MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers sent another letter in a series of letters to every member of Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation, urging bipartisan opposition to provisions in President Donald J. Trump’s proposed Federal Fiscal Year 2027 (FFY27) budget that would have devastating impacts on Wisconsin’s workforce, higher education institutions, and public K-12 schools statewide. The governor’s latest letter comes as congressional committees in Washington are expected to continue their work marking up the federal budget with the goal of finalizing the budget by the end of the current federal fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2026.

“My administration has spent eight years trying to undo decades of disinvestment in public education, and now, thanks to our efforts, Wisconsin schools are back in the top ten after falling to 18th,” said Gov. Evers. “We got our state through the worst economic crisis in over a decade after the pandemic, and not only did our workforce bounce back, it came back stronger, with consistently low unemployment, record-high employment, and record job creation rates. Now, the president and his administration are back again with a budget that tries to cut our state’s hard work and progress at the knees. We cannot let the Trump Administration stymie our efforts to keep our kids, school, and economy moving forward, and I am imploring our Congressional leaders to do the right thing and oppose these harmful proposals.”  

A summarized list of the concerns outlined in Gov. Evers’ latest letter in opposition to the president’s proposed FFY27 budget includes:Strengthening the Workforce: President Trump’s proposed budget would:  Reduce the U.S. Department of Labor’s discretionary funding by nearly 26 percent from $13.3 billion to $9.9 billion;  For Wisconsin, that translates to an estimated reduction of up to $11.7 million in federal funding, jeopardizing essential programming that has helped support our state’s workforce and economy. Eliminate distinct funding sources for long-standing training and employment services, including the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and Apprenticeship programs, and lumps them into one block grant with significantly reduced funding by 26 percent; Allocate zero dollars for Supported Employment grants, which enable individuals with significant disabilities to receive tailored support to help them succeed in the workforce; Slash funding for the AmeriCorps program, jeopardizing efforts that make communities from every corner of the state stronger, safer, and more resilient; andHold unemployment insurance (UI) compensation administration funding flat at FFY26 levels, a baseline that is already inadequate.Supporting Higher Education and Training:  President Trump’s proposed budget eliminates the grants and campus jobs that help working families afford college, ends the programs that help first-generation students get there at all, strips support from the colleges that serve them, and slashes the federal research that Wisconsin’s universities turn into jobs and innovation, such as:    Zeroing out the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, a $910 million program that sends additional aid to students with the greatest financial need, awarding up to $4,000 a year that helps cover tuition, books, and the everyday costs that can decide whether a student stays enrolled; Gutting Federal Work-Study, cutting it significantly from $1.23 billion to $123 million and pushing 90 percent of student wages onto employers and colleges, a change that would end most of the part-time campus jobs students rely on to pay their own way; Eliminating the Child Care Access Means Parents in School program, a $75 million program that, since 1999, has funded campus child care so a parent can finish a degree instead of dropping out; Eliminating the TRIO programs and GEAR UP, which start working with students long before they apply, walking them through financial aid, campus visits, and everything they need to know, but may not have anyone to explain; Eliminating the Strengthening Institutions Program, which sends direct funding to under-resourced colleges, including many of the community and technical colleges that serve large numbers of low-income and Pell-eligible students;  Zeroing out the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, a $136 million program that colleges use to test and scale the ideas that help more students graduate; Ending graduate fellowships known as Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need, which help Wisconsin universities train the next generation of experts in high-need fields by backing talented students who could not otherwise afford an advanced degree;  Eliminating more than $600 million in healthcare workforce programs that universities use to train the doctors and nurses that Wisconsin’s rural hospitals already struggle to recruit; Cutting the National Institutes of Health by roughly $5 billion; Cutting National Science Foundation funding from $8.8 billion to $4 billion; Cutting the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality by $129 million; and Cutting the Department of Energy’s Office of Science by 15 percent. Investing in Students and Public Schools: At the center of the president’s proposal is a plan to sweep up 17 existing K-12 programs into a single new block grant. This comes as the Trump Administration continues harmful, reckless efforts to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education altogether.  Those existing programs, which today carries $6.5 billion in dedicated funding, would be consolidated into a single $2 billion block grant, a reduction of roughly $4.5 billion.  In addition to that consolidation, the budget proposal eliminates 12 more programs outright, eliminating an additional $2.1 billion.  All told, President Trump’s proposal would strip roughly $6.6 billion from dedicated K-12 programs. The Evers Administration is continuing to analyze the impacts of President Trump’s budget proposal on other state agencies and programs that Wisconsinites depend on every day and anticipates releasing further analyses as they become available. 

The letter from Gov. Evers to every member of Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation is attached.
 
An online version of this release is available here.