A report released Wednesday by the Department of Public Instruction provides the best data yet on the effects to schools of the changes made in the budget repair and biennial budget bills. As the department’s press release noted, 73 percent of Wisconsin’s school districts cut teachers during the 2011-12 school year. In response to...
Wisconsin’s supply of regulated family child care providers is rapidly diminishing, according to WCCF’s analysis. The decline is clear for both licensed family child centers and for smaller family child care programs certified to receive Wisconsin Shares child care subsidy funding.Steep Drop in Licensed Family Child Care...
Do you think you know a lot about government revenue? Perhaps, but take a minute or two to find out by taking a quick look at a few new resources from the Wisconsin Budget Project and others.Test your knowledge of taxes and spending in Wisconsin – The WI Budget Project has prepared an updated and abbreviated version of our tax and...
The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, was in Madison on Wednesday and delivered some great news for children, although the story has largely escaped media attention. Following a small meeting about benefits of the health care reform law for women, Secretary Sebelius met with a few reporters and was...
On Monday April 9, Governor Walker signed Act 270 which permits the disclosure and sharing of more juvenile court information contained in the Consolidated Court Automation Program (CCAP) with many more parties in the juvenile system, including municipal courts, guardian ad litems, prosecutors, and attorneys representing children/youth....
Last year, we reported on House Budget Committee Chairman (and Wisconsinite) Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity Medicaid block grant, and the damage it would have done to state budgets and numbers of uninsured people. Fortunately, the Senate kept it from being enacted. Last week the Housed passed a similar bill, on a nearly party line vote,...
Klein Contends Congress Can’t Cut without Consequences Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is the federal block grant that was created about 15 years ago to replace the old welfare system (Aid to Families with Dependent Children). It has been getting a bit more attention in recent weeks because Paul Ryan and other Republicans...
The national job numbers released today help illustrate a worrisome trend that Wisconsin has been experiencing. Although job growth is only barely keeping up with population growth, the unemployment rate is dropping because many workers are deciding to drop out of the workforce. Once they are no longer actively looking for...
Considering that conservative Wisconsin voters seemed to have more reason to go to the polls yesterday than liberals, I figured that school referenda were more likely to be defeated. Thus, I was surprised to learn that nearly three-quarters of school referenda on the ballot won approval yesterday, when voters okayed more than $140...
The regular 2011-12 legislative session ended in March, and it looks very unlikely now that legislators will come back anytime in the next few months for a special session. That makes it a good time to take stock of what happened to various bills introduced this session. Today we posted on our website an overview of most of the...
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