The 2025-2027 biennial state budget process is now underway! JOIN US TO TAKE ACTION!
The PUBLIC HEARINGS on the 2025-2027 STATE BUDGET are currently being held by the Joint Finance Committee and Team Public is once again tracking and publishing all the testimonies delivered in the four public listening sessions so Wisconsin understands exactly where the populace stands on the state budget.
It’s not too late to speak up! Testify in person at the last two hearings or send written testimony to https://legis.wisconsin.gov/topics/budgetcomments/
Make a plan to share YOUR thoughts on the state budget to ensure Wisconsin kids get what they need after 16 consecutive years of state budgets that have failed to keep pace with inflation. It’s time to end the cycle and restore our commitment – and our constitutional obligation – to our children. Let’s close the special education funding gap, restore adequate state aid, and pass a budget that gives EVERY student in every public school equal opportunity to thrive!
Update from the first two budget hearings:
What’s best for kids, healthcare dominate concerns.
JOIN US AT THE HEARINGS – and amplify your story on hearing day even if you can’t attend! #MakeItLocal
Wisconsin Public Education Network and local/regional partners will have a visible presence at each hearing! Stay tuned for details and contact partners@WisconsinNetwork.org if you’d like to get involved in the planning! Showing up, speaking out, and amplifying our local stories is critical!
The public hearings begin at 10 a.m. and conclude at 5 p.m. Attendees will be asked to fill out a form upon arrival to be added to the queue to testify. NOTE: The line to speak often starts forming as early as 6am. We’ll be there to help you pass the time so stop by and say hi and gear up! PLAN TO BE AT THE VENUE AS LONG AS THE ENTIRE DAY even if you arrive very early.
The Joint Finance Committee has also created an online portal for constituents to provide input. All entries will be circulated to the full committee: https://legis.wisconsin.gov/topics/budgetcomments/
The JFC has also developed a dedicated email address for input only: budget.comments@legis.wisconsin.gov and all emails will be circulated to the full committee. Click here for our copy/pasteable list of all the members of the committee. Be sure to cc your own legislators and click here for a calendar of Budget Listening Sessions with Other Lawmakers.
The Joint Finance Committee public hearing schedule is:
Wednesday, April 2, 2025 Kaukauna High School
Friday, April 4, 2025 Wisconsin State Fair Park
Monday, April 28, 2025
Hayward High School Auditorium. 10320 Greenwood Lane, Hayward, WI 54843
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Northcentral Technical College-Center for Health Sciences, 1000 W. Campus Dr., Wausau, WI 54401
Take Action! Check out our Budget Action Toolkit – including resources from our March 18 Budget Action Workshop with State Budget Director Brian Pahnke – updated regularly with links, resources, and more, including this Tips for Effective Testimony worksheet!
Members of the 2025 Joint Committee on Finance:
Budget Resources:
- 2025-2027 Budget Executive Budget (Dept. of Administration). Includes Budget in Brief other official budget documents
- Budget Action Toolkit: get organized at take action where you live – at and beyond the budget hearings – to be a voice for Wisconsin students.
- Bookmark this page – our Budget HQ – for budget updates, announcements, and opportunities for action. Updated regularly!
- Review the dozens of press releases responding to the budget from lawmakers and organizations, including Network partners like WEAC, Citizen Action, Wisdom, and Southeastern Wisconsin Schools Association (SWSA).
- Public Schools Week Day of Action archive Feb. 28, 2025 event at the Capitol (includes video testimony from referenda team leaders, educators, students, parents, board members, district administrators, and more)
Where we are in the Budget Process:
- Superintendent Underly submitted the Department of Public Instruction’s budget request to Gov. Evers in fall of 2024.
- Gov. Evers held listening public sessions and reviewed all agency requests, then presented his “Year of the Kid” budget address on Tuesday. Education highlights for “more than $3.15 billion in K-12 public schools, nearly all of which is spendable revenue for schools,” include a 60% sum sufficient reimbursement for special education in both years; restoring predictable, inflationary increases to revenue limits; and fully funded school breakfast and lunch. Now it’s time for us to get to work making sure these critical provisions make it through the brutal state budget process. See our response release here.
- The Committee on Joint Finance (JFC) holds public hearings around the state (usually in March and/or April), and collect public comment electronically as well before convening to approve or modify the Governor’s budget proposal. In past sessions, the JFC has rejected the Governor’s budget entirely and opted to draft their own budget using the prior year budget as a base, and leaders have signaled an intention to do the same in 2025. <-– WE ARE HERE
- Joint Finance will present their budget to both houses of the state legislature for modification and approval.
- The legislature’s budget will move to the Governor in early June to be vetoed (in full or partially) and/or signed into law.
SIGN THE PETITION: Call on Gov. Evers to put forward a budget that closes the funding gap for Wisconsin students and ends funding discrimination for students with disabilities:
See our archived budget action pages from previous cycles: 2023-25; 2021-23; 2019-21; 2017-19.
LAST TIME AROUND: On July 5, Governor Evers signed the 2023-25 State Budget. See Governor Evers’ press release on the budget here, and click here for his full veto message.
Read a joint statement in reaction to the budget’s passage and the governor’s vetoes from Wisconsin Public Education Network Executive Director Heather DuBois Bourenane and Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools President Sandy Whisler below.
We tracked the public’s priorities on the last state budget, too. Fair and equitable increases to public school funding were the number one priority among Wisconsinites:
See our real-time testimony tracking spreadsheet from the 2023-2025 budget here.