Rep. Dallman Votes to Send State Budget to Governor’s Desk
Madison, WI – Today, State Representative Alex Dallman (R-Green Lake) joined his Republican colleagues in voting for the passage of the 2023-2025 state budget (AB 43/SB 70). Here are some of the highlights of the biennial budget that now heads to the Governor’s desk for consideration:
Budget Listening Sessions
Assembly Republicans traveled all across the state and hosted budget listening sessions to hear directly from their constituents. There were 180 total listening sessions held by Republican members of the Assembly, including seven budget listening sessions which I hosted across the 41st District.
K-12 Education Funding
Republicans invested over $1 billion in public schools. $30 million will be going to mental health initiatives to deliver services directly to students. Another $50 million will go towards bringing students up to reading at grade level. This historic funding will also increase funds to reflect Wisconsin Act 11, which increases payments for choice and charter schools as well. Wisconsin students and parents will benefit greatly from these much needed investments.
Road Funding and Shared Revenue
This budget invests over $1.5 billion in new funding for transportation, especially local roads and bridges. This includes a $285 million increase in general transportation aids, local road improvements program, and a newly created local road improvement program for agricultural roads.
2023 Act 12 was recently signed into law. This law provides a minimum increase of 20% for all Wisconsin communities in the new shared revenue formula – nearly all communities in the 41st District will see a much larger increase than 20%. These new funds will have an immediate impact on our local EMS, Fire, and transportation budgets.
Correction Security Staff Salaries
Under this budget, correctional security staff will see their base pay increase at a minimum of $13 per hour as well as additional add-on pay for high-vacancy facilities. This will help to address our state’s workforce shortage, especially when it comes to our correctional facilities where our security staff is working 72 hours a week on average in order to make up for staff vacancies. Under the Republican budget, a new correctional officer who works at a maximum security facility with a high-vacancy rate will make $41/hour.
University of Wisconsin System
Wisconsin taxpayers should not be on the hook for funding programs at our universities that perpetuate division among students based on race, sex, or economic class. Wisconsin taxpayers deserve to know that a degree obtained from a UW campus is meaningful, and is grounded in skills based learning, not just based on how our students conform to looking through a lens of a single ideology and viewpoint for the world. This budget looks to refocus the UW System’s priorities toward funding programs to address Wisconsin’s workforce shortages in critically needed areas such as nurses, accountants, engineers, and more.
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State Representative Alex Dallman was re-elected in November 2022 to serve a second term for Wisconsin's 41st Assembly District which includes parts of Green Lake, Marquette, Adams, Columbia, Sauk, and Waushara counties. Representative Dallman currently serves as a member of the powerful Joint Committee on Finance.