As noted in “Way #7: Mixed News for Community Health Centers and Dental Health Care” and “Way #9: Extra Cut to Tobacco Use Control Grants”, the budget bill contains cuts to a broad range of public health programs, some of which were lessened by the budget process and some worsened. However, in today’s post we will be discussing the...
In a move that saves very little money, the budget bill eliminates the ability of undocumented but otherwise qualified Wisconsin students to attend college and pay in-state tuition. The change could have a huge impact on students’ ability to attend school. In Wisconsin, undergraduate students residing in the state pay about $8,900 per...
One of the surprising changes to the budget bill was the Joint Finance Committee (JFC) amendment that makes newly unemployed workers ineligible for jobless benefits for the first week of their unemployment. It is expected to reduce benefits paid to unemployment insurance (UI) claimants by between $41 million and $56 million per year,...
Spending for collection of child support by counties will decline by $12.5 million in the 2011-13 biennium. Because counties are being squeezed fiscally from all directions, it’s highly unlikely that they will be able to offset the substantial budget cut. Milwaukee County alone estimated that it would have to cut 38 workers in 2012, or...
The budget bill increases taxes for low-income families in two ways. First, it cuts the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for families with two or more children. Second, it will gradually reduce the Homestead property tax credit by repealing the law that adjusts the size of the credit and the eligibility standards for inflation.The...
Reductions in Youth Aids Come at the Wrong TimeThe Youth Aids funding concept was established in 1980 as a way to both control state spending for juvenile correctional services and incentivize counties to develop alternatives to sending delinquent youth to the state juvenile system. Youth Aids funds are apportioned to counties based on...
The FoodShare program (also known informally as food stamps) provides a valuable source of funding for low income individuals and families to purchase food. In May 2011, more than 800,000 people in Wisconsin received FoodShare. About 0.2 percent of those individuals were lawfully present adult immigrants who have lived in the U.S. less...
The 2011-13 state budget expands the school choice program, which provides state-funded tuition vouchers for students in selected districts to attend private schools. The state will spend $27.4 million to support this expansion over the biennium, and reduce support to public schools by $10.5 million to account for these lost students,...
The state budget includes $93 million in tax cuts, virtually all of which go to corporations and high-income individuals. These tax cuts are part of the same budget that jeopardizes the state’s ability to create jobs because it relies so heavily on cutting vital services that help build a strong economy. Here’s how that $93 million in...
I stumbled across a very interesting blog post Monday on the subject of redistricting in Wisconsin. Written by Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), it examines the consequences of counting prisoners in the communities where they are incarcerated, rather than the communities that they come from. One potential effect that...
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