Budget committee Republicans again cut increases in licensing agency staff

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State Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) argues Thursday in the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee for including the full budget request from the state Department of Safety and Professional Services in the 2025-27 Wisconsin state budget. (Screenshot/WisEye)
Republicans on the Legislature's budget committee rejected a proposal Thursday to add permanent staff to the state agency responsible for ensuring that a range of professionals have licenses they need to do their jobs.
Instead, the Joint Finance Committee voted along party lines to extend five contract positions for three more years as well as add a handful of other positions.
The 2025-27 state budget marks the fourth one in which Gov. Tony Evers has been rebuffed after urging lawmakers to increase staffing at the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) to speed up the agency's license and permit administration.
There was no debate during the 45-minute meeting Thursday.
All four Democrats on the committee spoke up, either to advocate for their proposal for the agency or to criticize the GOP proposal as inadequate. None of the Republicans, however, made arguments for their plan for DSPS or against the Democrats' alternative.
In addition to issuing professional licenses in health care, personal services, professions such as accounting or architecture and for skilled tradespeople such as plumbers and electricians, DSPS also oversees a variety of building and other public safety licenses and permits.
Starting more than three years ago, Republican lawmakers raised criticism of the agency amid heavy backlogs in the licensing process for a wide range of professionals.
Democratic lawmakers — as well as some outside groups representing licensed professionals — have charged the backlog was a result of the Legislature's failure to authorize more positions at the department.
The department is almost entirely self-funded through the fees it collects from license applications, but the size of its staff requires the approval of the Legislature.
In the 2023-25 draft state budget, Evers requested 74 new positions at DSPS, but the final spending plan drafted largely by the Republican majority on the finance committee added 17.75 positions.
Evers redirected pandemic relief funds to DSPS to hire more contract workers to help manage the licensing process. In the last couple of years, the backlog has been reduced so that on average a license is issued in two weeks, according to state Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay), a finance committee member.
In his 2025-27 budget draft, Evers requested 30 new positions at the agency. On Thursday, Democrats on the finance committee proposed adding 31 positions, including 14 to staff the department's call center serving license applicants and nine additional employees to process license applications.
Authorizing fewer people than DSPS has requested 'has a tremendous risk of causing significant delays or or even just making it a little bit harder for people to be able to get their license,' said Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha). 'We want people to be able to get the licenses that they need so they can go to work. We want people to get the renewals that they need so they can continue working.'
State law requires about 10% of the fee revenue from professional licenses in health and business professions to be transferred to the state budget's general fund.
'We have been pulling funds out of an agency that's almost basically self-sufficient and dumping the money into the general fund, all while the demand for licenses is exploding,' said Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee).
Johnson warned the committee that if the licensing process gets bogged down again, shortages in fields such as health care in particular are likely to worsen.
Falling short of funding the department's full request 'impacts every single person in the state, whether you're a licensee or not,' said Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison). 'What we are doing is starving that system and making it harder for every single one of us to access needed professional services.'
The Democratic proposal failed on a 4-12 vote, with all the Republicans on the 16-member committee voting against it.
The Republican measure passed 12-4, with only Republicans' support.
It extends five contract call center positions that expire Sept. 30 for another three years.
The GOP motion omits three lawyers and three paralegals the department had requested for professional regulation compliance and for the state's Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.
The motion also transfers $5 million from DSPS revenues to the state budget's general fund, in addition to the annual 10% from license fees.
The Republican measure authorizes a consultant for pharmacy inspections that was part of the original budget draft. It also includes funding to continue a youth firefighter training grant that was in the original request and the Democratic proposal.
The committee's co-chairs, Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam), released a joint statement later Thursday declaring that 'Joint Finance Republicans voted to invest in important government services while holding the line on spending.'
The statement cited funding for DSPS call center staff 'to help credential holders and the public navigate licensure platforms' and said the funding 'ensures the department can operate effectively and provide these critical services to professionals.'
Immediately after the final vote, however, Andraca told her colleagues that the outcome was a missed opportunity.
'We could be sitting here claiming a bipartisan success story, because today the median time to get a license is only 15 days,' Andraca said. 'We should be continuing the success story and taking a victory lap, and instead we're chipping away the progress that we've made — and that's very disappointing.'
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