You’ve never seen a Wisconsin state budget like this. Here’s why.

With unprecedented speed, a bipartisan bill passes the Senate and Assembly and gets the governor’s signature—all in one night to avoid looming federal budget cuts.

The Wisconsin state budget for 2025-27 felt like an old, ugly car stuck on a Madison railroad crossing—a two-toned ‘75 Chevrolet El Camino, a mishmash of car and pickup truck cobbled together with a sputtering engine—that somehow managed to speed off the tracks just ahead of an oncoming freight train from Washington, DC.

Gaining speed Wednesday night after bipartisan votes in the Assembly and the Senate, the budget bill roared across the finish line at 1:30 a.m. Thursday it got a signature from Gov. Tony Evers—unprecedented for all and unsatisfying for many.

Between the two chambers, the 48 Democrats who voted “no“ far outnumbered their 12 colleagues who supported what Evers negotiated with Republican legislative leaders. A flurry of press releases tore into Republicans for rushing the process, shortchanging school funding, and ignoring many other pleas made by the public on healthcare, childcare, and more.

But Evers and the lawmakers who voted yes pointed to what they believed could fairly be described as the politically proverbial half a loaf—large increases in special education funding and the Universities of Wisconsin System, more than $1 billion in tax cuts, and other spending increases that would not have happened if there were no new budget and the old one continued indefinitely.

“This budget is also a reflection of bipartisan compromise,” said Evers. “That means everyone gets something they want, and no one gets everything they want. I spent months working together with Republican leaders to reach common ground and find consensus.”

The bipartisan agreement was only about 24 hours old when a sense of urgency hit lawmakers. Congress was moving faster than many expected to pass President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda—a little engine that could, nearly jumping the tracks several times before “deficit hawk” Republicans chickened out and climbed aboard a load of tax breaks for the very wealthy and a burned a coal car full of spending cuts for the middle class. 

The federal bill has something that put the state budget bill in jeopardy—a state provider tax on hospitals, currently 1.8%. Wisconsin had resisted increasing the tax, even though it would be matched by federal dollars in order to support healthcare programs. Sensing the oncoming federal cuts, legislators moved quickly to raise it to the maximum level of 6%—because on top of all of the other federal cuts, the bill has language that would’ve barred states from hiking the tax once it became law. The race was on.

Wisconsin won. Evers signed the measure only a short time before Republican holdouts caved and provided the votes Trump needed for a signing ceremony on July 4.

“We want our health care system to be in good shape, and in order to do that, we’re going to need help from the federal government,” Evers told journalists from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other outlets in the late-night signing. “And whatever we can do before they pass … the federal budget, we will be able to access help from them to keep our hospitals afloat. It’s absolutely critical for us to do that.”

With a fiscal collision avoided, Democrats will use their dissatisfaction over what didn’t make it into the final state budget bill as a vehicle for 2026. Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) provides one of many examples of the Democratic messages going out to voters in an effort to win control of the Legislature next year.

“We had an opportunity to use our projected revenue and $4 billion surplus to invest in what folks in my district and throughout Wisconsin have pleaded for— adequate funding for our public schools, affordable childcare, affordable housing, stewardship, and mental health services. Republicans have opted, as they have again and again, to starve public schools, underfund higher-ed, kick new moms off of healthcare, and grossly underfund the needs multiple agencies have stressed are necessary to continue to serve the people of this state.”

Racers, start your engines.