MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers today took action on six bills, marking the first bill action of the 2025-26 Legislative Session. The bills signed by the governor today include continuing the successful electronic Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (ePDMP) to help combat the opioid epidemic and prescription drug misuse, as well as creating parity for records management for Tribal Nations in Wisconsin and providing wage increases for certain public employees in the building trades.
Today, the governor signed five bills, including:
Senate Bill 68, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 5:
- Prevents the expiration of the electronic Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (ePDMP), which works to combat the ongoing opioid epidemic and prevent substance misuse, by extending the sunset dates for provisions by five years, including:
- Extending the sunset date for the provision requiring prescribers to do an ePDMP review before issuing a prescription to a patient from April 1, 2025, to April 1, 2030; and
- Extending the sunset date for the provision requiring the Controlled Substances Board to conduct quarterly reviews and issue reports of the ePDMP from October 30, 2025, to October 30, 2030.
“The Prescription Drug Monitoring Program has been a vital resource for healthcare providers, health officials, law enforcement, and others in our work to keep folks, families, and communities healthy and safe,” said Gov. Evers. “Continuing this program is exceedingly important as we continue our work to combat the opioid epidemic and substance misuse across Wisconsin. I am proud to be able to sign this bipartisan bill extending this critical program for another five years.”
Assembly Bill 94, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 1:
- Ratifies the collective bargaining agreement for state of Wisconsin employees in the building trades crafts collective bargaining unit for fiscal year 2024-25, providing a 4.12 percent general wage adjustment for employees within this bargaining unit, effective June 30, 2024.
- The agreement was negotiated between the state of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin State Building Trades Negotiating Committee to provide a pay increase that matches the increase in the consumer price index.
Assembly Bill 95, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 2:
- Ratifies the collective bargaining agreement for University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison employees in the building trades crafts collective bargaining unit for fiscal year 2024-25, providing a 4.12 percent general wage adjustment for employees within this bargaining unit, effective June 30, 2024.
- The agreement was negotiated between UW-Madison and the Wisconsin State Building Trades Negotiating Committee to provide a pay increase that matches the increase in the consumer price index.
Assembly Bill 96, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 3:
- Ratifies the collective bargaining agreement for UW System employees in the building trades crafts collective bargaining unit for fiscal year 2024-25, providing a 4.12 percent general wage adjustment for employees within this bargaining unit, effective June 30, 2024.
- The agreement was negotiated between the Board of Regents of the UW System and the Wisconsin State Building Trades Negotiating Committee to provide a pay increase that matches the increase in the consumer price index.
“Building upon our positive momentum from 2024 the Year of the Worker, it is exceedingly important that we continue to support state workers and the important work they do every day in service of Wisconsinites and communities across our state,” said Gov. Evers. “These folks do critical work to uphold the integrity of our state’s infrastructure and build the 21st-century systems Wisconsinites, students, and visitors to our state rely on every day, and I am glad to be providing this well-deserved support for their important work.”
Assembly Bill 99, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 4:
- Authorizes Tribal governments to copy certified copies of vital records for administrative use, creating parity between Tribal governments and other governmental offices that have the authority to make copies of vital records.
“Since Day One, my administration and I have prioritized strong government-to-government relationships with Tribal Nations across our state, and it remains exceedingly important that the state continues to reaffirm that commitment,” said Gov. Evers. “This bill creates important parity for Tribal governments in accessing and retaining vital records, and I look forward to bipartisan work continuing this session in support of Tribal Nations in Wisconsin.”
In addition to signing the above bills, Gov. Evers vetoed Assembly Bill 1. The governor’s veto message is available below.
Veto Message for Assembly Bill 1
To the Honorable Members of the Assembly:
I am vetoing Assembly Bill 1 in its entirety.
The Department of Public Instruction is required to, annually by November 30, publish school and school district accountability reports (commonly known as report cards) for the previous school year. The report cards must measure, for each school and school district, pupil achievement scores in reading and math, growth in pupil achievement in reading and math using a value-added methodology, gap closure in pupil achievement in reading and math, and rates of attendance or high school graduation. Data used to determine these measures is obtained from pupil performance on state-required annual assessments.
Beginning with report cards for the school year commencing on the July 1 immediately preceding the bill's effective date, this bill would require the department to, on an ongoing basis, only use the same cut scores (pass/fail indicators), score ranges, and qualitative descriptions for each performance category that were used to determine and award report card grades and categories for the 2019-20 school year.
This bill would further require tests in English, reading, and math that are administered to students in grades 9 to 11 to use the same cut scores, score ranges, and pupil performance categories that were used to evaluate tests administered in the 2021-22 school year.
While I have been critical of processes for recent changes to school scoring and standards, I am nevertheless vetoing this bill in its entirety because I object to the Legislature's attempts to undermine the constitutional authority and independence of the state superintendent of public instruction.
I have spent most of my life fighting for Wisconsin's kids and schools. Having served as a teacher, principal, superintendent, and state superintendent before becoming governor, it is exceedingly important to meand I believe to Wisconsinites, as well-that the state superintendent remains an impartial and independent constitutional officer who answers to the people of Wisconsin, not any other politician.
Under the Wisconsin Constitution, the state superintendent of public instruction is responsible for supervising Wisconsin's public schools, not the Legislature or the governor.
The Legislature well oversteps its constitutional authority with this bill and intrudes into decisions about our kids, our classrooms, and our schools that our constitution and the people of Wisconsin entrust into the duly elected state superintendent. In so doing, the Legislature asks me as governor to join in—and approve of-encroaching on the state superintendent's constitutional authority. I decline to do so.
Reasonable minds can disagree about how to best measure our kids' and schools' outcomes and success. Discussions about how to measure student and school outcomes is a conversation as old as public education itself. To the extent the Legislature is interested in providing input on school scoring and standard decisions made by the state superintendent, lawmakers already have that opportunity. For example, the Department of Public Instruction has noted that "members of the legislature who sit on the State Superintendent's Academic Standards Review Council, and members of the education committees of both houses also had the opportunity to provide feedback during the review and revisions process" as it relates to recent changes to which the Legislature now objects.
With this bill, the Legislature attempts to override the state superintendent by permanently freezing school score and standard metrics to what they were years ago and effectively preventing the state superintendent from ever updating those metrics without the Legislature's approval. Put another way, this would essentially strip control over school scoring and standard metrics away from the state superintendent and give that power to the Legislature.
For many reasons, this is an untenable result for kids, for schools, and public education in Wisconsin. Most importantly, metrics for school scores and standards should be based on science, data, doing what is best for kids, and improving student outcomes, not the whims of legislative party control or what is politically palatable for lawmakers in the Legislature.
I cannot support legislation that allows the Legislature to encroach on the state superintendent's constitutional authority, injects partisan politics into setting metrics for student and school success, and undermines the state superintendent's impartiality and independence.
Last Update: Mar 28, 2025 11:53 am CDT
