by Chris Kulow | Sep 20, 2019 | State Issue
Recently, the Department of Public Instruction has released the results for statewide student assessments from the 2018-19 school year. Overall statewide results showed slight decreases in English language arts and mathematics proficiency.
Here’s a snapshot of some of the reaction from state legislators including Assembly Committee on Education Chair Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Sens. Jon Erpenbach & Chris Larson and more: (more…)
by Dan Rossmiller | Sep 6, 2019 | State Budget, State Issue
Split party control of Wisconsin state government appears to have greatly slowed the flow of legislation being enacted into law in the current 2019-20 legislative session and it appears unlikely the pace will pick up anytime soon.
According to the Wheeler Report, neither the state Senate nor the state Assembly are expected to meet in floor session during the month of September. Lawmakers had set aside the period from Sept. 17 to 26 for a floor period when they organized the session schedule back in January. The next scheduled floor period is October 8-10. (more…)
by Chris Kulow | Jun 21, 2019 | State Budget
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) says Assembly Republicans are not planning to make any major changes to the state budget when the Assembly takes up the bill next Tuesday, June 25.
According to Wispolitics.com, the Speaker mentioned only looking at ways to reduce the budget’s impact on property taxes and tweaking part of the transportation budget: (more…)
by Dan Rossmiller | Jun 19, 2019 | State Budget, State Issue
Governor Evers’ recent comments to the media indicating that he plans to reach out to Republican legislative leaders before the Assembly and Senate meet to take up the state budget bill got us thinking.
We’d like to take this opportunity to suggest some things we would like to see the governor and legislative leaders discuss seriously in any negotiations they might undertake. These are modest asks. The spending increase provided by the JFC budget for K-12 education in 2019-21 is over $130 million smaller than the increase provided by the 2017-19 state budget. We respectfully suggest policy makers revisit a couple of issues that if adopted could make this a better budget for schools. (more…)
by Chris Kulow | Jun 13, 2019 | State Budget
The legislature’s powerful Joint Finance Committee (JFC) finished its work on the 2019-21 state budget on June 13. The budget now heads to each house of the state legislature–Assembly first, then Senate–for consideration before heading to Gov. Evers.
The Assembly plans to take up the budget on Tuesday, June 25 with the Senate following on the 26th or 27th according to Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald in a press conference touting the JFC proposal. (more…)
