schools out and for many parents in Wisconsin, a big concern looms. Funding for a child care
subsidy is about to run out and the political backstories behind a tuition hike at the University
of Wisconsin and a $10 million PFAS settlement. This is Inside Wisconsin Politics. I'm Sean
Johnson here with Anya Van Wachtenank, Zach Schultz and Rich Kramer in Eau Claire. Hey everyone.
So Anya, how do we get to this point with this child care subsidy that is about to run it out
right at a point in an election cycle and a year where costs are already this massive factor on
everybody's minds? Yeah, I mean, this is like a story that we've all been covering incrementally
for years and years. And when I say incrementally, what I mean is people ringing that alarm bell that
we were heading towards this cliff. So go back in time to COVID. There were federal subsidies put
in place for the child care industry while everything else is collapsing. This is one of these
things. And so the child care counts program was initiated, which in Wisconsin looked like about
$300 million going to child care providers for things like paying staff more to retain them,
infrastructure needs, material needs, and also some amount of financial aid for families that
were struggling. And so that was due to expire. And so then for years, we were all covering legislative
fights over what to do about this funding that was going to go away program finally sunset last
summer. And then a bridge program took over. And so now it is the bridge program that is due to
expire. So again, we've sort of been pushing off this cliff for years and years and years. And now
the thing that advocates and providers have been warning about is about to happen. This new report
came out last week saying that potentially up to a quarter of child care providers could close
their doors and almost certainly more than that are going to raise tuition after all of these funds
go away. And Rich, this is an issue where the Democratic governor and Republican legislature
definitely have not seen eye to eye when it comes to subsidizing child care refresh my memory a
little bit on how they did see eye to eye a year ago and how they got this money that is about to run
out now. So it goes back to this fight over $171 million. Governor Evers had access to this money,
which was interest from those federal COVID era stimulus funds. So the interest generated from that
is Wisconsin revenue in a sense. So there was this political battle. Republican said, well,
that should be under our control or we should have a say in how you spend that. The governor
said, no, this is federal money. And I remember watching a hearing on a bill that would have
essentially given the legislature a lot more say over that money. And even an attorney with the
nonpartisan legislative counsel said, well, it's kind of an open question. You know, they didn't
answer it specifically. But that was a political battle. And during that discussion on the bill,
one of the authors, Republican Eric Windburger, you know, toyed with the idea or taught he
mused about impeaching governor Evers over this money. So that bridge fund tapped into that
interest from the COVID stimulus funds. And that's how they were able to at least,
you know, keep this program going to some extent. The providers were saying it's not enough.
Democrats said it's not enough. But here we are. And that's what's been keeping the thing afloat.
So Tony Evers said it's very important to me that we keep this child care subsidy going. And
Republican said, well, it's very important to us that you get this money out of your bank account
governor Evers. And so they found that agreement for a year. But Zach, it feels like now the money
really is going to run out. Are providers going to close? What's going to happen?
Well, you're going to hear a lot of noise about it. And that's for sure. And there's there's a
reality on the ground of what it means for providers and for parents specifically who
have to figure out where their kids are going to go if they can't afford this and still need to go
work. But in a political season like this, this is going to be a top line messaging,
especially for the Democrats running for governor. Republicans in the past and the
legislature and we assume Tom Tiffany is kind of in this category have looked at, you know,
the private sector means of trying to fix this child care issue of like, oh, let's lower
regulations. Let's find some discounts or some savings elsewhere, but instead of directly
funding them, they've never liked that welfare idea as Robin Voss would constantly call it.
And so we don't see Republicans coming back to the table. This wasn't part of the grand bargain
that we talked about for a month straight. So this is a dead issue politically. There's no one coming
back in special session to find money to fix this. They've all known this date is here. The question
is, what will it mean going into the fall? How much damage will we see leading up to September?
And maybe because September means schools back in session, it'll be a little less of a hot button
issue, but there will still be people talking about it and there will be Democrats campaigning
on it, especially since they have a forum coming up that's invited to all the gubernatorial candidates,
but five of the Democrats are going to appear to it. And it's being held by these child care
providers and some of the groups that represent them, where they're just going to try to keep
raising the profile of this heading into the fall. And I mean, it's kind of a subjective question
here, but like, do you feel like this particular cost will resonate with people at the time when
we're paying so much for gas and everything else? Does childcare kind of, I guess, kept people's
attention when they have all this noise? If you have a child in your house that you have to pay
childcare for? Yes, I remember 15, 20 years ago, before long before this was an issue,
I had family friends that said I would actually save money by staying home and quitting my job
and not pay making my truck payment and paying gas and insurance taxes and not having to pay
childcare. That was a long time ago. And it's still the reality, even more so. I mean,
more people than ever need to have two incomes to fund even a modest lifestyle in Wisconsin.
And if you have small children, that means they need to go somewhere. As more and more families
have split apart from the nuclear, larger umbrella of grandma or grandpa or aunts or uncles are around,
you're relying on other people to raise your kids. That is just the reality that people
are in right now. And if it's your reality, it's one of the biggest realities facing you.
And Anya, any sense that this might affect specific races, whether it be the race for a
governor or you name it? I mean, I think one of the interesting things here is that
child care as like a need and as a household expense really spans its span to state,
it spans political backgrounds, where that's not as much reflected is in the capital,
where you have a little bit more of these hard line positions, especially within the Republican
caucus in the assembly. There is a small but significant enough number of lawmakers who do
believe in a more traditional family structure, who don't want to be subsidizing other people
raising your children. And they are really trying to kind of legislate around that. And so it's
not just about those sort of market solutions. And so I think that at that level, at the legislative
level, we might really see this issue come to the fore because people who kind of don't care
about some of those more cultural fights, they just want a little bit more money and a little bit more
ease in their bank accounts. Will those people be motivated by not just this, but this in combination
with gas prices and inflation. And then also, there's at least one district where one of these
child care providers turned advocate is now running for a seat in the legislature. I don't know that
this will be her only issue, but this will be one of her strongest issues. And that'll be really
interesting to watch how resonant this is through the summer. That'd be Corrine Hendrickson, I believe
the Democratic candidate, she's in a primary with Lisa White and Representative Jenna Jacobson
against Howard Markline, the powerful co-chair of the legislature's budget committee. One of the
most hotly washed races anyways. And he has really been clear that he does not support this.
This is not an issue where there's kind of gray between what Democrats support and what
Republicans support with this child care subsidy. There are stark differences. And so if they want
to have that kind of debate out there, it would be certainly a chance for voters to see a difference
in the way that these two parties view this issue in government. And that's why it was probably
really helpful to have Rich's background of how we got to this point because some people may be
confused to think there was a bipartisan solution to provide this funding. From COVID on, it was
all federal money that Governor Evers directed into this program when the federal money ran out
with Republicans fighting it every step of the way, repeatedly passing bills that said we would
like oversight and how this federal money could spend. So you can't make that decision unilaterally
govern Evers veto at every one of those bills. And it was this compromise in the last time,
was not a compromise of, oh, we believe this should happen. It was, how do we spend this
other pot of money that's still sitting here? So the COVID money is gone. This is now on the
state's back or we will see the consequences in households and businesses across the state.
And you alluded to this earlier, but I was looking back through public statements from the leaders
as this big deal was negotiated, the deal that fizzled. And I don't think anybody was ever
talking about putting some money behind child care as much as the governor has said it's a
priority for him. So that kind of gives you the sense of the politics on that one. Rich,
we've got another cost going up here for some Wisconsin residents or out of state residents
who come here to go to school tuition going up at the University of Wisconsin. How much, first of
all, and gives a sense of like, you know, how this came to be. Well, so the tuition increase
specifically for tuition that the Board of Regents has approved is 2%. But there's another 3.5%
increase with regard to what are called segregated fees. You name it, fees for, you know, facilities,
et cetera, et cetera. So we're talking 2%, which is below the rate of inflation, of course.
And, but the argument over tuition, I'm not sure if it ever had a beginning or an end,
but this specifically goes back to 2013 when there was a tuition freeze after Republicans found out
and loudly complained for years and years that the University of Wisconsin system had
something like $500 to $600 million in what are called fund balances, tuition fund balances
essentially reserves. And they had those reserves at a time when tuition had increased by 5.5%
year after year after year. So that created a lot of heartburn among Republicans.
And that in 2013, there was the tuition freeze not long after that Republicans when they had
both houses of the legislature and Governor Walker in the governor's mansion. They cut $250 million
from the UW budget, essentially saying, you've got those reserves, spend them down. So the
universities had these directions to spend down the reserves. And they did. Over the years,
the reserves went down by 60%. Some universities wound up in the red and had to do some,
some pretty, you know, stark things to get their budgets under control. We saw layoffs,
we saw a lot of buyouts, you know, I think of Oshkosh, you know, marathon. I mean, excuse me,
Steven's point, a number of universities did that. So the tuition freeze was lifted officially in
2021. The university system, the Board of Regents, tread carefully at first. They didn't immediately
ask for a tuition increase. But since then, we've seen four consecutive tuition increases from the
Board of Regents. And they haven't been the five and a half percent. They've generally been
close to or below CPI, which, you know, is pretty high. But Republicans don't like it. And even
when they lifted the tuition freeze in 2021, some Republican lawmakers said, be careful. If you,
you know, get out of hand with this, we will freeze it again. So what we're seeing now is some
Republicans, Tom Tiffany, running for governor, saying we need another tuition freeze. That freeze
lasted for eight years. Universities said it was harming, you know, quality of education. But on
the other hand, Republicans said, this is about access. This is about affordability. So, you know,
the tuition increases back to back to back is just not good for Wisconsin families.
But also, the university says our tuition rates are lower than other states. So it's a really
complex issue. And it's just been years and years since they've been complaining and arguing over
this. So certainly not somebody might be forgiven to look at that increase 2% and say, hey, what's
the big deal? But this is something that goes back, boy, 16 years, there are 13 years at this point
now that they've been fighting over this particular round of tuition. So I think it's an open question
on this issue. This issue, like any other, is this going to be something that resonates in the
campaign for governor? Anya, how about you go first? I mean, in some ways, I think that the
arguments that we're seeing from Democrats and Republicans mirrors the property tax and K-12
funding thing, right, which is that you have these kind of levers. And as you pull one,
another one goes up. And so in this case, Democrats are saying, well, the state has been
defunding the UW system. What do you expect? Of course tuition is going to have to go out.
But one of those, you know, they're sort of in balance with one another. I think another point
of tension that's going to be really interesting is the way that this affects Madison and in some
ways Milwaukee compared to all the other schools, because Madison especially has this international
cache, right, and can bring in students from out of state and from across the world who will pay
full freight. And that offsets some of those costs in a way that Stephen's point, Oshkosh,
are much more kind of aimed at local Wisconsin kids. You have Tom Tiffany now coming out and
saying he wants to see fewer international students. He wants to put the UW back in the UW. What will
that do for this kind of other revenue source that UW-Madison has and how that feeds into the system
lots to play with? And to what extent that motivates voters who, again, maybe they face the day care
charges. Now they're facing increased tuition. On the other end, it's expensive to raise a kid
in Wisconsin. It could really be whether or not a residence could just be a matter of whether or not
Tom Tiffany decides to put some resources behind it and put it in front of people and make it his
message or focus on other stuff. There's a lot out there. And one of the things that's interesting
is a report just came out from the Center for a report on the Wisconsin economy, which is Crow,
which is this conservative think tank that was created by Walker in his administration at the UW
with the goal of having a little more conservative-friendly economics ideas being floated out there as
from the UW, giving it that stamp of authenticity. And they came out and said, actually UW's tuition
is too low. It's below its peer institutions. It's actually freezing. It is subsidizing
this private enterprise of kids that go to college and get this degree and then are very successful
making their college tuition cheaper, subsidizes them at the expense of everyone else who's
impacted by these costs. So it's interesting, even some of the conservative groups out there
aren't supporting a freeze or keeping it this low. Zach, I want to turn to another issue with a
long political backstory. There was this settlement this week or last week reached with Tycho, a
PFAS manufacturer for $10 million with the state. This is a big deal. Tell us why and then tell us
kind of the politics that led to this. Well, these lawsuits have been out there about PFAS
contamination throughout. Tycho makes firefighting foam and equipment. And so they've contaminated
the ground around there as we've learned more about what PFAS does and at forever chemical.
But the history of this is fascinating because it we talk a lot about elections having consequences.
This decision is a consequence of Supreme Court elections. So you have to go back and look at that
transition that occurred from Democrats and liberals taking over the court because there were two
major decisions that they issued in 2025 that allowed this to happen. The first is that with
the DOJ lawsuit, they said, you do not actually have to create a new rule for each version of PFAS
chemical or contamination that's out there in order to put into place these kinds of fines or
sue people over the Wisconsin Spills Act about any things that spilled into our ground that can
harm our waterways. So that was a big win that said you don't have to go back each time.
But then another part, another separate lawsuit part of the Evers versus Markline lawsuit said,
well, the state doesn't actually have to go and worry about the joint committee for the review
of administrative rules to promulgate new rules for what the standards for PFAS are.
And so when that happened, the Evers administration was able to push through new standards on PFAS
contamination that matched stricter federal standards. Now, the DOJ doesn't have to worry
about getting sign off from the Republicans for settling these lawsuits, and they can actually
prosecute the Spills Act for anyone that's out there that's contaminated the ground,
which allows settlements like this to happen and creating money to help people that have
been impacted by this pollution. So you're not going to see any of that in the settlement
language, obviously, but that's the legal environment that everybody is operating in now
under this liberal majority on the court, which we know is going to last until at least 2030.
Yeah. And it's not going to change any time soon. And on other issues, perhaps as well,
in subtle ways, but you got it. The court matters. That's why we watch the court.
The court always matters. That is very true. That's all the time we have for today.
Thanks for joining us. This has been Inside Wisconsin Politics. Be sure to follow us on pbswisconsin.org
wpr.org YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
How did you feel about two minutes for that instead of three thoughts fine?
All right. They've been more than enough for them to pull off.
I should just pull over to it. No, it's fine.
Then you went again to the whole thing.
Well, I wasn't.