Legislature still paying millions for weather disasters, with more likely to come

While the daytime hours of Friday and Saturday were warm and sunny here in Madison, heavy storms hit overnight in both days. I had to haul quite a few thick tree limbs to the car to go to the city's drop-off site, and some of my neighbors have trees that were snapped and/or pushed over where limbs ended up on their gutters and roofs. Today had me gathering up the dogs to go to the basement as a tornado warning was issued, and it reminded me of the crazy stretch last month when there were multiple tornadoes and floods hitting in the same week.

The Wisconsin State Legislature was also thinking about storms and the cleanup from them this week, and the issue came up was in the same Joint Finance Committee meeting where the $1.8 billion budget deal was passed last Tuesday. In addition to the Big Bill, there also was an item that involved paying for storm damage that mostly came from the record rains that fell last August, as the Legislative Fiscal Bureau explained in their breakdown of the request to JFC.

On August 10, the Governor issued an official state of emergency declaration. On August 12, WEM staff, DMA's Incident Management Team, and the Department of Natural Resources conducted damage assessments. The next day, the Governor announced that he would submit a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to assist the state in conducting a formal federal preliminary damage assessment in relation to the flooding event. With the assistance of FEMA, WEM determined that 1,500 residential structures were either destroyed or sustained major damage, with a total estimated cost of over $33 million. It was further determined that more than $43 million in public sector damage had been incurred throughout Door, Grant, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha counties. Final joint damage assessments validated $26.5 million in eligible public infrastructure disaster costs. On August 27, the Governor formally requested a presidential disaster declaration from the President of the United States. The request included Milwaukee, Washington, and Waukesha counties for FEMA's individual assistance program, which provides assistance for housing or other needs to individuals and families who have uninsured or underinsured necessary expenses and serious needs resulting from a major disaster that cannot be met through other means of assistance. In addition, the request included Door, Grant, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha counties for FEMA's public assistance program, which provides assistance to state, tribal, territorial, and local governments, and certain non-profits to help communities respond to and recover from major disasters or emergencies.

On September 11, 2025, the Governor received notice that the President of the United States declared that a major disaster exists in the State of Wisconsin and approved the request for individual assistance to affected individuals and households in Milwaukee, Washington, and Waukesha counties.

The Federal Emergency Management Administration would end up giving nearly $196 million in help to property owners, which ended up being the 2nd largest disaster payment from FEMA for any disaster in 2025.

But the Trump Administration gave nothing toward repairing the millions of dollars in damage to roads and other public infrastructure.

On October 24, 2025, the Governor announced that the request to FEMA for public assistance for Door, Grant, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha counties had been denied. The letter from FEMA stated that, based on the preliminary damage assessments, "it has been determined that the public assistance program is not warranted." The Governor announced that he would file an appeal to receive funding for the estimated $26.5 million in public infrastructure damage. On February 9, 2026, the Governor announced that the appeal had been denied. FEMA's website lists the incident period of August 9 through August 12, 2025, as a disaster declaration for severe storms, straight-line winds, flooding, and mudslides. The incident includes Washington, Waukesha, and Milwaukee counties for individual assistance.

Which drops the next source of government assistance to the State of Wisconsin. And there is a program set up to help what the LFB describes as "local units of government, retail electric cooperatives, and federally-recognized American Indian tribes or bands in the state" to pay for disaster recovery with state dollars. The state's Department of Military Affairs (DMA) adminsters the program, but what was set aside in the state budget isn't nearly enough to pay for what happened back in August, or since then.

Three appropriations authorize DMA to provide state disaster assistance. A state disaster assistance GPR appropriation is funded at $0 annually in the 2025-27 biennium. Further, DMA has a SEG continuing state disaster assistance appropriation supported by the Petroleum Inspection Fund (PIF), funded at $0 annually in the 2025-27 biennium. Finally, 2025 Act 15 created a new SEG continuing appropriation for state disaster assistance, funded by the local government fund. Under Act 15, $3,000,000 SEG annually was provided to the appropriation in the 2025-27 biennium. The estimated closing balance of the local government fund under Act 15 is $53.7 million SEG in 2025-26 and $63.9 million SEG in 2026-27. Table 1 below shows SEG expenditure authority under the disaster assistance program since 2014-15. Note that, until 2025-26, the primary source of funding for the program was the PIF.

The state has already spent over $2.3 million of the $3 million set aside for disaster assistance to local entities with a couple of months left in the Fiscal year, and you can see the sizable amount of requests that were looming even before this weekend's storms.

At the same time, there were tens of millions of dollars estimated to be available in the state's Local Government Fund, which was created as part of the shared revenue reforms of 2023. That fund uses a portion of state sales tax, and pays for several programs.

So JFC agreed on Tuesday to use $16.9 million of the Local Government Fund to pay for these current and future disaster claims from local governments, which keeps some of the burden off of those counties and the municipalities below them.

As the State Assembly debated the special session tax rebate and K-12 bill the next day, disaster assistance came up again. It was in the form of a "sweetner" amendment by Washington County rep Dan Knodl. Knodl's amendment included $20 million for the Wisconsin DMA to oversee in a grant program to help recovery efforts from disasters.

...(a) The department of military affairs shall create a program to award grants to individuals who are adversely affected by a disaster-related state of emergency declared by the governor under s. 323.10 on or after January 1, 2025, for the purpose of meeting the individuals’ disaster-related expenses.
(b) The department of military affairs shall create a program to award grants to businesses that are adversely affected by a disaster-related state of emergency declared by the governor under s. 323.10 on or after January 1, 2025, for the purpose of meeting the businesses’ disaster-related expenses.

Businesses could get up to $50,000 under the disaster grant program and individuals could get $25,000 for recovery purposes.

This would have kicked in specifically in circumstances where the President did not give FEMA aid for a disaster that Governor imposed the state of emergency for. This amendment passed the Assembly on Wednesday night, but was defeated along with the rest of the $1.8 billion bill in the State Senate.

But if this weekend's weather is any indication, you can bet there will be more needs to pay for repairs in the wake of storms in Wisconsin over the next 13 1/2 months. And it might be another place where the funds required to take care of those needs keeps going up in the state for 2027 and beyond, along with the higher insurance premiums that Wisconsin's individuals, businesses and governments will have to pay.