The 2025-2027 biennial state budget process is now underway! JOIN US TO TAKE ACTION!
Thurs. Feb. 20: Learn more about what’s in the Governor’s budget proposal – and what YOU can do to make sure kids & teachers have the resources they need to succeed: State Budget Briefing for Students and Public Schools with WEAC President Peggy Wirtz-Olsen and Wisconsin Public Education Network. Register here.
Public Schools Week Day of Action!
Friday, Feb. 28 @ the Capitol (noon-1pm)
Celebrate Public Schools Week by standing up for a budget that works for Wisconsin students! Join us to take action! Register here.
Budget Resources:
- 2025-2027 Budget Executive Budget (Dept. of Administration). Includes Budget in Brief other official budget documents
- 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).
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.
- WAITING FOR JOINT FINANCE COMMITTEE TO ANNOUNCE DATES FOR PUBLIC HEARINGS, which will be held around the state <-– WE ARE HERE
- The Committee on Joint Finance (JFC) will hold public hearings around the state (usually in March and 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.
- 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.
SAVE THE DATE: Statewide Day of Action is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 28 (last day of Public Schools Week). Join us at the State Capitol at noon on 2/28! Bring referenda yard signs from the past or current referenda to help us connect the dots and demand adequate state funding for our public schools!
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.
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 state budget. Fair and equitable increases to public school funding were the number one priority among Wisconsinites.
See our real-time testimony tracking spreadsheet here.