Proposed Budget - Fiscal Years 2026-2027
On February 18, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers presented a two-year budget for fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2027 calling for spending from all funds of $59.36 billion in fiscal 2026, a 20.1 percent increase over the fiscal 2025 adjusted base, and $59.61 billion in fiscal 2027, a 0.4 percent increase from fiscal 2026’s recommended level. The governor recommended a general purpose revenue budget of $25.49 billion in fiscal 2026, a 19.2 percent increase over the fiscal 2025 base, and $24.99 billion in fiscal 2027, a 1.9 percent decrease from fiscal 2026’s recommended level. The budget projects that total available general fund revenues and transfers will be $29.43 billion in fiscal 2026, a 6.5 percent increase from fiscal 2025, and $27.33 billion in fiscal 2027, a 7.2 percent decrease from fiscal 2026. General fund taxes are projected at $23.01 billion in fiscal 2026, a 3.4 percent increase from fiscal 2025, and $23.34 billion in fiscal 2027, a 1.4 percent increase from fiscal 2026. The net balance is projected to be $2.17 billion in fiscal 2026 and $531.3 million in fiscal 2027. The state’s Budget Stabilization Fund, or rainy day fund, entered fiscal 2025 with a balance of $1.5 billion, or approximately 8.3 percent of estimated expenditures.
Proposed Budget Highlights
In his biennial budget message, the governor announced his fiscal 2026-2027 budget will make historic investments in public education at every level, including K-12 education and the state’s higher education institutions. Earlier, in his State of the State, the governor declared 2025 the Year of the Kid in Wisconsin and urged the legislature to do what is best for kids in the budget by investing in and supporting Wisconsin’s kids both in and out of the classroom while holding the line on property taxes.
Education
- Supports the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) and the important role it plays in recruiting, training, and retaining talented workers in the state’s workforce
- Increases investments in K-12 public schools, nearly all of which is spendable revenue for schools, including the largest direct investment in state general school aids in 30 years
- Provides the largest two-year increase for the University of Wisconsin (UW) System in state history
Improving Kids’ Outcomes
- Expands access to affordable childcare and invests in Wisconsin’s childcare providers to ensure they can hire more staff, reduce wait lists, and, ultimately, lower the cost of childcare
- Improves access to quality, affordable healthcare in Wisconsin; enhances health outcomes; holds insurance companies accountable; prevents medical price gouging and surprise medical bills; and improves transparency in the health insurance industry
- Keeps Wisconsin’s kids, families, schools, and communities safe by reducing crime and preventing gun violence statewide
Tax Relief and Lowering Costs
- Holds the line on property taxes and prevents increases in tax bills on the typical Wisconsin homeowner in both years of the biennium by making meaningful investments in Wisconsin’s K-12 schools and directing property tax credits to taxpayers through the school levy tax credit
- Provides aid to local governments that agree to freeze property taxes
- Increases property tax relief programs under the individual income tax for veterans, seniors, individuals with disabilities, and others struggling to afford the property taxes on their homes
- Eliminates the tax on cash tips, ensuring individuals keep more of their hard-earned money in their pockets
- Eliminates the sales tax on everyday household items and costs, including over-the-counter medications and utility bills
- Provides meaningful tax relief for working families by enhancing the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
- Nearly doubles the personal tax exemption under the Wisconsin individual income tax
Ensuring Clean Drinking Water
- Provides funding for emergency resources like bottled water to households and communities impacted by water contamination
- Protects innocent landowners like farmers who unknowingly spread biosolids containing PFAS on their land and invests in helping clean up biosolid contamination
- Strengthens PFAS standards statewide by adopting public health-based groundwater standards for six PFAS contaminants
- Addresses lead poisoning in homes, schools, and communities across the state by investing in numerous initiatives aimed at removing lead service lines and keeping Wisconsinites’ drinking water and environment free from lead
- Expands and increases funding for the Well Compensation and Well Abandonment Grant Program to continue the Evers Administration’s work getting harmful contaminants out of private wells, including PFAS
- Reauthorizes the Stewardship Program for another 10 years to continue supporting projects that improve the state’s water quality, protect key habitats, and support investments in state and local parks and other public lands across the state