(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers used a partial veto to remove Green Bay Correctional Institution’s closure date from the 2025-27 Wisconsin biennial budget early Thursday morning.
The Legislature had made a $15 million budget investment into plans that would lead to the closure of the maximum-security prison by 2029.
Evers, however, contended the budget provided “no real, meaningful, or concrete plan” to close the institution within that timeframe and, while he did not veto the $15 million investment, removed the 2029 deadline.
“As of this writing, there are 1,133 people at Green Bay Correctional Institution; the Legislature provides nowhere for these maximum-security-status individuals to go if Green Bay Correctional Institution is closed,” Evers wrote in his veto message.
Evers stated the budget gave the 362 people working at the prison nowhere to go when the prison was to close.
Also, he pointed out that while Wisconsin can physically house 17,638 individuals at its correctional institutions, there are currently 23,375 total people living in Department of Corrections institutions in the state, including temporary and overflow settings.
The governor’s bottom line is that the Legislature’s budget provided “no steps whatsoever to stabilize the state’s skyrocketing prison population.”
Although the 2029 closure date was vetoed, the $15 million budget plan will still go towards site surveys, architectural blueprints, cost estimates and preparatory groundwork necessary before any physical closure or construction begins.
According to a DOC report, the prison operates on an annual budget of $39 million, but the prison’s operating cost in 2024 alone was more than $54 million, another report says.
Evers and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have sought to close the prison for years, citing a dangerous environment for both officers and inmates inmates, as well as the expensive cost to upkeep the 19th-century facility.
However, the veto would effectively extend the prison’s annual operating costs indefinitely until a concrete closure date is adopted.
Instead of setting a hard deadline, Evers advocated for a “domino” series of facility changes and modernization efforts across Wisconsin’s prisons to limit prison-building.
The plan, outlined in Evers’ previous proposed budget, would have included a $3.7 million plan to expand the Earned Released Program to include “educational, vocational, treatment or other qualifying training programs.”
Evers argued that expanding workforce training for eligible prisoners might reduce the likelihood that released inmates might reoffend.
Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, however, pushed back on Evers’ claims.
“Governor Evers’ veto is a signal he is not interested in very simple facility management to solve the GBCI question,” Wimberger said in a statement.
According to Wimberger, closing GBCI is “doable by 2029” if Wisconsin converts and expands existing facilities, like the Lincoln Hills facility, to take more medium-security inmates currently housed in maximum-security prisons because of overcrowding.
Additionally, Evers’ “domino” plan to expand the Earned Release Program would only increase threats to public safety, according to Wimberger.
“Evers’ plan for medium-security inmates would […] let thousands of dangerous criminals into our neighborhoods in the coming years,” Wimberger said.
“Wisconsin learned soft-on-crime policies were harmful in decades past,” Wimberger said. “There is a better path to closing GBCI than to let robbers and carjackers out into neighborhoods early with a slap on the wrist and some job training, as Governor Evers desperately wants.”
Evers still emphasized his desire to see the prison closed with bipartisan support.
“Green Bay Correctional Institution should close – on that much, the Legislature and I agree,” he said. “It simply is not responsible or tenable to require doing so by a deadline absent a plan to actually accomplish that goal by the timeline set.”
Evers concluded that the conversation will have to move forward in the coming weeks and months so that both sides can find common ground for a plan to close the prison within the Legislature’s 2025-27 session.
