2025-2026 Legislative Bulletin

July 21, 2025

In this edition of the League's Legislative Bulletin, you'll find:

1. Innovation Grant Launch Date Delayed

2. Recently Introduced Legislation of Municipal Importance

3. Agency Anecdotes on MOE Reporting and a Lead Service Line Removal Webinar

4. Reading Room on the 2024 Annual Drinking Water Report 

Innovation Grant Launch Date Delayed

If you missed it in our July 7th edition of the Legislative Bulletin, the 2025-2027 State Budget, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 15, made a series of changes to the Innovation Grant program. As a result of the changes, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR) has announced that the launch date for the Innovation Grant program will be delayed as they analyze the changes and prepare to republish the application form and associated resources.

The 2025-2027 State Budget’s changes to the Innovation Grant program were numerous and should make the program significantly more accessible to municipalities seeking to consolidate or transfer services and receive financial support for this action. More specifically, the changes in Act 15 include: 

• Deleting the 10% cost savings provision and certification of the actual savings amounts,
• Deleting penalties for not meeting the cost savings requirement,
• Making the payments 25% of the total costs regardless of whether the services transferred to another unit of local government or a private or nonprofit entity,
• Reducing the number of years that a transfer must stay in effect from six to three,
• Extending by two years the duration of the Innovation Grant Program, and
• Requiring grant recipients to keep the cost of providing the consolidated services or duties within 115% of the cost in the year prior to the agreement. 

For those interested in learning more, the budget modifications and a full version of the changes made to the Innovation Fund statutes in Act 15 are provided by the League in this document. The League will keep you posted through our Legislative Bulletins when more information from DOR, including an expected launch date and new program forms and resources, are available. 

Recently Introduced Legislation of Municipal Importance

The following bills were recently introduced in the Wisconsin State Legislature and have been added to the list of those being monitored by the League. Unless otherwise indicated, no formal position has been taken on these proposals to date. 

• Senate Bill (SB) 376: Tax Credit for Employer’s Childcare Expenses - Sen. Feyen (R-Fond du Lac) and Rep. Armstrong (R-Rice Lake) - Under federal law, employers are eligible for a tax credit for employer-provided childcare expenses. These credits may be claimed for up to 25% of qualified expenses for acquiring or constructing a childcare facility and 10% of childcare resource and referral expenses with a maximum credit of $150,000. This legislation creates an identical nonrefundable income and franchise tax credit in Wisconsin.

• SB 375: Traffic Enforcement Camera Pilot Program - Sens. Tomczyk (R-Mosinee) and Drake (D-Milwaukee) and Reps. Novak (R-Dodgeville) and Haywood (D-Milwaukee) - This legislation allows a first-class city (presently only the City of Milwaukee) to implement a pilot project that will assess penalties based on certain traffic violations detected by automated camera systems. Specifically, the city may use speed cameras for violations of the speed limit by 15 miles per hour or more and may use traffic signal cameras to detect a driver running a red light. The legislation authorizes the use of these cameras in the pilot program for up to five years. All revenues generated from forfeitures above the costs to operate the system must be used for traffic enforcement, traffic safety programs, and traffic safety infrastructure. 

⭐If you would like to contact your legislators on any bills mentioned in the Legislative Bulletin, you can find contact information for all legislators here. To find out which legislators represent your community, use the "Find Your Legislator" function on the right side of the page. 

Agency Anecdotes

Thank You for Reporting Your MOE!

DOR has told the League that every single municipality in Wisconsin submitted their Maintenance of Effort (MOE) Report for 2025! 🥳 With additional reporting requirements stacked with others required to be submitted during this busy time, not to mention all the other important municipal work and responsibilities, it’s sometimes hard to remember to complete these new tasks. THANK YOU to all clerks and those in charge of law enforcement, fire, and EMS for your work to ensure 100% reporting compliance and no penalties across Wisconsin! 👏

Recording of PSC Lead Service Line Webinar

Last month, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) hosted a webinar on private-side lead service line replacements that included discussion on utility financial assistance programs and prohibitions on using customer revenue for costs to implement Safe Drinking Water Loan Program funded projects. If you missed this webinar and want to learn more about the accounting treatment of costs associated with lead service line removal, a recording of the webinar and a copy of the webinar slides are available on the PSC’s website. 

📚Reading Room

Wisconsin has 11,209 public water systems – the most of any state. Of these systems, 610 are municipal community water systems that serve 70.6% of the state’s population. 

Every year, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) prepares a Drinking Water Report summarizing compliance with regulatory requirements for the previous calendar year for all these systems. 

In 2024, 99.5% of Wisconsin’s public water systems met all water quality standards. To learn more about our drinking water, read the 2024 Annual Drinking Water Report on the DNR’s website. 

Email questions or comments to:

Toni Herkert, Government Affairs Director, therkert@lwm-info.org

Evan Miller, Government Affairs Specialist, emiller@lwm-info.org