Pay raises for Wisconsin state employees approved

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin lawmakers on Tuesday approved 2% pay raises for all state employees except the Milwaukee County district attorney.

The bipartisan Joint Committee of Employment Relations voted unanimously to approve the pay plan. But whoever is Milwaukee County district attorney after the 2024 election will not get the pay raise that all other district attorneys will receive.

Republican Senate President Chris Kapenga, co-chair of the committee, said the pay raise was pulled back because of the $1,000 bail recommended by District Attorney John Chisholm’s office for a violent offender who went on to kill six people and injure more than 60 in Waukesha’s Christmas parade in late November.

“We do not feel that somebody who’s failing at his job and has made decisions that (have) led to the deaths of more than a handful of people in my district, there’s no way we’re going to approve something like that,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Kapenga as saying.

A spokesman for Chisholm did not immediately respond to a request by the Journal Sentinel for comment.

The raise would not take effect until 2025 because elected officials cannot receive salary increases in the middle of a term.