MILWAUKEE— The state of Wisconsin currently has a surplus of $4 Billion. With such a surplus, many Wisconsin residents want to see that money put to public use.
On Tuesday night at Thirve on King, Milwaukee area residents talked with Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers and his staff to address issues that should be covered as part of the new executive budget.
Residents were split into sic groups discussing issues ranging from a strong economy, building 21st century infrastructure, climate change and the environment, protecting and expanding healthcare access, strong and safe communities and what’s best for children.
Of the groups that gained the most people, expanding healthcare access and investment towards children won out.
Patrick Hintz is a school board member for the South Milwaukee school district and says more needs to be done towards funding public education and special education programs across Wisconsin.
“Public education since Act 10 has not even kept up with inflation for investment,” said Hintz. “We’re already $3,000 per pupil per each year in that aid. So we had to go for a 5-year non-recurring referendum at $2 million dollars per year. If we would have had 45% or 50% of our special education reimbursement aid, we would not have had to gone to referendum just like other districts.”
Rebecca Vest with Citizen Action Wisconsin says more should be done with funding and expanding healthcare in Wisconsin.
“If we accepted the expansion for Medicaid, we could $438 million dollars and over two years, we could have $1.7 billion more coming from the Federal government to help us cover those costs,” said Vest. “With that, we could do a lot to improve Medicaid reimbursement rates and it would be good for providers and good for patients.”
Governor Evers accepted that education and healthcare funding was the primary focus for many people that needed to be addressed further in state funds.
One issue that Evers was surprised by was a strong support for more funding of state parks run by the DNR in the Milwaukee area.
“Obviously there are all sorts of other things that are state is faced with, including Milwaukee in many cases is a good way to describe some of the things that happen across the state.”
The deadline for the 2025-2027 executive budget is July of 2025, but Evers hopes that with the public comments he gets from the public, more will be done to address concerns in Wisconsin and more funds will go towards programs that need it the most.
