The Joint Finance Committee last night green-lighted Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to drug test Medicaid recipients, adopting a GOP motion that also left intact many of the other changes to both Medicaid and food stamps the guv was pushing for. In addition to making Wisconsin the first state to require

A GOP omnibus motion on the Department of Health Services that would modify the guv’s call to require able-bodied adults with school-aged children to meet work requirements to remain eligible for food stamps. The motion also would approve re-estimates of general purpose revenue costs for some Medicaid programs. That includes

The Joint Finance Committee motion on UW that passed 12-4 today adopts performance-based funding for the UW System but in a much different way. For one, that model wouldn’t start in 2017-18 as Walker had called for and instead start a year later. Nygren said it’s “gonna take [UW] a

The Joint Finance Committee today argued over whether Republicans are adding funding toward UW or cutting it. The committee passed 12-4 an omnibus motion on UW that freezes tuition again, adds performance funding for the UW System and makes some investments that Gov. Scott Walker hadn’t called for in his

The Joint Finance Committee today rejected Dem efforts to make tuition free at the two-year UW Colleges and add $500 million to the UW System to make up for past GOP cuts. The omnibus GOP motion the committee is taking up today adds investments to the UW System. But Dems hammered Republican

The Joint Finance Committee plans to take up the Department of Corrections, DNR and the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority when it meets next Wednesday. Committee members are also planning to take on the Supreme Court, district attorneys, the Investment Board, Tourism and Workforce Development when they convene at 2 p.m. Also

The Joint Finance Committee is expected to reject Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to cut tuition and instead opt for continuing the freeze for in-state undergrads. Walker had proposed keeping the freeze for the next year and then cutting tuition by 5 percent in 2018-19 while backfilling that with $35 million

The Joint Finance Committee recessed for today and plans to take up the UW System portion of the biennial budget on Thursday, according to Co-chair Alberta Darling. The committee had pushed off today’s scheduled votes on UW, as Republicans continue to disagree over whether they’ll sign off on Walker’s proposed tuition cut for

The Joint Finance Committee today unanimously approved Walker’s call to ease the “benefit cliff” that families face with the state’s childcare subsidy program. Now, families earning up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $37,777 for a family of three, are eligible for the subsidy. Once eligible,

The Joint Finance Committee approved 12-4 Walker’s plan to sanction parents in W-2 programs whose children are habitually absent from school. Currently, W-2 participants can be sanctioned if they fail to enroll their child in school. According to the Legislative Reference Bureau, there has been one such sanction issued since

The Joint Finance Committee today signed off on Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to expand drug testing and use a more stringent screen in the W-2 program. The state already screens and tests non-custodial parents in the program, as well as those who have been convicted of a drug-related felony. The

The committee rejected Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to create a public campaign to encourage young people to graduate high school, maintain a full-time job and then wait to have children until they’re married and older than 21. Walker had proposed $500,000 annually in federal money for the “success sequence” campaign.

The committee unanimously rejected Gov. Scott Walker’s call to end $500,000 annually in federal money for grants of up to $75,000 to programs that provide legal services for low-income families related to domestic violence, sexual abuse, restraining orders, and injunctions. The money was sunsetted in the 2015-17 budget for June