Evers: ‘I’m excited to be introducing the most pro-kid budget in state history’

The Wisconsin governor’s 2025 state budget address details his funding priorities, including measures to eliminate taxes on tips and over-the-counter medications.

Unveiling his proposed 2025 state budget on Tuesday night, Gov. Tony Evers called for the elimination of taxes on tips and floated a new idea to encourage freezing of local property taxes—all while putting the state’s $4 billion surplus to work helping families dealing with a childcare shortage, inflation, contaminated water, education challenges, and safety issues.

“The budget I’m proposing balances our priorities of investing in our kids and needs that have long been neglected while providing real and sustainable tax relief and saving where we can,” Evers said in his budget address to a joint session of the Legislature.

The tax relief, as proposed by Evers, would include direct state payments to communities that don’t raise their property taxes, in order to help them avoid cuts in services.

“We’re going to make those investments while holding the line on property taxes to ensure the average homeowner will not see a property tax increase,” Evers said.

All told, Evers is proposing nearly $2 billion in tax relief efforts, including the elimination of income taxes on tip income, eliminating the sales tax on over-the-counter medications, levying no income tax at all on the first $1,200 of everyone’s income, and cutting income taxes for homeowners, renters, veterans, and seniors—with an emphasis on the middle income brackets. 

Republicans in the last session tried to force more benefits to the higher income brackets but couldn’t get them past Evers’ veto pen. And much of what Evers is proposing, while ambitious, isn’t likely to get past a Republican majorities in the Assembly and Senate that, while smaller under new legislative maps, remain a unified hurdle to the governor’s hopes for more bipartisan budgeting.

It’s About the Kids

During last month’s State of the State address, Evers declared 2025 to be “The Year of the Kid” as a way to highlight priorities he says will lead to “the most pro-kid budget in state history.”

Evers is proposing $80 million for school districts to hire literacy coaches, provide tutoring, and find other ways to improve reading scores statewide. Two years ago, the state budget included $50 million to start revamped literacy programs, but Republican legislators never released the money.

Another Evers proposal, if approved, would provide the largest-ever boost to funding special education costs—with the state reimbursing school districts at a level of 60%, nearly double the current rate. That would free up more of a school district’s general revenue to pay for basic educational services.

Kids benefit when family life is more affordable, according to Evers, so he emphasized proposals that address the shortage of quality childcare, crack down on price gouging, lower the cost of prescription drugs, and cap insulin copays at $35 per month.

The Evers agenda for kids also includes clean water measures such as $145 million to fight contamination from PFAS, a large class of industrial chemicals increasingly found in groundwater. Republicans refused to release $125 million from the last budget to address PFAS contamination in an unsuccessful effort to force Evers to approve language that Democrats said would let too many corporate polluters off the hook for clean-up costs and possible prosecution.

Evers has also proposed another $300 million to “get lead out of our service lines, bubblers, schools, homes, and childcare centers for good.”

Healthcare quality for families would be improved, Evers said, by expanding Medicaid coverage to new moms for up to one year after giving birth. Only Wisconsin and Arkansas have refused to budge from the old standard of 60 days’ coverage and accept federal funds for better coverage. A bill to do this passed the Senate 32-1 and more than half of all Assembly representatives are co-sponsors, but Assembly Speaker Robin Vos refuses to allow the idea to come up for a vote.

“One legislator should not be able to single-handedly obstruct a bill that’s supported by a supermajority of the Legislature,” Evers said, as Vos showed no reaction while sitting directly behind him on the rostrum. “Let’s just get it done.”

Another healthcare proposal from Evers would make Wisconsin the first state in the nation to begin auditing insurance companies with a record of consistently denying claims from their customers. Evers also wants to expand the number of healthcare services insurers would be required to cover if they want to do business in Wisconsin. 

Help for Rural Wisconsin

The governor’s budget proposal does  not exclusively cater to children’s needs. Evers announced several measures designed for Wisconsin farmers and the rural economy because of President Donald Trump’s impending trade war.

“Here in America’s Dairyland, agriculture is a $116 billion​​ industry,” Evers said. “Everyone knows farmers, farm families, and producers have been the backbone of our state for generations. So when we heard about President Trump’s 25 percent tariff tax—which could spark trade wars with Wisconsin’s largest export partners, hurt our economy and farmers, and drive up costs for gas and groceries—I announced a new plan to help protect Wisconsin’s farmers and our ag industry and bolster our supply chain.” 

The Evers rural agenda includes doubling state investment in finding new export markets for Wisconsin dairy, meat, and crops; creating a state agricultural economist position to help farmers navigate market disruptions caused by tariffs; more state support for local meat and dairy processors who have to compete with multinational corporations; new funding to improve rural roads and infrastructure; and new investments for struggling rural hospitals.

“Under my administration,” Evers said, “Wisconsin is on its way to becoming a top 10 state for ag exports—we can’t afford to lose our momentum because of tariff wars in Washington.”

GOP Calls Evers’ Plan DOA

Evers’ fourth state budget debate is likely to face as much Republican obstruction in the Legislature as ever, despite fairer maps giving the GOP much smaller majorities in the Assembly and Senate. Rather than modify Evers’ proposals every two years, as traditionally occurs when there’s a split government, Republicans went out of their way to call the governor’s proposals “dead on arrival” and work off their own plans—ignoring hundreds of Evers’ requests, then daring him to veto what they sent him.

“We continually tried to say to the governor, ‘Your starting position is not even reasonable, so give us a reasonable budget to begin with,’” Assembly Majority Leader Rep. Tyler August (R-Walworth) told Spectrum News. “Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to do that.”

The liberal group A Better Wisconsin Together saw it differently.

“Gov. Evers’ budget is more than a long list of numbers and calculations, it’s a statement of our Wisconsin values and a bold investment in our lives,” said deputy director Mike Browne. “However, some Republicans in our state legislature are choosing to engage in obstruction and partisan game playing instead of investing in us and our priorities.”

Browne urged people to call their lawmakers using the legislative hotline at 800-362-9472, “to demand they put the partisan antics behind and work together with the governor to pass a budget that works for Wisconsin families.”

Of course, everything about the state budget could be thrown into an extreme level of uncertainty given Trump’s current efforts to stall or cut spending that had already been approved. About 28% of the total state budget is made up of federal funds.

“With so much happening in Washington that’s reckless and partisan, in Wisconsin, we must continue our work to be reasonable and pragmatic,” Evers said. “The needless chaos caused by the federal government in recent weeks has already made preparing a state budget that much more difficult.”