Delivering his eighth and final State of the State address from the State Capitol Tuesday night, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called on lawmakers to make his last year in office a productive one by passing legislation he has sought.
Evers, who is not running for a third term, called on the Republican-controlled Legislature to work with him to increase public school funding, expand early child care for working parents, and pass legislation to prevent domestic and intimate partner violence.
During the hour-long address, he also announced several new initiatives, and he said the state’s internship and workforce training programs must prepare workers for advances in artificial intelligence.
In the Republican response delivered afterward, state Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, said the Republican-led Legislature deserves most of the credit for Wisconsin’s strong state and called for returning much of the state’s $2.5 billion surplus to the taxpayers.
The year ahead
Evers began by highlighting his administration’s accomplishments over the past seven years, including record investments in public education, rebuilding the state’s road infrastructure, expanding tax credits to help lower the cost of early child care for working families, and ending every fiscal year with a positive budget balance.
Then the two-term governor turned to what he would like to accomplish in his final year in office, and some of it is unfinished business.
Evers said a decade of Republicans consistently failing to meaningfully invest in kids and K-12 schools has consequences.
“Wisconsinites have been going to referendum in high numbers for years, raising their own property taxes just to keep their school lights on,” he said. “That started long before I became governor (in 2019).”
Evers said funding schools is a responsibility that state and local partners share, and local property taxes go up when the state fails to do its part to meet its obligation.
The governor devoted parts of the address defending his controversial 400-year veto, which extends a $325-per-pupil annual school revenue limit increase for 400 years, locking in funding until 2425.
It’s a measure he feels is needed to address past underfunding of K-12 education. Republicans say it is driving up property taxes.
Evers said the 400-year veto isn’t the driver of property tax increases that Republicans claim because that isn’t how school funding works in Wisconsin. The Legislature, he said, has rejected over $7 billion for K-12 schools he has requested over the last four state budgets.
“I get Republicans want to blame my 400-year veto for property taxes going up. Why? Politics, of course,” he said. “Republicans running under fair maps need someone else to blame for failing to fund our schools at the levels I’ve asked them to for about two decades of my life.”
Evers also addressed workforce development, saying that if Wisconsin wants to continue to compete and be a leader in new and innovative industries, it must invest in workforce training.
He said his administration worked to secure over $7 million to launch new workforce training programs focused on developing the advanced manufacturing and AI workforce in Wisconsin, and he urged lawmakers to continue that focus.
“Folks, AI is here to stay,” Evers said. “So, making sure Wisconsin is prepared to create jobs for the future and meet the rapidly evolving needs of a 21st-century economy must be a top priority.”
For the fourth year in a row, he said Wisconsin’s Registered Apprenticeship program set a new record high of 18,524 apprentices enrolled, and more than 3,095 employers participated in the program in 2025.
Evers also said the state could be doing much more to address domestic and intimate partner violence.
He called on Republicans to make the Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention permanent and blasted them for voting against his request to provide $66 million for Victims of Crime Act programs, many of which help survivors of domestic violence and their families.
“These statistics get me really wound up,” he said. “Domestic violence homicides in Wisconsin jumped by 20% between 2021 and 2022 — 20%. We hit a new record high of 96 Wisconsinites murdered in domestic and intimate partner violence incidents. That record only lasted until 2024, when 99 Wisconsinites were killed.
“I urge the Legislature to send bills to my desk to codify the Office of Violence Prevention and fund Victims of Crime Act programs,” he said. “Do the right thing and get this done.”
On tax relief, Evers said thanks to bipartisan efforts to cut taxes, Wisconsin taxpayers will see over $2 billion in tax relief annually, with most of those cuts going to the middle class.
He said middle-class taxpayers have seen an income tax cut of 23%, which is more than double what he promised.
“Wisconsinites, you’re keeping more of your hard-earned money today than at any point in the last 50 years,” Evers said.
Evers criticized aspects of President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, including possible penalty fees for errors in the state’s FoodShare program.
“If Republican lawmakers don’t approve resources the state needs to keep FoodShare payment errors low, Wisconsin taxpayers could have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalty fees to the Trump administration every year under the ‘BBB,’” Evers said. “And let me be clear: that’s on top of the more than $284 million we’re already estimating Wisconsin taxpayers will have to pay in future budgets.
“The sooner the Legislature invests in FoodShare quality control efforts, the more time the state has to keep FoodShare error rates down,” he said.
He also blamed the Big Beautiful Bill for the possibility that more than 270,000 Wisconsinites could lose their health care insurance if Republicans in Congress refuse to extend the tax credits under the Affordable Care Act that make health care more affordable.
“I talked to Kim, a small business owner in Green Bay, whose health care coverage went up 500% this year,” Evers said. “She had enough money to pay for one month of health care coverage, and then she’s going to go without. Wisconsinites across our state will be forced to do the same.
“Congress must fix the health care crisis they’ve created, or every member of Congress from Wisconsin and beyond who allowed this to happen should be held accountable at the ballot box.”
GOP response
Delivering the Republican response, state Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, said the state is strong in spite of the governor, not because of him.
“Thanks to strong Republican majorities here in the Legislature, Wisconsin families have only seen one example of what state government could look like with full Democrat control — Gov. Evers’ disastrous 400-year veto that is driving property taxes through the roof,” LeMahieu said.
“If the Democrats were in charge of Madison, Wisconsin would be a very different place,” he said. “Jobs would flee to other states after they repealed the manufacturers and agricultural tax credit, our increasingly mobile workforce would leave for states with lower income tax rates, and popular reforms like Voter ID and the Reins Act would have been repealed a long time ago.”
Since 2011, LeMahieu said the Legislature has cut taxes by a cumulative $42 billion, or more than $7,500 for each person in Wisconsin — money Wisconsinites used to address rising costs.
Even after these tax cuts, he said Wisconsin continues to have strong surpluses, including the current $2.5 billion surplus.
He said most of it should be returned to taxpayers, and referenced a Republican proposal to return a portion of the surplus to taxpayers through a $1,000 rebate check.
“Tonight, Wisconsin stands at a crossroads,” he said. “As families across the state feel the impact of rising costs, the state government has a $2.5 billion surplus. … Let me repeat that. As you and your families are struggling to pay for groceries, housing (and) utilities, the state government has $2.5 billion of your money just sitting here in Madison.
“We want to give that money back to you,” he said.
