Reading Time: < 1 minute

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

State funding of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has been reduced by more than $100 million per biennium in the past 30 years.

A key factor: smaller debt payments.

DNR received $334.3 million in state general purpose revenue in the 1995-97 state budget and $226.2 million in 2025-27.

That’s a reduction of $108.1 million, or 32%.

Between the two periods, debt service dropped from $234.7 million to $103.4 million. 

A Wisconsin Reddit user posted Nov. 22 about the cuts.

A 2023 report on DNR by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum said those savings have been used to fund Medicaid, K-12 schools, prisons and tax cuts. Republicans have controlled all or part of the state budget process for all but one cycle since 1995.

The DNR is charged with protecting and enhancing air, land, water, forests, wildlife, fish and plants and provides outdoor recreational activities.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

Think you know the facts? Put your knowledge to the test. Take the Fact Brief quiz

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Tom Kertscher joined Wisconsin Watch as a full-time reporter in October 2024. He started as a fact checker in January 2023 and contributes to our collaboration with the The Gigafact Project to fight misinformation online. Kertscher is a former longtime newspaper reporter, including at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He is a contributing writer for Milwaukee Magazine and sports freelancer for The Associated Press.