“The income tax proposals cost the state a fair amount of money, but it’s not a huge share of the state budget,” said Ross Milton, an assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The flip side of that is that the impacts to any given household in Wisconsin in terms of how much money they’ll save on income taxes are pretty modest.”
Republicans who control the state Legislature are considering cutting funding to the University of Wisconsin System by $87 million as they build a new two-year state budget that may require Democratic votes to pass.
Republicans on the Legislature’s budget committee may deal the Universities of Wisconsin the system’s biggest cut in nearly a decade, to the tune of $87 million.
The cut was first reported by Civic Media on Monday night. By contrast, the UW system had requested an increase in state aid of $856 million. The committee had been slated to take up the UW system’s budget on Tuesday but punted it for unspecified reasons.
GOP lawmakers also delayed a vote on the Universities of Wisconsin budget which had been scheduled for Tuesday. Evers’ budget called for about a $700 million increase in state funding for the UW system.
Democratic lawmakers told reporters Tuesday they’d heard Republicans were considering cutting funds to the UW system. The GOP cochairs of the budget committee did not comment when asked about that prospect.
Lawmakers writing the state budget delayed a vote on the University of Wisconsin System, with Republican legislative leaders declining to explain why.
Committee co-chairs Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, and Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, wouldn’t elaborate on why the vote was pulled from the June 17 schedule.
Both large and small dairy farms in Wisconsin depend on immigrant laborers to fill positions that go unfilled by local workers. Undocumented workers perform an estimated 70% of the work on Wisconsin’s dairy farms, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Workers study.
UW-Madison history professor Sasha Maria Suarez describes programs by tribal nations, K-12 schools and higher education institutions to teach Wisconsin’s Indigenous languages to learners of all ages.
Evers said in a statement that he had agreed to support Republicans’ half of the deal including their top tax priorities, while Republicans could not reach consensus within their caucuses to back the governor’s proposals, including funding increases for K-12 education, child care and the University of Wisconsin System.
An Evers spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the June 12 vote.
Bats, birds, turtles, coyotes and more are the subject of study and conservation efforts, especially in the spring when they can be readily seen. We talk again to David Drake and Jamie Nack, wildlife specialists with UW-Extension, about these and other Wisconsin critters.
The Associated Students of Madison (ASM) passed legislation advocating for Wiscards to become valid forms of Wisconsin voter ID on April 16, bolstering the Student Voters Unions (SVU) campaign to reduce voting barriers for University of Wisconsin-Madison students.
University of Wisconsin-Madison agriculture and economics professor Chuck Nicholson explained why the Trump administration’s recent tariffs will lower the price of milk while slashing incomes for American dairy farms, harshly impacting Wisconsin’s dairy industry.
A private donation has allowed the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health to launch a new program on Wednesday, attempting to improve health in rural Wisconsin communities.
The Board of Regents, which oversees UW-Madison and the state’s 12 other public universities, is set to hear a proposal Thursday that would increase UW-Madison’s undergraduate application fee from $70 to $80 starting in August.
The Orion Initiative, administered through the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, aims to invest in partnerships between frontline rural providers and the academic medical community.
Taylor received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. She then attended the University of Wisconsin Law School, graduating in 1995.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison survey found that a quarter of providers might shut down without some form of direct aid from the state and a third would close at least some classrooms.
This bill would require the University of Wisconsin System to contract with a vendor to provide virtual mental health services for students, beyond traditional business hours. Campuses have already utilized telehealth, lawmakers note.
“Telehealth services have proven to be effective in shortening waiting times to see a provider, and allow patients to receive care at their convenience,” bill authors wrote.
The University of Wisconsin System alone is seeking $855 million from the state Legislature in an effort to make branch campuses more viable and avoid tuition increases for in-state undergraduate students for the next two school years.
The 1849 law has been on hold since a lower court’s ruling in December 2023. The state then returned to its pre-Dobbs abortion laws, under which abortion is banned 20 weeks after “probable fertilization.”
“We’re just waiting for a final answer on that,” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “The current state of the law has been that abortions are legal, subject to other laws we have in the state.”
Although the process for handling judicial misconduct varies by state, it is “somewhat rare” for judges to be suspended in Wisconsin and across the nation, said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
“[Nationwide] the overall judicial disciplinary process is sometimes critiqued from both sides as being overly lenient on judges or as being too harsh on judges,” Godar said. “It’s really difficult to strike this balance between accountability for judicial officers while wanting to preserve the independence of state courts and state judges.”
Leaders of Wisconsin colleges and universities are speaking out against pending cuts to federal financial aid after they cleared a major legislative hurdle.
The Universities of Wisconsin system would have to provide students with around-the-clock access to virtual mental health providers under a new Republican proposal.
Wisconsin college leaders say potential changes to federal financial aid would put higher education out of reach to more students and make college more expensive.
We get an insect update from UW-Madison entomologist PJ Liesch. Then we talk about the benefits of wetlands and efforts to protect them.
A group of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been working with local Realta Fusion to make fusion energy a reality, but they’re not the only ones, according to a report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Three of the 45 companies working on fusion are already based in Wisconsin, and new bills supporting the advancement of this promising clean energy technology could draw even more to the area.
A statewide survey conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty found that 25% of providers said they might close if the revenue isn’t replaced.
Mai See Thao, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that these resolutions are “long overdue.”
“Recognizing Hmong-Lao veterans is really important because they have never received the kinds of recognition that they’ve needed, given the fact that they supported the U.S. as proxy soldiers,” she said.
Wisconsin’s four-year university system receives less state funding and tuition than nearly every state in the nation, according to the latest study of higher education funding.
The Universities of Wisconsin ranked 44th out of 50 states in public funding in 2024 — a drop of one spot from 2023.
Nearly 800 business leaders and organizations have signed a letter urging state lawmakers to increase funding for the University of Wisconsin System.
The letter pulls a page from UW-Madison’s playbook. The university in 2023 gathered signatures from dozens of business leaders who supported an engineering building Republicans held up in the previous state budget and shared their support in a statewide campaign.
Wisconsin’s technical colleges get about 70% more in-state aid per full-time student than the Universities of Wisconsin get for one of theirs, new data shows.
The ongoing gap is a talking point the UW system has used for years to lobby for more state funding.
“Without the continued research that’s made possible with federal funding, it would set us back,” said John Shutske, an agricultural safety and health specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’ve seen over the last several decades a pretty dramatic decrease overall in our farm fatality rate. And while I think [the number of deaths] would probably plateau, I don’t think we would be able to continue to make the kind of progress that we’ve had.”
Kevin Jarek, regional crops and soils educator with UW-Madison’s Division of Extension for Outagamie & Winnebago counties, noted, “If I were to go to counties like Shawano and Waupaca, especially the western parts of those counties, they get much lighter in soil. It’s a sandy loam texture, whereas here as we get closer to Lake Michigan, we tend to have a lot of clay.”
Evers and Republicans have been talking about a tax cut plan they both could support but have not released details. Republicans argue that most of the state’s roughly $4 billion surplus should be returned as tax cuts rather than used to support spending on K-12 schools, the University of Wisconsin and other state programs.
Dr. Ryan Spencer is an OB/GYN at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He says the state is in a maternal health care crisis, in part due to years without Medicaid expansion.
“I think we’re actually in the long-term impacts of having not addressed those for decades,” he said. “Any expansion to Medicaid is highly likely in any given area or state to improve access that women have to prenatal care, intrapartum care, and postpartum care.”
Tariffs enacted under the Trump administration could have significant impacts on the agriculture industry in the U.S. and particularly on the dairy industry in Wisconsin, according to University of Wisconsin associate professor of agriculture and economics Chuck Nicholson.
“The tariffs have a number of different impacts, whether that be the tariffs we are placing on imports from other countries or the tariffs that other countries will place on us,” Nicholson said.
Ditto for potential candidates weighing the rigors of a campaign, says Joel Rogers, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s High Road Strategy Center: “Running for office is a drag for sure, and has become much more dangerous to one’s mental health and a happy family life.”
In a move that could dramatically alter Wisconsin’s work culture, Republican legislators have proposed a bill that would require state employees to return to physical offices, curbing the flexibility that many workers gained during and after the pandemic.
Wisconsin Public Radio has, in varying forms, been an essential part of this state’s media landscape for more than a century. PBS Wisconsin, with roots tracing back to the early days of WHA-TV, has been just as essential for the past 70 years.
The UW System has repeatedly requested the Legislature to fund a program to cover tuition and fees for students whose family incomes fall below a certain threshold. UW-Madison already offers a tuition promise program and funds it without state taxpayer money.
We talk with Steven Deller, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about what a decline in the country’s gross domestic product means for Wisconsin.
Daniel Smith with UW Extension’s integrated pest and crop management says that since February, the temperatures have warmed up and had more precipitation.
Leonard Polzin, a Dairy Markets and Policy Outreach specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, joined on News 3 Now Live at Four on Thursday about whether you should be concerned.
Maydev is the first South Asian elected to the Assembly and represents the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and other parts of the state’s capital city. She noted that her district is about 17% Asian American and she represents the highest concentration of Asian Americans in the state.
Republican-ordered audits found April 11 determined Wisconsin state agencies and the University of Wisconsin System failed to track millions of dollars spent on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts during the 2023-24 fiscal year — making it difficult to fully assess the efforts which have been under review due to recent federal orders.
Led by Dr. Abigail Cutler, a practicing OB-GYN at UW Health, the new study intended to document changes in clinical practice among Wisconsin doctors as a result of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
Wisconsin joined over 20 states in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s $400 million cuts for AmeriCorps, a federal volunteer program that assists communities with literacy, conservation, homelessness and health care, Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday.
Three of the country’s 25 nuclear fusion companies are located in Wisconsin, with ties to the top-ranked nuclear engineering program at UW-Madison. A package of bills in the state Legislature would pave the way for these companies and others to eventually build fusion reactors in the state.
Two UW System regents are reaching the end of their terms next month. Governor Tony Evers is tasked with appointing their replacements.
The American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin is waging a public campaign to urge Gov. Tony Evers to appoint two pro-labor representatives to the UW Board of Regents. It’s a first for the teachers’ union, but a necessary move given the danger President Donald Trump poses to higher education, says one union official.
Steve Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the seasonality of Wisconsin’s housing market helped insulate the state from similar month-to-month declines.
“I’m not going to rush my purchasing of a house because I think tariffs are going to hit,” Deller said. “I’m going to rush my purchasing of, say, a washer and dryer or refrigerator or a car because I think tariffs are going to cause prices to go up and I want to get them now. The housing market isn’t going to be hit by tariffs the same way.”
Richard Frohling, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, oversees the federal team. He has spent much of his career as a prosecutor. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin Law School and working as a law clerk and in private practice, Frohling joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Milwaukee in 2000. He was named first assistant in 2015. He has twice been the Acting U.S. Attorney and briefly served as U.S. attorney in 2022.
Barry Burden, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center, said while there is no silver bullet to inject harmony into the state’s politics, “allowing fusion to be used once again in the state has the potential to at least begin moving politics in a healthier direction without any negative side-effects.”
Joint Legislative Audit Committee examines effectiveness, transparency, outcomes tied to Executive Order 59.
University of Wisconsin System leadership defended diversity, equity and inclusion policies in a tense hearing after a state audit revealed the system and 15 state agencies failed to track DEI spending.
Belleville Area EMS is fully staffed — which is increasingly rare in Wisconsin — but a drop in volunteers has forced the service to rely on student recruits from the University of Wisconsin-Madison more than on local residents. Belleville also is among a growing number of EMS services shifting from an all-volunteer model to one that leans on some paid staff.
The audits released by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau showed the Universities of Wisconsin and state agencies have failed to track millions of dollars spent on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
“It has been many years since new nuclear power plants have been considered in the state of Wisconsin, and in that time there have been many substantial changes in the technology of nuclear energy,” said Paul Wilson, a nuclear engineering professor at UW-Madison, at the hearing.
President of the Dane County NAACP chapter Greg Jones was the only member of the public to testify at a Joint Audit Committee hearing Tuesday on two recent audits into the diversity, equity and inclusion practices of state agencies and the Universities of Wisconsin. His message to lawmakers was simple: listen to individuals’ stories about the impact of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and stay away from politicized attacks on DEI.
“That whipsawing back and forth, that creates a tremendous amount of uncertainty,” said Steven Deller, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who researches the state’s agricultural and manufacturing economy. “And one thing that the economy hates is uncertainty.”
“Data centers need electricity all day, every day, not just when the sun’s shining or the wind’s blowing,” said Paul Wilson, who chairs the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Nuclear Engineering.
