Bill > AB50

This bill enacts the executive budget for the 2025 legislature, covering state finances and appropriations. * **Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP)**: * Biodigester operator certification and regional planning grants: DATCP will provide grants for biodigester operator certification and for planning regional biodigesters. * Dairy agriculture resilience investment now grant pilot program: DATCP will create a pilot program to provide grants to dairy producers with fewer than 1,000 milking cows for projects improving operational efficiency and resilience. * Transition to grass pilot program: DATCP will provide support and grants to farmers implementing grass-based managed grazing systems and to businesses in the grass-fed livestock sector. Grants may be up to $40,000 per grantee, dispersed over three years. * Farmland preservation implementation grants: DATCP is authorized to award grants to counties to implement certified farmland preservation plans. * Sandhill crane damage reimbursement program: DATCP will administer a program to reimburse farmers up to 50% of the cost of seed treatment to deter sandhill cranes, not exceeding $6,250 per farm annually. * Value-added agricultural practices: DATCP can provide education and technical assistance for organic farming practices, collaborate with organic producers, and stimulate investment in organic production. Grants are also available for organic producers and organizations for education, plan creation, and transition assistance. * Meat processing tuition and curriculum development grants: DATCP will provide grants to universities, colleges, and technical colleges to reimburse up to 80% of tuition costs for meat processing students, capped at $7,500 per reimbursement, and for curriculum development. * Food security and Wisconsin products grant program: DATCP can provide grants to food banks, pantries, and nonprofits to purchase Wisconsin food products. * Food waste reduction pilot projects: DATCP will provide grants for pilot projects focused on preventing food waste, redirecting surplus food, and composting food waste, prioritizing low-income census tracts without grocery stores. * Farm to fork grant program: DATCP will create a program connecting entities with cafeterias (excluding school districts) to nearby farms for locally produced foods, promoting healthy eating, nutritional education, and improving farmer incomes. * Wisconsin agricultural exports program spending cap: Eliminates the $1,000,000 annual spending cap for promoting Wisconsin agricultural exports. * Agricultural conservation easement purchase program: Reinstates DATCP's requirement to solicit applications annually for agricultural conservation easements, authorizes $15,000,000 in general fund supported borrowing for easement purchases, and removes the requirement for DNR to provide funds from the stewardship program. * Commercial nitrogen optimization program: Funds the program from a new biennial segregated appropriation from the environmental fund. * Truth-in-labeling requirements: Prohibits labeling food products as milk or dairy unless they meet specific criteria related to cow's milk or hooved/camelid mammal's milk, and prohibits labeling wild rice as "traditionally harvested" unless it meets specific tribal harvesting methods. * Producer-led watershed protection grant program appropriation limit: Increases the maximum annual allocation from $1,000,000 to $1,250,000. * Agricultural enterprise area maximum acreage: Increases the maximum acreage from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 acres. * Veterinary examining board appropriation uses: Allows funds to be used for dog license tags and forms, rabies control program media campaigns, and humane officer activities. * Bonding for soil and water resource management: Increases general obligation bonding authority by $10,000,000 for grants to counties for land and water conservation activities. * **Commerce and Economic Development**: * Catastrophe savings accounts: Allows individuals to establish accounts for savings related to catastrophic events, with tax deductions for deposits. * DFI worker misclassification information: Requires the Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) to provide informational materials on worker misclassification to businesses filing formation documents. * Prohibiting discrimination in broadband: Prohibits broadband providers from denying service based on race or income, with DATCP enforcing the prohibition. * Broadband subscriber rights: Establishes requirements for broadband providers regarding service standards, speed disclosures, repair times, service interruptions credits, and advance notice for rate increases or maintenance. * Internet service provider registration: Requires ISPs to register with the Public Service Commission (PSC). * Severe thunderstorm price gouging: Prohibits residential building contractors, tree trimmers, and restoration/mitigation service providers from charging unreasonably excessive prices for labor or services related to severe thunderstorms. DATCP will promulgate rules for determining excessive prices, and DOJ may enforce with civil forfeitures. * Sales by a municipality or county of wine in a public park: Allows municipalities and counties to sell wine in public parks without an alcohol beverage license, extending the existing exception for beer. * Wisconsin Main Street Program changes: Expands eligible recipients to include tribal governments, chambers of commerce, and nonprofits; eliminates requirements for WEDC to contract with the national main street center and develop a specific plan; removes criteria for local commitment to program managers, design consultants, and training; and changes the definition of "business area" to "downtown area or historic commercial district." * Workforce housing modifications to the business development tax credit: Allows investment in workforce housing to include contributions to third parties, removing the requirement that housing be for employees. * Wage thresholds for business development and enterprise zone tax credits: Raises minimum wage thresholds for businesses contracting with WEDC after December 31, 2025, and adjusts maximum wage earnings limits. * Enterprise zone designations: Limits WEDC to designating no more than 30 enterprise zones and eliminates the JCF passive review requirement for new designations. * WEDC appropriation adjustment: Adjusts the calculation for WEDC's General Purpose Revenue (GPR) appropriation, maintaining the expenditure cap at $16,512,500 per fiscal year. * WEDC unassigned fund balance target elimination: Removes the requirement for WEDC to maintain an unassigned fund balance target of one-sixth of total administrative expenditures. * Main Street Bounceback grants: Increases WEDC spending by $50,000,000 in fiscal year 2025-26 for $10,000 grants to small businesses and nonprofits opening new locations or expanding in vacant commercial spaces. * Advanced manufacturing grants: Increases WEDC spending by $5,000,000 in fiscal year 2025-26 for matching grants to small and mid-sized manufacturers investing in advanced manufacturing technologies, with a cap of $200,000 per company and a requirement to maintain employment levels. Repayment is required if employment levels drop within 10 years, with hardship exemptions. * Green Innovation Fund funding: Increases WEDC spending by $50,000,000 in fiscal year 2025-26 to support the green innovation fund. * Forward Agriculture program funding: Increases WEDC spending by $15,000,000 in fiscal year 2025-26 for state matching funds related to federal funding for sustainable agriculture. * Accelerate Wisconsin: Increases WEDC spending by $10,000,000 in fiscal year 2025-26 to support a business accelerator program with the UW System for research into new startup businesses. * Tribal enterprise accelerator program: Increases WEDC spending by $5,000,000 in fiscal year 2025-26 for statewide technical assistance and grants to American Indian tribes for community development investment and capacity building in industries other than gaming and entertainment. * Thrive Rural Wisconsin funding accessibility: Increases WEDC spending by $5,000,000 in fiscal year 2025-26 to support WEDC's Thrive Rural Wisconsin program, providing funding to regional and tribal partners for projects in nonmetropolitan municipalities with populations under 10,000. * Financing projects for qualifying tax-exempt organizations: Requires these institutions to be located in, headquartered in, or serving a population in Wisconsin. * Financing working capital costs of certain nonprofit institutions: Authorizes WHEFA to issue bonds for these costs. * **Landlord-Tenant**: * Notification of building code violations: Eliminates the "actual knowledge" and "significant threat" conditions for landlords disclosing code violations to prospective tenants. * Local landlord-tenant ordinances, eviction moratoria, and rental property inspection requirements: Eliminates existing state prohibitions on local governments enacting ordinances related to landlord-tenant matters, eviction moratoria, and rental property inspections. * **Tourism**: * Tourism marketing funding from Indian gaming receipts: Eliminates the requirement for DOA to transfer Indian gaming receipts to the Department of Tourism for marketing, while retaining GPR and transportation fund appropriations for the same purpose. * American Indian tourism marketing: Requires DOA to award an annual grant to the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council for a program promoting tourism featuring American Indian heritage and culture. * **Correctional System**: * Earned compliance credit: Creates an earned compliance credit for time spent on extended supervision or parole, which can reduce incarceration time if extended supervision or parole is revoked. Eligibility is restricted for sex offenders and those serving sentences for specified violent crimes or crimes against children. * Earned release expansion: Expands the earned release program to include successful completion of the mother-young child care program or vocational readiness programs. DOC will determine eligibility for earned release. * Office of the Ombudsperson for Corrections: Creates an office attached to DOC, under the direction of a governor-appointed, senate-approved ombudsperson, to investigate complaints regarding facilities, abuse, unfair acts, and rights violations of prisoners and juveniles. * Contracts for temporary housing/detention: Increases the daily rate for temporary housing or detention from $60 to $80 per person per day. * Juvenile correctional system age of jurisdiction: Raises the age of juvenile court jurisdiction from 17 to 18 for criminal procedure code applicability and sentencing. * Seventeen-year-old juvenile justice aids: Creates a sum sufficient appropriation under DCF to reimburse counties for costs associated with 17-year-old juveniles alleged to have violated criminal or civil laws. * Juvenile justice reform review committee: Creates a committee within DCF to study and recommend reforms, including increasing the minimum age of delinquency, eliminating original adult court jurisdiction, modifying waiver procedures, creating extended juvenile court jurisdiction with blended sentences, prohibiting juvenile placement in detention for status offenses, sunsetting long-term post-disposition programs, creating sentence adjustment procedures for youthful offenders, and conforming life imprisonment sentences for minors with the U.S. Constitution. * Contract payments for placement of juveniles: Creates a sum sufficient GPR appropriation for DOC to make payments under contracts for juvenile placement, limited to $20,000,000 annually and sunsetting on July 1, 2029. * Juveniles placed at Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center: Requires DOC to reimburse DHS only for services provided to juveniles under DOC supervision transferred to MJTC. * Daily rates for juvenile correctional services: Continues the daily rate of $1,268 for juveniles in Type 1 facilities or inpatient treatment until June 30, 2027. * Youth aids allocations: Updates youth aids funding allocations for the 2025-27 biennium, eliminating specific allocations for emergencies, alcohol/drug abuse treatment, and community supervision purchases from DOC, and replacing them with the youth justice system improvement program. * Youth aids administration: Changes the carry-forward of unspent youth aids from two calendar years to transferring 10% of unspent funds to the youth justice system improvement program. * **Courts and Procedure**: * Office of the Marshals of the Supreme Court: Creates an office with marshals who are law enforcement officers with statewide jurisdiction, responsible for protective services, security assessments, and safety support for the state court system. * Circuit court payments: Requires the director of state courts to make additional payments to circuit courts, including a payment available only to counties operating alternatives to prosecution and incarceration programs starting January 1, 2027. * Circuit court branches: Adds two additional circuit court branches for Brown County on August 1, 2026. * Special prosecutors and State Public Defender compensation: Changes special prosecutor compensation to match current private attorney rates and increases private bar reimbursement rates for cases involving violent crimes. * Increase in deputy district attorney allocation: Increases the number of deputy district attorneys allowed in prosecutorial units with populations between 200,000 and 750,000 from three to four. * Privacy protection for federal judicial officers: Extends privacy protections to current and former federal district judges, magistrate judges, and bankruptcy judges in Wisconsin. * Sharing information regarding potential jurors: Requires DOT to transmit lists to the director of state courts and federal district courts, and requires the director of state courts to use this information for master jury lists. * Qui tam actions for false claims: Restores private individuals' authority to bring qui tam claims for false claims to state agencies, expanding it beyond medical assistance. A private individual may be awarded up to 30% of recovered moneys. * Expungement: Removes the age 25 crime commission limit for expungement, makes certain crimes ineligible, allows courts to prohibit expungement, and allows petitions for expungement after sentence completion. Changes apply retroactively to convictions before the bill's effective date. * Immunity for certain controlled substances offenses: Permanently restores expanded immunities from 2017 Wisconsin Act 33 for individuals seeking assistance for controlled substance overdoses. * Alternatives to prosecution for disorderly conduct: Requires prosecutors to offer deferred prosecution agreements or ordinance violation stipulations for first-time disorderly conduct offenders, provided certain conditions are met. * **Education**: * Per pupil revenue limit adjustment: Adjusts the per pupil adjustment for school districts starting in the 2026-27 school year to account for inflation. * Low revenue ceiling: Increases the per pupil revenue ceiling to $12,000 for the 2025-26 school year and $12,400 for subsequent years, and eliminates the provision for revenue ceilings based on failed operating referendums. * Revenue limits; personal property tax repeal aid: Adds personal property tax repeal aid to the definition of "state aid" for school district revenue limits. * Special adjustment aid: Increases the guaranteed general equalization aid to at least 90% of the previous year's amount. * Counting four-year-old kindergarten pupils: Counts full-day, five-day-a-week 4K pupils as one pupil for state aid and revenue limit purposes. * Per pupil aid: Increases the per pupil aid amount to $800 in 2025-26 and $850 thereafter, and requires DPI to pay a second amount of per pupil aid based on the number of economically disadvantaged pupils. * Funding for special education and school-age parents programs: Changes reimbursement for eligible costs to 60% of eligible costs after hospital and convalescent home costs are paid. * High-cost special education aid: Changes reimbursement for aidable costs from a sum certain appropriation to a sum sufficient appropriation, reimbursing 90% of aidable costs at a rate of 40%. * Sparsity aid: Increases sparsity aid payment amounts to $500 per pupil for districts with less than 10 pupils per square mile and not exceeding 745 pupils, and $200 per pupil for districts between 745 and 1,000 pupils. Also expands eligibility for sparsity aid stop-gap payments. * Pupil transportation aid: Increases aid payments for pupils residing more than 12 miles from school from $400 to $450 per pupil, beginning in the 2025-26 school year. * High cost transportation aid eligibility: Lowers the eligibility criterion for per pupil transportation costs from exceeding 140% to 135% of the statewide average. * Supplemental nutrition aid: Creates a categorical aid to reimburse educational agencies for school meals provided to pupils eligible for reduced-price lunches or who do not qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. * School breakfast program: Expands eligibility for reimbursement to include independent charter schools, the Wisconsin Educational Services Program for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the Wisconsin Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and residential care centers for children and youth. Prohibits reimbursement for schools that ceased operations, except for school districts. * School mental health and pupil wellness; categorical aid: Expands eligible expenditures for reimbursement to include spending on school counselors, social workers, psychologists, and nurses, and eliminates the requirement for increased spending to be eligible. * Aid for comprehensive school mental health services: Replaces the current grant program with new categorical aid, reimbursing costs for mental health services up to the greater of $100,000 or $100 per pupil. * Peer-to-peer suicide prevention grants: Increases the maximum annual grant amount from $1,000 to $6,000. * Mental health training programs: Expands the program to include training on any evidence-based strategy related to mental health and suicide prevention in schools and requires training for out-of-school-time program employees. * Aid for English language acquisition: Creates a new categorical aid of $500 per economically disadvantaged pupil enrolled in the previous year, in addition to existing aid. * Early literacy summer reading programs: Requires DPI to reimburse school boards and independent charter schools for providing intensive summer reading programs. * Financial literacy curriculum grants: Requires DPI to award grants for developing, implementing, or improving financial literacy curricula, prioritizing innovative curricula. * Computer science education grants: Requires DPI to award annual grants to school districts for expanding computer science educational opportunities. * Aid for career and technical education: Creates a categorical aid for school districts and independent charter schools to increase high school career and technical education pathways, with aid distributed proportionally based on high school enrollment. * Water bottle filling station grants: Requires DPI to award grants to school districts and independent charter schools to modify water fountains. * Tribal language revitalization grants: Expands eligibility for grants to include independent charter schools. * Grants