MADISON, WI – Today, the CAP Times published an article revealing that the Joint Finance Committee, led by Republican co-chairs Senator Howard Marklein and Rep. Mark Born, slashed the proposed Division of Vocational Rehabilitation budget, despite warnings that insufficient funding would do long-term damage to the livelihoods and futures of thousands of disabled Wisconsinites.

The article specifies that despite the urgency conveyed by Governor Evers and the LFB, Senator Marklein and the Joint Finance Committee approved a budget that left the vocational program $7 million short of the recommendation, $2.4 million less than the previous biennium. The resulting funding shortfall forced DVR to place more than 7,600 Wisconsinites with disabilities on a waitlist for career services.

SSDC Communications Director Will Karcz on Sen. Marklein turning his back on Wisconsinites with disabilities:

“Howard Marklein talks a big game about investing in Wisconsin and his district. He claims to have supported rural healthcare, yet we’ve seen hospitals in his district close their doors. He claims to have invested in public education, yet we’ve seen schools in his district close their doors. Now thousands of Wisconsinites with disabilities are without work because Howard Marklein refused to fund the program allowing them to work. Wisconsin deserves better than Marklein and his empty promises.”

The CAP Times: Wisconsin wait-listed thousands of disabled job seekers

  • “Last year, the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted for a two-year vocational rehab budget that was $7 million less than recommended and $2.4 million less than the previous biennium — despite demand for services being higher than previous years, and despite warnings that insufficient funding would catapult the program into crisis.”
  • “Evers, in his funding request to the Republican-controlled Legislature, was made aware that anything less than $28 million risked a significant service waitlist. That urgency, conveyed both by him and the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, was communicated to the Joint Finance Committee. Still, the committee allocated only $21 million.”
  • “Crucially, a majority of the funding, about 79%, comes from federal dollars, and the total hinges on what the state is able to match. The division needed $131.5 million in combined funds to cover two years of services. It got $96 million.”
  • “About half of disabled Wisconsinites are employed. Despite representing just 11% of the population, nearly a quarter live in poverty, according to the 2025 Annual Disability Statistics Compendium, produced by a University of New Hampshire institute.”
  • “New federal workforce requirements for Medicaid begin in January, meaning tens of thousands of Wisconsin residents will no longer be eligible for public healthcare without showing a history of employment.”
  • “KFF, the nonprofit, nonpartisan health organization, has projected the uninsured population in Wisconsin will grow by roughly 76,000 more people by 2034 following federal policy changes to health insurance, including workforce requirements.”
  • “If people with disabilities in Wisconsin are stuck on a waitlist for employment services come January — and thousands still will be — they risk losing the Medicaid assistance that keeps them afloat.”
  • “‘When a lot of people think of benefits, they might think of a simple check that comes once a month. For me, it’s all-encompassing: It pays my caregivers, it pays for my ventilator, my wheelchair, my medical supplies, really everything that sustains my very life, it covers,’ Weise said. ‘And those are things that I obviously would not be able to afford out of pocket, so not knowing how those benefits are impacted is really scary, and can actually be life-threatening.’”
  • “It didn’t have to be this way. But, in what’s become a tired narrative for too many self-advocates in the disability community, Republican legislators hardly have this group in mind come budget season.”
  • “‘They had the materials that showed what the impact of insufficient funding would be, and then they still chose a funding level that was insufficient,’ Haley McCoy, communications director for the state Department of Workforce Development, said.”
  • “The problem is, the recipe for assistance that makes it through the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee already has a few missing ingredients. Stripping away more — in the form of Medicaid cuts, home- and community-based services, and other disability service funds — puts the independence of nearly 800,000 Wisconsinites with disabilities at risk.”
  • “Changes from President Donald Trump’s budget reconciliation package signed into law last year mean Wisconsin is projected to lose $7 billion in Medicaid funding over the next decade, according to the nonprofit Protect Our Care.”
  • “The Cap Times Editorial Board reached out to state Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, and state Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, who co-chair the Joint Finance Committee, to learn whether the effects of underfunding the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation have changed their stances on funding disability services.”
  • “Neither Marklein nor Born responded to the Cap Times’ inquiries“