The Joint Finance Committee passed today on putting new state money into broadband expansion grants as majority Republicans said they planned to rely on coming federal dollars instead for the work.

WEDC would have to find $4 million in its existing appropriations to cover efforts to attract and retain talent, under a motion the Joint Finance Committee approved along party lines.

The Joint Finance Committee voted along party lines to pay for new technology at the Department of Revenue to improve delinquent tax collections. The committee also passed on Gov. Tony Evers’ call to add auditor positions at the agency’s debt collection operation. Also, the committee decided to keep 38 auditors as project positions rather than making them permanent jobs.

The Joint Finance Committee voted today to require the Department of Veterans Affairs to hire an outside contractor to study the troubled State Veterans Home at King to find ways to improve residents’ quality of life.

The Joint Finance Committee voted along party lines to increase state funding for youth apprenticeship grants and career and technical education programs in school districts to help address the state’s workforce shortage.

The Joint Finance Committee voted unanimously today to give state prosecutors and public defenders a pay raise of $8.76 an hour — equal to $18,221 a year — as both fight vacancy rates that advocates say have led to slowdowns in the criminal justice system.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau today projected state tax collections through mid-2025 would come in $755.1 million lower than what the agency expected just four months ago.

The Joint Finance Committee today voted to invest $7 million in state money to help produce more psychiatrists and another $2 million to expand programs that help teach effective parenting techniques and seek to prevent child abuse. The $7 million for the Medical College of Wisconsin matches the amount of

Gov. Tony Evers threatened today to veto a GOP shared revenue bill, saying it doesn’t send enough resources to local governments and includes too many restrictions on how they operate.

The GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee stripped 545 of Dem Gov. Tony Evers’ priorities from the state budget, nixing items that range from legalizing marijuana to expanding Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act.

The GOP-run Joint Finance Committee plans to pull 545 of Dem Gov. Tony Evers’ proposals from the budget, nixing items that range from putting $240 million of state money into a new paid family and medical leave program to capping co-pays on insulin.

Assembly Republicans today will formally roll out details of their plan to dedicate one penny of the state’s 5-cent sales tax to shared revenue while allowing Milwaukee and Milwaukee County to each impose new sales taxes.

In rejecting the money, Republicans decried what they said was a mismanagement of the project by the Department of Natural Resources and outright deceit.

Wisconsinites would see a net increase in taxes and fees of more than $108 million under Gov. Tony Evers’ budget, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The Joint Finance Committee has invited four of Gov. Tony Evers’ cabinet secretaries to present testimony on their agency budgets and field questions from members.

The Joint Finance Committee will take public testimony on the state budget during four hearings around the state, starting April 5 in Waukesha. That will be followed by an April 11 hearing in Eau Claire, April 12 in the Wisconsin Dells and April 26 in Minocqua.

Gov. Tony Evers today proposed a $3.8 billion capital budget and financing half of the projects with cash instead of borrowing.

Dem Gov. Tony Evers tonight will issue a call for cooperation as he hands off his budget to the GOP-controlled state Legislature, telling lawmakers their work can’t be “hindered by partisanship.”