(The Center Square) – Inflation led to roughly $2.7 billion more in Wisconsin sales tax collections over the past five years than was projected, the same amount that the state is now projected to have in surplus at the end of its current two-year budget cycle, according to a new report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy.
The cost of a week’s worth of goods in the state has risen 28.1% since 2021, the report said.
“That money belongs to the taxpayers who bore the brunt of inflation, not the state,” the report, written by Professor of Economics Ananth Seshadri, said. “Because the windfall is one-time money, the relief should be one-time, too. On the economic question, no governor can move the national price level, but the prices a family actually pays are set partly at home, through zoning, utility rate design, and occupational licensing.
“Behind each lies the same force: regulation that throttles supply. Loosen it and the state grows cheaper to live in; leave it and the state grows more expensive.”
Seshadri wrote that it is clear that prices will not return to 2021 levels, so the only question is whether Wisconsin returns the surplus or uses its ability to lower the state’s cost of living.
“After a historic transfer of purchasing power away from Wisconsin households, the loss is no longer in question; it already happened,” Seshadri wrote. “Wisconsin cannot undo the inflation. It can still decide who keeps the change.”
The report comes after state lawmakers failed to pass a $1.8 billion surplus bill that included income tax refund checks, $600 million for schools and an end to taxes on tips and overtime.
The bill was an agreement between Gov. Tony Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu that passed the Wisconsin Assembly and had the support of Gov. Tony Evers but fell 18-15 in the Senate as all Senate Democrats and three Republican Senators voted against it.
Eighty percent of the 454 Wisconsin adults polled on the topic in May in a Marquette Law School Poll believed the bill should have passed, with that support crossing party lines and spanning statewide.

(The Center Square) – The average price of a gallon of unleaded gas was $3.59 in Wisconsin on Thursday heading into the Fourth of July weekend, ranking the state 18th in the country for lowest gas price.
Indiana had the lowest price at $3.10, followed by Oklahoma ($3.29) and Texas ($3.30) while California ($5.34), Hawaii ($5.34) and Washington ($5.05) were the highest cost states, according to GasBuddy.
While the price was above the $2.95 from a year ago, it was down from $3.68 a week ago and $4.09 a month ago, according to the American Automobile Association.
The national average is $3.83 heading into the holiday.
GasBuddy Petroleum Analyst Patrick DeHaan wrote that gas refinery restraints are the main obstacle to President Donald Trump demanding on social media that retailers bring gas prices down because oil was $68 a barrel.
“Crude oil prices have fallen to their lowest levels in months, dropping to the $60 a barrel range,” AAA wrote on Thursday morning. “Overall, gas prices remain the highest they’ve been in 4 years, but the downward trend since late May is welcome news during the busy summer driving season.”
The national average was $4.29 a month ago and $3.17 a year ago.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin tax collections were down an adjusted 8.8% in May compared to May 2025 but the state’s fiscal year tax collections remain up 3.7% from a year before, according to new numbers released from the state’s Department of Revenue.
Individual income tax collections were down 19.3% for the month but are up 1.7% year over year for the fiscal year with more than $9 billion collected compared to nearly $8.8 billion the year before.
The state changed several income tax requirements for the 2025 tax year, which are currently being collected, including expanding the state’s second income tax bracket of 4.4% and 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.
The tax bracket change was expected to impact tax collections by $323 million this fiscal year while the retirement exemption impacted collections by $395 million.
Overall, the state has collected nearly $19.2 billion this fiscal year compared to $18.5 billion at this point in fiscal 2025.
Sales and use tax collections in the state were up 3.9% in May and are up 4.5% for the fiscal year from nearly $6.4 billion to nearly $6.7 billion.
Corporate tax collections are also up 8.8% for the fiscal year from nearly $2.3 billion to nearly $2.5 billion.

(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Elections Commission says Green Bay’s clerk broke the law when she mailed 152 duplicate ballots before the spring election.
A draft memo from the commission said there is no doubt that Clerk Celestine Jefferys broke the law earlier this year.
“The Commission finds that the Respondent, due to an error in processing certificate envelope labels, issued duplicate ballots to electors in violation of Wis. Stat. § 6.86(1)(ar),” the memo states.
The memo is part of a challenge filed with the Elections Commission from the Brown County Republican Party.
The April ballot case is not connected to Jefferys’ latest duplicate ballot scandal. Her office sent two ballots to an unknown number of voters just last week.
Jefferys defended this spring’s duplicate ballots by arguing none of the second ballots were counted, and Wisconsin law doesn’t have any consequences for accidentally mailing two ballots.
“Wisconsin law prohibits election fraud, not the inadvertent issuance of multiple ballots. The statute does not impose liability for inadvertent duplication in issuance, rather, it establishes the elector’s right to receive a ballot,” Jefferys wrote in her response to the complaint. “While an instance of inadvertent duplication did occur in the City of Green Bay for the Spring 2026 election, Clerk Jeffreys put additional safeguards in place to ensure affected voters were notified, and more importantly, ensured that only one eligible ballot was tabulated per voter.”
The Elections Commission acknowledged that there are no penalties for mailing duplicate ballots but said Jefferys also clearly broke the law.
“[Jefferys] discusses her duty to prevent more than one ballot from any voter being counted in an election, and the Commission agrees that this is a duty of the Respondent. The Commission disagrees only to the extent the [Jefferys] appears to argue that this is the only relevant duty concerning these allegations. Multiple checks and redundancies exist within the election administration system to prevent duplicate ballots from being either issued or counted. Clerks are required to track each request made, each ballot issued, each ballot returned, and each ballot counted. In this case, there was an error and violation in ballot issuance, but procedures to track, review, record, and, on Election Day, count valid returned absentee ballots appear to have been properly carried out,” the Commission wrote in its memo. “The Commission orders [Jefferys] to continue to maintain a complete chain of custody for all ballots issued and to continue to ensure that no voter can vote more than once in an election.”
The Elections Commission is expected meet next week to talk about the challenge, and its order to Jefferys.

(The Center Square) – Another Wisconsin group has filed a lawsuit against the state’s Department of Public Instruction, this time over a $34,000 price tag to receive records related to educator license denials since 2018.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty requested records of those denials for applicants that failed to complete an approved program on Aug. 13, 2025 and received a response that DPI would charge $17,007 to review the 1,381 denied applications by hand.
WILL then attempted to narrow the request and DPI doubled the cost estimate to $34,014.
“An informed electorate is essential to representative government, which is why Wisconsin law strongly favors public access to government records,” WILL Associate Counsel Lauren Greuel said in a statement. “After months of delay, DPI is attempting to price the public out of that access by imposing tens of thousands of dollars in unlawful fees. Government transparency cannot depend on whether citizens can afford to pay for it.”
WILL filed the lawsuit asking the court to direct DPI to release the records without the fees, which the group calls “unlawful,” stating that state open records law allows only limited fees for producing records that may not exceed an agency’s actual, necessary, and direct costs.
“Manually reviewing by hand and screenshotting each denied application are not actual, necessary, and direct costs the DPI may impose,” WILL argued. “Even if the DPI could charge for those tasks, DPIs unreasonable delay in responding to the request, coupled with its excessive $34,014 fee, amounts to an unlawful denial of access to public records. WILL is asking the court to order production of the records and impose the remedies authorized by Wisconsin law.”
DPI’s teacher licensure process has been under scrutiny after a Capital Times series last year showing how the department kept records of sexual misconduct from teachers under wraps and out of the public eye. The series led to legislative hearings and a response from DPI claiming that the outlets’ headline was ‘completely false’ without elaborating on any errors in the story.
The Capital Times’ editor stood behind the outlet’s reporting.
WILL is just the latest to challenge DPI’s handling of public records and open meetings.
Dairyland Sentinel has fought for records related to the department’s handling of a 2024 Forward Exam standards-setting conference in the Wisconsin Dells while the Institute for Reforming Government has filed a complaint that DPI violated open meetings law at the same conference.
DPI has claimed that the work of the 88-member committee during the conference was not subject to open meetings or open records disclosure because it was setup by vendor Data Recognition Corp.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Congressional reacted predictably to Tuesday’s rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The high court ruled on cases involving birthright citizenship, boys playing in girls’ sports and campaign finances. None of Wisconsin’s members of Congress commented on the campaign finance ruling, and the state’s two Democrats were also silent about the girls’ sports case.
Instead, Madison Democrat Mark Pocan and Milwaukee Democrat Gwen Moore focused on the birthright citizenship ruling.
“The Supreme Court just rejected Trump’s limits to birthright citizenship. This right is clearly written in the 14th Amendment, and I’m glad the Supreme Court agreed,” Pocan wrote on X.
“The Trump administration tried to destroy the 14th Amendment and failed. While this is welcome news, it should have been an easy 9-0 decision,” Moore added on X. “It is a damning indictment of this Court that 3 MAGA justices believe Trump can overturn the Constitution by executive order.”
Wisconsin’s Republicans, as expected, decried the birthright ruling.
“Our Founders certainly never intended for the children of illegal aliens to automatically become citizens,” Green Bay-area Republican Tony Wied wrote. “This is the wrong decision and only incentivizes illegal immigration.”
Western Wisconsin Republican Derrick Van Orden echoed Wied’s comments.
“The 14th Amendment was enacted in the aftermath of Dread Scott to guarantee citizenship for freed slaves, not to establish automatic citizenship for individuals who are unlawfully present in the United States or temporarily here,” Van Orden said in a statement. “This ruling departs from that historical context and the original understanding.”
Van Orden also spoke about the Supreme Court’s ruling that said states can set their own rules for boys who want to play in girls’ sports.
“[This] Supreme Court ruling is a landmark victory for women and female athletes,” Van Orden added. “The court rightly recognized that states have authority to set clear standards that preserve women’s sports for female athletes. That framework protects competitive integrity and ensures that opportunities created by Title IX remain grounded in the original intent.”
Southeast Wisconsin Republican Scott Fitzgerald also weighed-in on the girls’ sports decision.
“Common sense won today,” Fitzgerald wrote on X. “The Supreme Court’s decision is a victory for women and girls across America. Women’s sports were created to ensure female athletes have a fair chance to compete, and that means keeping men out of women’s sports.”
The transgender sports ruling means little for Wisconsin after the Wisconsin Interscholastic Association updated its policy more than a year ago to ban boys from playing in girls sports.

(The Center Square) – Republicans in Wisconsin are again asking for an investigation after Green Bay’s election clerk again mailed out duplicate ballots to some voters.
Green Bay’s clerk, Celestine Jeffreys, over the weekend said her office accidentally mailed two ballots to some voters in Green Bay.
“I regret the printing error occurred. I assure our voters that only one ballot per eligible voter will be tabulated. I encourage any voter with questions to contact our office directly,” she said in a statement.
It’s not clear just how many voters got two ballots. The city has not provided an official count. The clerk’s office said voters in wards 11A, 12A, 37A, 44, 45, 46, 47 and part of ward 43 may have received a duplicate ballot.
In all, Jefferys mailed nearly 5,000 ballots for the Aug. 11 primary.
This is the second time Jefferys has mailed some voters more than one ballot.
Before the election in April, Jefferys blamed a mail labeling error when her office mailed 152 voters duplicate ballots.
The Wisconsin Republican Party asked for an investigation then and is asking for an investigation now as well.
“Green Bay voters deserve reliable elections, not repeated failures that undermine trust,” WisGOP Communications Director Anika Rickard said in a statement. “WEC must hold the clerk accountable, investigate, and ensure these issues are fixed before November. One voter, one ballot. Wisconsin law demands nothing less.”
The Republicans want “an investigation into the initial errors and stronger safeguards for election integrity” from the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Republican state Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, went further.
“Just wondering when the complete incompetence of Green Bay municipal clerk to be able to properly run an election will result in the Mayor doing his job by asking the City Council to fire his appointee,” Sortwell said in a post on X Monday.
Jefferys has said voters are being told to send in just one ballot for the August election and has said that only one ballot will be counted.

(The Center Square) – Voters in Wisconsin might be able to vote on the future of abortion in the state.
Dianne Hesselbein, the top Democrat in the State Senate, last week proposed a constitutional amendment on abortion if Democrats win back the legislature in November.
“Laws can be overturned by Republican majorities in the Legislature and in our courts, and it is unacceptable to leave the door open on a fundamental right. There cannot be another generation of women who fight for abortion access and succeed, only to see it ripped away,” Hesselbein wrote in a recent op-ed. “That is why we must ultimately enshrine reproductive freedom in the Wisconsin constitution, giving the final say to Wisconsin voters who have told us time and time again that politicians in Madison shouldn’t be making personal healthcare-related decisions for women across Wisconsin.”
Wisconsin’s current abortion law bans ending a pregnancy after 20 weeks. The state did have an 1849 law that banned almost every abortion in the state, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck that law down last year.
Hesselbein said, however, that a constitutional amendment is the only way to make sure the abortion question is fully settled.
“Our bottom line is this: reproductive rights cannot be subject to the shifting tides of electoral politics. It is time to take this issue out of the arena of partisan politics, enshrine the right to bodily autonomy in our State’s Constitution, and guarantee Wisconsinites reproductive healthcare for generations to come,” she added.
Hesselbein promised that guaranteeing abortion rights will be one of the top priorities for a Democrat-majority legislature.
“When Democrats win legislative majorities, we will enshrine the will of the majority in our state constitution. We will pass the right to reproductive healthcare in both chambers, in two concurrent Legislatures, and when we do, the residents of our state will have the opportunity to vote on a constitutional amendment to guarantee this right for Wisconsin women,” she wrote.
Hesselbein is not offering any specifics on what the right to abortion would include or whether there would be any limits on abortion in Wisconsin.
Democrats have been locked out of power in the legislature for more than a decade-and-a-half, but they are eying victories in both the Senate and Assembly in November.
If Democrats do win those majorities, voters would not be able to have their say until the spring of 2028 at the earliest.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, the state’s Department of Transportation and Amtrak have applied for a federal grant to expand the Amtrak Hiawatha train line into Dane, Jefferson and Waukesha counties.
The announcement did not include a cost to state taxpayers or the amount requested but did acknowledge it includes capital costs “to improve track capacity and speeds for passenger service, enhance safety, and increase existing service reliability.”
The plan involves using existing rail lines and building infrastructure to expand the two daily Hiawatha Chicago to Milwaukee trains to Madison, Watertown and Pewaukee.
Madison last had passenger rail service in 1971. Madison completed a Passenger Rail Station Study last year that looked at eight potential sites for a train station.
State leaders have long debated funding a passenger line between Madison and Milwaukee with former Gov. Jim Doyle applying for grants and agreeing to a deal to build two trains for a high speed line.
Gov. Scott Walker then turned down the $810 million in federal stimulus funds for the project, citing the long-term maintenance costs to maintaining the line, which could be used instead on road repair. He asked U.S. Dept. of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to spend the money on roads and bridges instead.
Waiker maintained a website, notrains.com, during his campaign for governor. The money was then granted to other states for train projects.
The company that built the trains, Talgo, reached a $50 million settlement with the state over the trains, which ultimately went to Nigeria.
“My administration has been working hard to fix the darn roads, make sure Wisconsinites can get from Point A to Point B safely, and expand reliable transportation alternatives to make it even easier to get to and from work, school, home, and everywhere in between,” Evers said in a statement. “After years of neglect and disinvestment, Wisconsin’s roads, bridges, and infrastructure had fallen into disrepair, and we’ve spent seven years working to reverse that trend.
“The opportunity to expand passenger rail has haunted Wisconsin for a generation because of a short-sighted political stunt—that decision cost our state dearly, and we want to right that wrong.”
Evers and Amtrak cited numbers from the Borealis train service, which saw more than 416,000 passengers between its opening in May 2024 and this May.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin parents already paying $17,400 a year for infant care face higher bills as a $110 million federal childcare subsidy ends Tuesday, the state’s child welfare agency warns.
The state’s Department of Children and Families said the end of the federal bridge payment program is almost certain to drive costs higher.
The total taxpayer cost for the bridge payment program in Wisconsin is $110 million, running from July 2025 to Tuesday’s scheduled end.
The program makes monthly payments directly to providers.
Reports show the end of the program could be any increase in childcare expense between $1,300 and $2,600 for the average Wisconsin family.
“Childcare costs in Wisconsin significantly outpace inflation,” the department wrote in its report. “Families with an infant in center-based care are seeing an average 8% increase in monthly tuition prices, while families with an infant in family-based care are seeing an average 13% increase.”
“At the gas pump and grocery store, everyone is feeling the national affordability crisis. But the end of Child Care Counts and Bridge payments are leaving families with growing child care bills in addition to everything else,” DCF Secretary Jeff Pertl said. “With childcare costing more than UW tuition and as much as a mortgage, families need us to build on these investments and permanently lower costs.”
The bridge payment program is the COVID-era federal program that sent money to providers across the country. It was meant to be a temporary COVID subsidy.
DCF is also is pointing to a recent Market Rate Survey that shows childcare prices are already high in the state.
“The average annual cost for full-time infant care is now $17,400 in center-based programs (22% of median household income) and $13,000 in family-based programs (17% of the median household income) in Wisconsin,” DCF said.
Republicans in Wisconsin tried to head-off childcare price spikes in 2023, but Democrats at the Capitol balked at their plan.
Republican lawmakers introduced a package of childcare reforms that would have allowed parents to save up to $10,000 tax-free for childcare costs. The package also included regulatory changes to open more spots in daycares and allow some home-based daycare centers to hire people as young as 16.
Then-Senate Democrat Leader Melissa Agard, D-Madison, said the GOP plan was “completely insufficient in addressing Wisconsin’s childcare crisis.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin was one of nine states to avoid paying penalties for having a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program error rate on payments of more than 6% in fiscal 2025.
Wisconsin’s 5.72% error rate fell below the 10.62% payment error rate average in the U.S.
Only South Dakota (2.45%), Idaho (3.85%), Wyoming (3.95%), Kentucky (4.7%), Iowa (5.34%), the U.S. Virgin Islands (5.36%), Vermont (5.38%), Utah (5.54%) and Nebraska (5.9%) avoided the penalty.
Wisconsin’s penalty would have been $205.5 million. Wisconsin’s 2024 error rate was 4.47%.
Gov. Tony Evers’ office sent a press release claiming that error rates “do not measure fraud, are based on unintentional mistakes states do not control, and no state will ever have a zero-percent error rate.”
Wisconsin Act 116, signed at the end of March, provided $72 million in funding toward SNAP administration in the state. But the error rate numbers announced this week were for the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, 2025.
“Wisconsin’s low FoodShare error rate is a reflection of the hard work and expertise of all the people across our state who run one of the best SNAP programs in the nation,” Wisconsin Medicaid Director Amanda Dreyer said in a statement. “I applaud the incredible staff and partners who make this program possible. We are committed to doing what it takes to help every Wisconsinite who needs assistance buying food and, at the same time, meet the highest standards of accuracy. Thank you to everyone who helps feed Wisconsin families.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin saw the unemployment rate drop in all 72 counties and all 13 of the statistical metropolitan areas in May while only the La Crosse-Onalaska area saw unemployment remain the same year over year and the other 12 metropolitan areas saw a yearly decrease in unemployment.
The local data follows last week’s announcement that the statewide unemployment rate had dropped 0.1 percentage point to 2.4% in May while year over year employment went up 5,800 for the month.
Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Office of Economic Advisors Section Chief Scott Hodek called last week’s overall numbers “a bit of a mixed bag” that “speaks to the strength of the U.S. economy that we’re still seeing growth” despite the war in Iraq and U.S. tariff implications.
Unemployment rates went down in 67 of the state’s 72 counties year over year.
Fitchburg has the lowest unemployment rate of the state’s largest 35 cities at 2.3% in May while Milwaukee was the highest at 4.1% and Racine was next at 3.9%.

(The Center Square) – Kirk Bangstad is offering a new, profane beer as he continues to battle the state of Wisconsin over a bootlegging bust.
Bangstad, the one-time candidate for governor, took to Facebook to update his followers on his court battle to get his seized beer back.
“Dane County Circuit Court Judge Brian Jones, a brand new judge that comes from the Department of Public Instruction, denied our Emergency Injunction to retrieve our stolen beer back from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue,” Bangstad wrote. “I think his decision was fundamentally flawed, but I respect him as a judge because he seemed to really try hard to understand the nuances of Wisconsin’s very complicated liquor laws before making his decision.”
Bangstad claims the state’s Department of Revenue seized about $25,000 worth of beer earlier this month. The DOR has not offered any specifics about the case, but Bangstad said the beer was seized because he brewed it in Illinois and didn’t pay the required excise taxes to sell it in Wisconsin.
“In our state, if Wisconsin brewery ‘A’ contracts with Wisconsin brewery ‘B’ to make its beer, Wisconsin brewery ‘A’ can serve it at their taprooms. If Wisconsin brewery ‘A’ contracts with Illinois brewery ‘A’ to make its beer, Wisconsin brewery ‘A’ can’t serve it at their taprooms,” Bangstad added. “Unfortunately, we believe the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s attorney buried Judge Jones in other complaints against us that made him lose sight of this clear violation of our rights under the Dormant Commerce Clause of the 21st Amendment.”
Bangstad has claimed since the bust earlier this month that he is being targeted by the state because of his opposition to Gov. Tony Evers, and his opposition to the powerful Tavern League.
But on Tuesday, Bangstad turned his anger toward the Department of Revenue.
“We’re going to call the beer we’ve made in the last few weeks “F the DOR,” and it will only be available in half barrels at our taprooms in Madison and Minocqua because we don’t have enough money to package it up and put it into cans – given that a ton of the beer we’ve already made for the summer season is sitting in ‘beer jail’ right now,” Bangstad wrote on Facebook.
Bangstad said he plans to continue his court case to try and get his beer out of “beer jail,” but he didn’t say how long he expects the case to take.
Bangstad entered the Democrat race for governor this year, but he failed to make the ballot.

(The Center Square) – Food will cost more this Fourth of July holiday, according to a new survey from the Wisconsin Farm Bureau.
The group showed the cost of 12 food items to hold a summer cookout for 10 people would cost $75.50, the highest cost since the Marketbasket survey began in 2013 and 7.5% more than last summer. Nationally, that same cost estimate from the American Farm Bureau is $73.82, up 4% from last year.
The largest cost increase was from ground beef, which cost $7.30 per pound, is a 23.3% increase from 2025, which the group attributed to cattle supply and demand for beef.
“Wisconsinites can expect to see a higher total when shopping for their Fourth of July barbeque,” WFBF Senior Director of Public Relations Cassie Sonnentag said in a statement. “From availability to inflation, we are seeing increases across many of the food items on the shopping list.”
U.S. consumers have high demand for beef with one-third ranking it as their top protein choice and 75% eating beef weekly, according to Beef Checkout.
Each year, there are $422 million worth of ground beef sales during Fourth of July week and $337 million for Memorial Day.
“While consumers are seeing higher prices due to limited cattle supplies and strong demand, ground beef continues to be a versatile, nutritious protein that can stretch across multiple meals,” Wisconsin Beef Council Executive Director Tammy Vaassen said in a statement. “Looking for sales, stocking up when prices are lower and freezing extra product are great ways to save.”
Items such as fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream saw 25% increases over the year as well.

(The Center Square) – Microsoft says that it has 550 full-time employees on site at the recently completed Fairview data center in Mount Pleasant.
The company also says that the number of employees will “grow over time” to an expected 800 when a second data center comes online in 2028.
The employers were defined as “on site” employees of both Microsoft and its contractors.
The project is the first of the $20.6 billion in data centers that the company has planned in the state.
Microsoft says that it spent $4.7 billion between 2024 and 2028 on the construction of hyper scale data centers in the state.
Microsoft is building an adjacent second data center that is scheduled to open in 2028. The company said that 10,000 construction workers were involved in the Fairview project.
“With our Fairwater data center now fully operational, Wisconsin is now home to the world’s most powerful supercomputer,” Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said in a statement. “This campus will help power the next generation of AI innovation globally and provide long-term economic opportunity locally through hundreds of highly skilled jobs and continued investment in the region.”
Data centers have been unpopular in polling both with Wisconsin voters and nationally.
A recent Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll showed that voters believe data centers on not worth the strain on local electricity, water and infrastructure and that the negatives outweigh the importance for national security and competing with China.
The poll also found that voters believe local governments should be cautious about new data centers and those concerns outweigh the jobs, tax revenue and support for America’s digital economy that they bring.
Microsoft is expected to be the largest beneficiary of a wide-ranging Wisconsin sales tax exemption on everything from construction materials to electricity that is estimated to lose the state $1.5 billion in initial foregone state sales tax from four data center projects, according to a new Legislative Audit Bureau report.
In addition, the state will lose $369 million annually once construction on the projects are complete.
Wisconsin’s Department of Revenue originally estimated the value of the incentives would be $8.5 million for the full multi-year construction of a facility and $735,000 recurring afterward.
But hyper-scale data centers have changed that math with Microsoft alone announcing more than $20.6 billion in data centers in the state.
The state is expected to have $36.9 billion in data centers from just four companies with the state forgoing an estimated $40 million in sales tax for every $1 billion in company investment.
OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers have announced more than $15 billion in data center investments in Port Washington. Epic Hosting is expected to spend $347 million in Verona. Meta has announced a $1 billion project in Beaver Dam.