The Joint Finance Committee (JFC) took up the Medicaid-related programs Tuesday evening and approved most of the Governor’s proposals. In doing so, the committee cleared the way for deep cuts in Medicaid and BadgerCare and a sharp increase in the number of uninsured state residents. As the Governor recommended, the bill will require the...
Over many years of working in juvenile justice, I found that people outside the system (and some inside as well who would express dire predictions like “..watch out, this summer will be really bad") assumed that summer would be a high time for juvenile arrests and detentions. Yet our own internal data as well as anecdotal information...
The Wisconsin Budget Project has updated its comparative budget summary to include actions taken by the Joint Finance Committee through last week. The summary includes information about what the Governor has proposed and what action Joint Finance has taken so far, as well as links to other relevant information. Reading this summary is...
One of the more contentious debates about the relationship between crime and incarceration has centered on what the nature of the link is between increased/decreased crime rates and increased/decreased rates of incarceration. Does locking more people up reduce crime? Is there a demonstrable or direct relationship between the two?The...
A paper released yesterday by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families highlights the devastating effect that one of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ (DHS) possible “unspecified cuts” could have on families. The paper examines the real impact of raising BadgerCare premiums to 3 or 4% of a family’s income....
In the days and weeks leading up to the introduction of his biennial budget proposal, Gov. Walker repeatedly pointed to the need for “shared sacrifice.” Once the Governor’s budget was unveiled, however, it quickly became clear that the sacrifice his budget calls for is not shared equally. A disproportionate amount of the sacrifice is...
The Joint Finance Committee is scheduled to meet twice next week --Tuesday, May 24th and Thursday, May 26th. Both executive sessions are supposed to begin at 11 AM in Room 412 East in the State Capitol. On Tuesday, the committee is scheduled to vote on issues related to the Department of Health Services (including Medicaid-related...
Earlier today the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Omer Ninham's life without parole. Ninham was only 14 (1998) when he committed the crime and was sentenced to life without parole in 2000. There have been advances in our understanding of adolescent brain development since his life sentence was imposed. For example MRI studies which show...
WCCF, in collaboration with Citizen Action of WI, the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future, and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, has unveiled the Wisconsin Values Budget, an alternative to the Walker budget proposal based on a balanced approach to the state’s fiscal challenges. The Values Budget rejects the notion that the state has “no...
School districts are slated to take significant cuts in state aid in the 2011-13 biennial budget. In addition, the proposed budget would require most school districts to reduce the amount of property tax revenue they raise within their districts.The Wisconsin Budget Project devoted two blog posts this week (here and here) to a new...
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