Capitol Update
by Senator Howard Marklein
June 16, 2023
Rural Communities and Local Governments Win!
This week was huge for rural communities and local governments. Both houses of the legislature passed a sweeping shared revenue package. The Joint Committee on Finance (JFC) provided more than $1 billion to schools and $1.55 billion for transportation with more than $362 million of our investments going into local, rural roads.
Shared revenue is the funding that the state sends to county and municipal governments from state tax collections. The current formula was developed more than two decades and has been mostly frozen since then. Legislation was negotiated with Governor Tony Evers to lay out a framework to distribute a large increase in aid to local governments.
The bill closes the gaps in disparities that exist under current law and increases local government funding at the same rate of growth as sales tax revenues. The bill incentivizes local governments to innovate and consolidate, while giving them the opportunity to realize gains if sales tax collections increase.
The communities in the 17th Senate District will be seeing tremendous increases in shared revenue. Total shared revenue increased by 51% in the communities of the 17th Senate District. This is $19.5 million more across our communities.
I have attached a list of the new funding, by county, that our communities will receive. How much will your community benefit from this massive overhaul?
We are also making a tremendous investment in education. We are maintaining 2/3rds funding for schools with $534,300,000 in General School Aids. We are providing $325 more per pupil in each year of the biennium and $141,816,000 for Categorical Aids.
We are funding 33.3% of special education costs with $97,034,400 and 45% of high cost special education costs with $4,633,600. We allocated $3 million for bilingual-bicultural aids, $5.9 million for high cost transportation aids and $1.3 million for sparsity aids.
We have dedicated an additional $30 million for mental health programing and set aside $50 million for a robust literacy program to make sure our children can read at grade level or above!
Overall, we are providing $1 billion in spendable resources for public schools. Education is by far the largest investment we make in our state budget.
Finally, I worked hard to send more money to our local governments to fix local roads. From county highways to town roads, we are making incredible investments in our infrastructure. We are investing $362.8 million in local roads and bridges.
• General Transportation Aids (GTA) – counties – 2%/2% increase - $7,566,300
• GTA – municipalities – 2%/2% increase - $23,863,100
• Local Road Improvement Program (LRIP) Discretionary Supplement - $100 million
• LRIP general - $4,016,800 (one time)
• Ag Road Improvement Program (ARIP) - $150 million (one time)
• Southern Bridge in Brown County - $50 million.
• Ray Nitschke Bridge - $1.2 million
• Richland County Hwy O project - $4,180,000
• Watertown Bridge - $2 million
I am extremely proud of our work to fix, maintain and build roads and infrastructure. We have made tremendous progress and continue to listen to our constituents who want us to fix the roads. This budget answers this call.
As always, please do not hesitate to connect with me to provide input, ideas or to seek assistance. Send an email to sen.marklein@legis.wisconsin.gov or call 608-266-0703. I want to hear from you.
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