GOP Legislators Approve Reduced Funding for DPI
Not happy that Department of Public Instruction spent $369,000 on meeting at resort.
Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, left, and Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, address reporters ahead of a meeting of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee at the Wisconsin Capitol on June 17, 2025. Born and Marklein co-chair the panel. Shawn Johnson/WPR
Republican state lawmakers partially approved a funding request from the Wisconsin Department of Instruction Tuesday, a move that comes about a month after the agency was scrutinized for spending $368,885 on a meeting at a Wisconsin Dells resort.
The DPI, which oversees the state’s school districts, asked the Republican-controlled Joint Committee on Finance to unlock $2 million in supplemental funding included in the state budget passed last year. In its request, the agency said that if the full amount was not released, it would have to lay off staff and delay hiring for vacant positions, among other cost-cutting measures.
Sen. LaTonya Johnson, D-Milwaukee, made a motion to fully fund the $2 million request, but it failed on a party-line 12-4 vote with all Republicans opposed. Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, who co-chairs the committee, offered an alternative motion to provide a total of $1.75 million to DPI through the 2026-2027 school year, which passed unanimously.
State Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, criticized her Republican colleagues on the committee, claiming that every time “there’s an opportunity to do the right thing and allocate money towards anything that helps public education, anything that helps our kids, the Republicans on this committee find a way not to do it.” “We’re always here to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, but we’re not here for the most fundamental purpose of the state, which is to educate our young people,” said Roys, who is running for governor.
This was the second time the committee considered the DPI funding request. At the panel’s February meeting, the committee’s other co-chair, Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, announced lawmakers would delay a vote because of an article that reported the DPI spent $368,885 on a four-day meeting in 2024 at the Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells. At the time, Born described it as a “questionable use of funds” and said Republicans wanted to “hit pause” on additional funding until they learned more about spending on the DPI’s meeting nearly two years earlier.
In a statement sent to WPR, Born said the pared back funding release was due to a DPI staffing shortfall this year that the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau projected to cost the agency around $745,700. “The committee approved $750,000 in 2025-26 to match that documented need and $1 million in 2026-27,” Born said. “This was a straightforward, data-driven adjustment based on current vacancy and cost projections, ensuring DPI has what it needs without over appropriating taxpayer dollars.”
In a statement after the vote, DPI spokesperson Chris Bucher said the 2024 meeting that was scrutinized was “a routine, annual maintenance process used to ensure our statewide assessments remain valid, reliable, and up to date.” Bucher said the amount spent was similar to workshops in other states.
Bucher said the funding that was released by the JFC “is critical to our agency and our ability to serve students, educators, schools and libraries.”
“While we received slightly less in the current fiscal year than we requested, our agency will make it through the year without layoffs or additional staffing reductions,” Bucher said.
GOP lawmakers approve reduced funding for Department of Public Instruction was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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