Report: Wisconsin Tax Collections Projections Come in Lower Than Expected

Wisconsin state tax collections over the next three years are projected to come in more than three-quarters of a billion dollars lower than expected, according to a new report from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. 

Republican lawmakers say the revised projections further underscore their efforts to remake a more fiscally responsible biennial budget out of Democrat Governor Tony Evers’ big-spending proposal. 

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Report: Wisconsin Schools Directing Largest Share of Federal COVID Aid to Construction Projects

A new report shows Wisconsin schools are marking a significant amount for federal COVID relief on construction projects, outpacing planned pandemic aid for core educational and mental health programs.  

The Institute for Reforming Government’s updated K-12 COVID relief Audit found some $265 million of the current $1.49 billion in taxpayer funds allocated is going to construction.

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Wisconsin Schools Allocate Millions in Stimulus Dollars After Report on Slow Progress

Wisconsin schools have double the amount of coronavirus stimulus money they plan to spend in just the past two months.

Quinton Klabon, senior research director for the Institute for Reforming Government, says schools across Wisconsin rushed to allocate millions of dollars in ESSER III money after IRG reported in late January that most of the state’s $1.5 billion in stimulus cash was just lying around.

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Think Tank Unveils Market-Oriented Recommendations for Wisconsin Healthcare System

The Institute for Reforming Government (IRG), a Delafield-based free-market think tank, this week released a report detailing several reforms to improve Wisconsin’s healthcare system. 

A major problem the document tackles is the state’s anticipated shortage of 2,263 physicians by 2035. Areas expected to be especially underserved are those west of Milwaukee, northwest of Madison, east of Lake Winnebago and in various locales along the state’s northern border. 

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Think Tank Issues New Recommendations to Cut and Modernize Wisconsin Government

The Delafield-based Institute for Reforming Government (IRG) on Tuesday issued a report listing ways the free-market research group believes Wisconsin’s state government can become leaner and more responsive. 

Titled “Reimagining Wisconsin Government for the 21st Century,” the document is the product of a year and half of research. It proposes the kind of decentralization that Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has suggested for the federal government by moving some of the public workforce out of Washington, D.C. so it can more closely work with local communities. 

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Evers Budget Hurts Wisconsin Job Creators, Middle Class, Think Tank Says

The nonprofit Institute for Reforming Government (IRG) on Friday issued a comprehensive analysis of Democratic Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’s 2023-25 state budget and bemoaned the proposal’s likely impact on job creators and the middle class.

Evers’s spending plan totals $104 billion, $16 billion more than the budget on which the Badger State now operates. If enacted, the new proposal would be the first state budget exceeding $100 billion. It includes massive spending increases in such areas as public education, childcare assistance, “affordable housing” and broadband expansion. Republican lawmakers, who object to the extent of the spending hikes and the governor’s refusal to devote more of the state’s $7.1 billion surplus to tax cuts, promised last week to thoroughly rewrite the plan. 

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Wisconsin Has a Lot of Federal COVID Money on the Table, Much of It Not Properly Documented

As Gov. Tony Evers prepares to introduce his next biennial budget proposal, his administration can’t say how they have allocated a significant portion of the federal COVID aid Evers has nearly complete control over.

And as the governor calls for billions more in education spending, a new report shows there’s a massive amount of federal education aid the state has yet to approve for spending.

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Milwaukee-Based Free-Market Think Tank Expands with New Madison Office

The Badger Institute, a free-market think tank that has operated in Milwaukee for since 1987, is expanding with a new office near the state Capitol. 

While the policy-research center, known in its early days as the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, will keep its principal headquarters in Cream City, its educational consultant Jim Bender and communications vice president Michael Jahr will staff the new Madison office. Badger leadership expect the new capital-city presence to bolster the think tank’s government-relations efforts. 

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