2023-25 budget process in order to build 1,000 workforce housing units statewide.
“I was proud to sign into law the largest state investment in workforce housing in our state’s history, and it’s great to see these funds go out the door to communities across our state,” Evers said in a statement. “During my administration, more than 17,000 affordable housing units have been built in Wisconsin, and with these critical programs and millions of dollars left to award, we’re not slowing down anytime soon.”

(The Center Square) — Wisconsin’s real estate agents say there are too few homes for sale, and those that are available are once again getting more expensive.
“Existing home sales fell for a third straight month,” the May 2025 Realtors report released Thursday says. “Specifically, closed sales fell just 2.1% over the past 12 months. Relative to May 2024, the median price rose 4.3% to $330,000.”
The report said May’s 2.1% drop in sales is much smaller than the 8.6% drop in sales in March, and 9% year-over-year drop in sales in April.
“As we move into the peak period for sales, it’s good to see a solid improvement in inventory levels over the last 12 months,” Realtors Chairman Chris DeVincentis said in a statement. “More housing inventory will help moderate price appreciation and will lead to more buying opportunities.”
The report said 6,607 homes sold in May compared to 22,033 listing. The listing total is up 8.5% from May of last year.
The median home price, compared to a year ago, rose 4.3% to $330,000. April was $322,000 and March $310,000.
Realtors President and CEO Tom Larson said 2025’s price increases are offset, a bit, by other economic news.
“Median family income increased 7% since May of last year,” Larson said. “This increase, combined with a slight improvement in the 30-year mortgage rate and moderately lower price appreciation over the last year, led to a slight improvement in affordability.”
The report said southeastern and south central Wisconsin led in home sales. The Milwaukee area accounted for nearly 36% of sales in the state and the Madison area nearly 21%.