(The Center Square) – Grants for high schools helping students recover from substance abuse or mental health challenges are now open for application in Wisconsin.
The grants, announced by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, would go towards creating and planning recovery high schools in the state.
According to the act establishing the grant, recovery high schools are primarily designed for students in recovery from substance abuse or a mental health disorder that coexists with substance abuse.
Eligible organizations include nonprofits and public, private and tribal schools, which may submit a proposal and itemized budget in a grant amount up to $100,000.
The legislatures bill fiscal estimate showed the program could cost $500,000 of taxpayer funds annually.
“As the Assembly author of Act 72 and legislator who is deeply concerned about substance abuse in our state, I am thankful that DPI is working with us to get the word out about recovery school grants,” Rep. Barbara Dittrich, R-Oconomowoc, told The Center Square. “The sooner we get these students this sort of comprehensive help, the more likely they will have the opportunity to enjoy their future to the fullest.”
Eleven percent of youth have misused prescription pain medication, and over 50 percent of Wisconsin children have consumed alcohol by their freshman year of high school, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
In some places, substance abuse and alcohol usage correlate with worse performance in school.
Only 15 percent of students at the Manitowoc Public School District who currently struggle with substance abuse meet proficiency in reading, while only 10 percent meet proficiency in math, as first reported by Wisconsin Public Radio. Additionally, these students miss 20 percent of school days.
While there are more than 40 recovery high schools nationally, according to the Association of Recovery Schools, only one exists in Wisconsin, although there are plans to expand soon.
The recovery high school grant program is designed to aid in that expansion.
“Educators and families work together to prepare students for the real world, no matter their race, faith, or life experiences,” Christina Brey, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Education Association Council, told The Center Square. “That especially holds true for teens battling addictions. A recovery high school can provide the one-on-one attention and emotional support they need to overcome obstacles and save lives.”
To be eligible to enroll in recovery high schools, students must also express a desire to achieve sobriety, commit to attending the school daily, consent to weekly drug tests and not test positive for any controlled substances during their probationary period drug test.
Applications for the grant program are being accepted through June 20, 2025, according to the Department of Public Instruction.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said that a budget meeting has been set with Republican legislative leaders but he wants to make sure the discussion focuses on more than just a Republican-backed set of tax cuts.
Evers told Wisconsin Eye’s Newsmakers on Tuesday that recent revenue estimates from the state fiscal bureau are “somewhat of a downer but we can handle it.”
Republican leaders said last week that Evers had not accepted plans for a budget meeting while Evers says that Republican leaders have not made a formal counter proposal to his budget, instead cutting items from the budget and then asking for a tax cut.
“Overall, do I want to cut some taxes? Yes,” Evers said. “In fact, we did in our budget.
“People have been working on our side and their side to come up with some things that we know are important to the people of Wisconsin and reach some compromise.”
Wisconsin Policy Forum estimated that Evers’ budget proposal would spend $4 billion of the state’s expected $4.3 billion surplus if enacted while Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, estimated that Evers’ proposal would lead to $3 billion in tax increases over the two-year span.
“They don’t like the fact we increased taxes on very, very wealthy people,” Evers said. “However, our tax bill I think is more fair than theirs.”
Overall, Evers said that his priorities are child care, spending more on K-12 education, special education, the UW-System and early childhood programs.
“It can’t be just about taxes,” Evers said. “The thing that concerns me is a budget is a budget. It includes expenditure and what taxes are going to be … those things work together.”
Evers also encouraged expanding Medicaid in the state while Born was cited by Wisconsin Eye as estimating Medicaid will now cost $1.6 billion more in state funding in the next budget.
“It’s a federal program that should be paid for with federal money,” Evers said.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s next race for state Supreme Court is shaping up.
Former Madison Democratic state representative Chris Taylor on Tuesday officially launched a bid for the high court.
“As an attorney, public servant, and now as a judge, I’ve always been committed to making sure everyone is able to access our justice system.
The law is a powerful tool for protecting Wisconsinites, holding people accountable, and making our state stronger,” she said in her campaign announcement.
Taylor is looking to join an already liberal-majority court. She is running against Justice Rebecca Bradley.
Bradley, who announced plans to run for reelection in early April, is one of the three conservative justices on the court and often writes the conservative opinions as part of the minority.
Taylor accused Bradley of being right-wing and bringing a right-wing agenda to the court.
“Justice Rebecca Bradley has proven that she’s more interested in pushing her own right-wing political agenda than protecting Wisconsinites’ rights and freedoms. Extremism and partisanship have no place on our state’s highest court,” Taylor added.
Taylor called herself “a champion for public safety and victims’ rights.” She also said she is proud of her near decade in the state legislature, where she was an outspoken advocate for access to abortion, gun control and Wisconsin’s unions.
Before she was elected as a lawmaker, Taylor served as both a lawyer and policy director for Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin’s last two supreme court races have both set spending records. The 2023 race saw more than $50 million in spending, and this year’s race topped the $100 million mark.
Elon Musk, who poured money into April’s supreme court election, on Tuesday said he plans to spend his money elsewhere going forward.

(The Center Square) – Economists who have studied the impact of national party conventions says a report from the marketing firm Tourism Economics does not accurately reflect the actual impact of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Economist Victor Matheson of College of the Holy Cross has studied and written on national conventions and large events, He called the release, which claims the event had a $321.5 million impact, is a “promotional booklet/press release, not a serious economic impact study.”
That’s because economic studies include items such as crowding out due to an event, diverted spending and more.
“There was not a single mention in the report about crowding out,” Matheson told The Center Square. “Like how many events had to bypass the arena during the extended setup period. How many businesses lost traffic during the event due to security concerns and congestion.
A 2017 paper from Berry College’s Frank Stephenson, Matheson and Lauren Heller showed conventions typically bring in $20 million in increased hotel spending, making the average claims of a $36.6 million from lodging and accommodations in Milwaukee highly unlikely.
An updated paper from Heller, Stephenson and Abhi Aurobindo showed that, in 2016, the Republican National Convention brought in $19.5 million more hotel spending while the Democratic National Convention had a $39 million hotel impact in Philadelphia.
“Hotel revenues don’t count business lost due to capacity constraints,” Matheson said of the Tourism Economics report. “Our past studies of other conventions find net hotel spending up by about $20 million, roughly half what these guys claim.”
Tourism Economics is a marketing firm and subsidiary of Oxford Economics that is also paid to create economic impact numbers on tourism for each state. Those numbers are regularly disputed by economists who study events and impacts.
“Viewing what ‘economic impact’ consultants do to be economics is like considering horoscopes to be astronomy,” economist J.C. Bradbury of Georgia’s Kennesaw State University wrote. “Newspapers are smart enough to put horoscopes next to the comics and Dear Abby, while economic impact ‘studies’ get banner headlines on the front page.”
Matheson pointed out that the Milwaukee report is “all vibe without actual figures” while pointing out that no government audited figures were used in the report.
“It is also unclear if the direct spending on setup was spent on Milwaukee businesses or on national media consultants, designers, directors, etc.” Matheson said calling it a “glitzy report that presents no real evidence on economic impact.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin consumers and businesses that rely on machine imports could face hurdles this year due to U.S. tariffs on China, despite a recent reduction in tariff rates between the countries.
According to a new report by Wisconsin Policy Forum, Wisconsin residents bought $38.9 billion of imported goods in 2024, a third of which were industrial and electrical machinery imports totaling more than $13.1 billion.
China was a steady source of these investments, with Wisconsin businesses buying $1.4 billion in heavy machinery from the country last year, as well as $1 billion in electric appliances and a little less than a billion in electronic devices.
However, Wisconsin industries’ reliance on China could be hurt in the future by U.S. tariffs.
“On May 12, an agreement between the United States and China was announced that will temporarily reduce the tariff rate on Chinese imports [from 145%] to 30% for 90 days,” the report said. “The new rate is still higher than in past years, however, and applies to a broader range of products.”
According to the report, Chinese imports have already been falling for years.
The inflation-adjusted value of state imports from China has fallen by 37.3%, from $10.2 billion in 2018 to $6.4 billion in 2024.
The introduction of steeper tariffs on China by the President Donald Trump administration – even at 30% – could put not only Wisconsin’s machine industries in jeopardy, but Wisconsin residents themselves.
“When tariffs are imposed on goods brought into the country, the additional costs are either passed on to consumers or accounted for by businesses through cost-cutting measures,” the report said. “Evidence suggests that nearly the entire cost of the tariffs imposed in 2018 was passed on to consumers.”
Wisconsin Business Group founder John Schram said small businesses that don’t rely on China will not be affected as much and may respond to tariffs positively.
“With the implementation of tariffs, small Wisconsin businesses whose equipment competes with brands that come over from China will find that their equipment becomes much more valuable to the average consumer,” Schram told The Center Square. “It allows these smaller businesses to actually compete on an open market.”
According to Schram, Wisconsin businesses that don’t rely on Chinese parts could boom in the next year while businesses relying on China could have a harder time dealing with the effects of the tariffs.
Nonetheless, Wisconsin could see a rise in domestic and local manufacturing, which is one of the goals of the Trump administration’s tariff increases.
“Wisconsin isn’t a huge metal industry, and a lot of the purchases from China are just raw material, so what we might see from a manufacturing standpoint is these parts being produced locally or farmed out to a state around us,” Schram said.
NFIB Wisconsin State Director Luke Bacher said policies bolstering small businesses should be pursued to combat the economic uncertainty brought by tariffs.
“Wisconsin’s small businesses are the lifeblood of our state and local economies,” Bacher said. “We will continue to listen to our members and support policies that will help reduce uncertainty, like making the 20% Small Business Deduction permanent before it expires and results in a massive tax increase on Main Street.”

(The Center Square) – At least one Wisconsin Republican says the University of Wisconsin isn’t telling the whole story when it comes to what the state pays.
UW President Jay Rothman last week announced the UW System slipped once again in the national ranking on state funding.
“Wisconsin is now 44th out of 50 states in public funding of four-year universities – a drop of one spot – according to the latest national study of higher education funding,” the university said.
“Wisconsin is renowned for its affordable and accessible public universities. Yet we can’t languish at the bottom anymore without seriously jeopardizing Wisconsin’s economic vibrancy,” Rothman added.
He is asing state lawmakers for $856 million in the next state budget.
Rep. Alex Dallman, R-Markesan, however said taxpayers need to know the truth about the UW’s funding.
“President Rothman and many others have boasted about how the 13 universities across Wisconsin are the best in the country and world, yet are quick to say that the taxpayers aren’t funding higher education enough.,” Dallman said. “The UW System is more worried about their national ranking than taking accountability for their lack of transparency here in Wisconsin.”
The University of Wisconsin’s total budget in the current state spending plan is just under $14 billion for the two years of the state budget. And spending between the 2023-2024 school year, and the 2024-2025 school year grew by almost 6%.
State funding is the smallest of the major pieces of university funding,at 18%, or about $2.5 billion. Federal funds make-up about 24% of the UW’s budget, with a lot of that going toward research.
Tuition is the largest single source of funding for the UW. The school says 58% of its money comes from students.
Dallman those are just rough numbers. He said the UW doesn’t provide specifics.
“When I asked the UW System exactly how taxpayer dollars are distributed to each campus, their answer was not surprising. They don’t have any specifics, just that ‘the process is complex’ and is based on a ‘base plus’ model,” Dallman added. “This means that millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars are determined by what UW System feels each campus deserves, not using any standard metric or formula.”
Dallman also said there are unanswered questions about what the UW is spending money on.
“The UW System continues to invest millions of dollars in DEI and administrative bloat across our campuses. This is a complete waste of critical funding that should be going directly into our classrooms and labs,” he said. “I know my constituents and many other taxpayers across the state are deeply concerned about the UW System’s lack of transparency and accountability. It’s time for the UW System to get serious.”

(The Center Square) – Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann was the leader in a WisPolitics straw poll to be Wisconsin’s Republican Party candidate for governor in 2026.
The poll was taken at the Republican Party of Wisconsin convention with 38% of those responding with 110 votes. Schoemann announced his candidacy in early May.
Second in the voting was U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, WI-7th Congressional, with 103 votes.
“I am grateful for the support of Wisconsin’s grassroots activists, which are so critical to winning Wisconsin,” Schoemann said in a statement to The Center Square. “We are so proud of the support from activists across the state who have joined our team in the first two weeks and we are excited about how many people joined our team this weekend.
Schoemann has said he wants to keep young people in the state and stop retirees from moving out. He wants to flatten the state’s income tax on a path to remove it.
“As I have traveled all over Wisconsin, so many of the people I have met believe that fresh ideas and energy are what we need to make Wisconsin a great place to be, not just be from,” Schoemann said.
Gov. Tony Evers has not said yet if he will run for a third term, saying he will wait until budget negotiations are complete before making an announcement.
Republicans are currently waiting on an in-person meeting with Evers to discuss the budget and a tax-cut plan in the state.

(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Jobs and Energy Coalition, along with several other employer groups in Wisconsin, have been working to fight against an attempted block of a Line 5 reroute of the Bad River Reservation.
The director of the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association, for example, recently wrote with concerns that the arguments against approving the reroute could be used to block the timber industry on private land.
“These claims could delay or deny logging, road building, forest thinning, and replanting efforts—basic practices essential to both forest health and economic vitality,” Henry Schienebeck recently wrote in an op-ed published in the Ashland Daily Press. “The logic being advanced could be used to shut down operations across privately owned forests, tribal lands, and public working lands alike.”
Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is concerned about water contamination on the reservation, in Lake Superior and in the wetlands that serve as the Band’s wild rice beds and as a critical migratory bird habitat.
Enbridge applied for permits and proposed to reroute the line in 2020 by replacing 20 miles of existing pipeline – including the 12 miles currently within the reservation – with a 41-mile-long stretch of pipe around the reservation in northern Wisconsin.
Line 5 transports 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids daily from Superior, Wisconsin, through Michigan to refineries in Sarnia, Ontario for 645 miles through a 30-inch diameter pipe.
Two days of testimony recently occurred on the Bad River Band’s arguments to block the reroute. Hearings will continue on Aug. 12 at Northwood Technical College in Ashland, where the public can testify related to permits from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
During the recent hearing, Tera Fong, Water Division Director for Region 5 with the Environmental Protection Agency, was quoted as testifying that the “materials EPA reviewed did not provide data, studies or modeling analysis that showed and quantified impacts of distance from any given discharge point to water quality on the reservation, the likelihood of discharges, including discharges of pollutants traveling from groundwater to surface waters and then to the reservation boundary.”
Several union leaders also testified at the hearings, arguing that the objections are inconsistent and are regarding standard timber and construction practices approved across the country.
“These claims not only do not match up with the Bad River Band’s own previous construction approvals, but they are practices the Band has been fine with for dozens of projects in the same area,” said Teamsters Local 346 and pipeline representative for the Teamsters Chad Ward. “This leaves the impression that these concerns are more based on their political views of the project than the construction methods themself. And while they are entitled to their political views, it is the job of the permitting process to determine if laws and regulations are being followed, not weigh the political arguments.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin lawmakers approved allowing an extension of tax breaks in Middleton along with up to $2.15 million in state business tax credits for Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Senate Bill 24 passed the Wisconsin Assembly unanimously with a 97-0 vote before being signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers.
The state has a limit of allowing no more than 12% of taxable property in a municipality to be placed into a tax increment financing district, where the additional taxes that would have been paid when a business builds new facilities or renovates are allowed to be kept by the business and spent on improvements.
SB 24 waives the 12% limit in Middleton for Thermo Fisher, which lawmakers say will keep the employer in Middleton along with the 1,800 jobs at the facility. Then $2.15 million in additional tax credit incentives through September 2026 are tied to additional jobs at the facility.
Thermo Fisher has announced a $58 million expansion that it promised would involve 350 new jobs and a 72,500-square-foot building at the company’s Good Manufacturing Practices lab.
“Wisconsin is world-renowned for our booming bio-health industry, and I am pleased that, as a state, we could take swift, bipartisan action to support a major employer like Thermo Fisher Scientific and continue to provide family-supporting jobs here in Wisconsin,” Evers said in a statement. “Now more than ever, our work together to ensure companies and communities can remain competitive is critically important for Wisconsin’s continued success, and I’m glad to be signing this bill into law today.”
Middleton was already above the 12% limit with its two current TIF districts with more than $1 billion of property in its two previous TIF districts of the $5.6 billion in taxable property in Middleton.
Act 6 allows for the creation of a third TIF district for Thermo Fisher.
“Middleton is currently over the 12 percent limit at 16.63 percent,” the bill’s fiscal estimate says. “Under current law, Middleton cannot create TID number 6 without terminating a current TID, subtracting territory, or waiting until the values fall below the 12 percent limit.”
The overall value of the new law can’t be determined until it is known the value of improvements at Thermo Fisher that can be capture by the TIF.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is under fire after a recent bill alleges he has illegally kept more than $170 million in taxpayer dollars from interest earned on unspent funds since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, would require Evers and Department of Administration Secretary-designee Kathy Blumenfeld to hand over $170 million in earned interest on the funds to the state’s General Fund.
The state of Wisconsin received $3 billion from the federal government during the pandemic.
In 2023 the Legislative Audit Bureau discovered the interest earned from these funds during an annual audit of the state’s finances, according to Wimberger.
That interest has now ballooned to more than $170 million.
“Gov. Evers exploited federal programs, turning interest payments on relief funds into his own $170 million slush fund,” Wimberger said in a statement. “State law is clear: the governor needs to return this slush fund to the people of Wisconsin. Every week he fails or refuses to do this, the governor is violating state law.”
State law requires all money with no specified purposes to be credited to the General Fund weekly unless otherwise provided by law, according to Wimberger.
A memo from Wimberger and Rep. Robert Wittke, R-Caledonia claims the administration misclassified the interest earnings as funds from the federal government. The memo argued the interest itself was not received from the federal government, and no federal restrictions may apply to its use.
Wimberger argues Evers has kept the $170 million illegally for every week he has failed to give the interest earnings to the General Fund.
This bill would force Evers to return the money to the people of Wisconsin, Wimberger said.
An email to Evers’ office seeking comment was not answered at the time of publication.
“Taxpayer money, including the interest it earns, should never be at the sole discretion of one individual,” IRG executive vice president Chris Reader said in a statement. “Lawmakers have a duty to ensure every public dollar – including the $170 million in interest from federal COVID funds – is spent responsibly, transparently, and with oversight.”
The bill isn’t just about money, but about maintaining the checks and balances that protect Wisconsin’s taxpayers and uphold the integrity of the state government, Reader said.

(The Center Square) – The Republican lawmakers who will write Wisconsin’s next state budget say they need to hold the line on spending as much as they can.
Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, and Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said the latest revenue estimates for the state show a need for “cautious budgeting.”
“The cost-to-continue remains high and our [tax] collections are down slightly compared to January estimates, therefore we must continue the success of Republican budgets of the past in order to ensure that we can meet our ongoing obligations,” the two said in a statement.
Marklein and Born, and their budget-writing Joint Committee on Finance, have already held several budget hearings, and they even stripped non-budgetary policy issues from Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal.
But they have not made any spending decisions yet.
The two said they were waiting for the May revenue estimates from the Legislative Finance Bureau. The LFB released those numbers Thursday.
“Based on our review of collections data and the economic forecast, general fund taxes will be higher than previous estimates by $22 million in 2024-25, and lower than the previous estimates by $321 million in 2025-26 and $36 million in 2026-27,” the LFB wrote. “The three-year decrease is $335 million.”
The LFB report shows Wisconsin will not lose money. The state expects to bring in more money for each year of the new, two-year state budget. The estimates, however, say there will be less new money than previously expected.
“While we are not surprised by these new estimates, we remain cautious as we work to craft a budget that invests in our priorities, funds our obligations, and puts the State of Wisconsin in a strong fiscal position for the future,” Born and Marklein said. “We are calling on Gov. Evers to take these revenue re-estimates seriously. Come to the table with legislative leaders and work with us to craft a reasonable budget that works for Wisconsin.”
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu on Thursday said Evers needs to meet with top Republicans by the end of next week if he wants to see a new state budget on time.

(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Senate approved a measure that will require public agencies that release public records only when they are sued to pay for attorney’s fees and court costs for the filing.
Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, sponsored Senate Bill 194 in an attempt to encourage public entities to follow open records law and release records in a timely manner.
“Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski had to settle a court case for records,” Wanggaard said in a statement. “Superintendent Jill Underly withheld records for 8 months and was threatened with a lawsuit before complying with a request. The Madison School District has been sued repeatedly for failing to respond to open records requests. Everyone, regardless of party, should agree that these actions were wrong.”
Current law allows the records requester to receive court costs and attorney’s fees if they prevail in a lawsuit, but entities that release the records before a court order is issued are not subject to paying the fees.
The bill would change that, allowing the requester to receive fees once a lawsuit is filed and the records are then released.
Van Wanggaard said he believes there has been an increase in officials not complying with open records law since the 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling requiring a court order before the fees must be paid for not disclosing public records.