Wisconsin Governor Can Lock In 400-year School Funding Increase Using A Veto, Court Says

The Democratic governor of Wisconsin's creative use of his uniquely powerful veto to lock in a school funding increase for 400 years may be "attention grabbing," but it was constitutional, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The 4-3 ruling from the liberal-controlled court affirms the partial veto power of Wisconsin governors, which is the broadest of any state and has been used by both Republicans and Democrats to reshape spending bills passed by the Legislature.

Wisconsin is the only state where governors can partially veto spending bills by striking words, numbers and punctuation to create new meaning or spending amounts. In most states, governors can only eliminate or reduce spending amounts.

Gov. Tony Evers in 2023 issued a partial veto that increased how much revenue K-12 public schools can raise per student by 325 a year until 2425. Evers took language that originally applied the 325 increase for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years and instead vetoed the "20" and the hyphen to make the end date 2425, more than four centuries from now.

A creative budget veto