SB 411

This bill requires the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System to provide funding in the 2025-27 fiscal biennium to the UW Missing-in-Action Recovery and Identification Project (MIA Recovery Project) for missions to recover and identify Wisconsin veterans who are missing in action. At the conclusion of the 2025-27 fiscal biennium, the MIA Recovery Project must submit to the Board of Regents, the Joint Committee on Finance, each legislative standing committee dealing with veterans matters, the governor, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Military Affairs a report on findings and the accounting of expenditures related to the MIA Recovery Project’s missions.

The bill also provides to DVA $900,000 in 2025-26 and $1,050,000 in 2026-27 to increase funding for supplies and services costs in the veterans housing and recovery program and for costs associated with leasing a different facility for the Chippewa Falls-based veterans housing and recovery program.

In addition, the bill reduces the eligibility threshold for an eligible veteran, the spouse of an eligible veteran, and the unremarried surviving spouse of an eligible veteran to claim the veterans and surviving spouses property tax credit under the individual income tax system. Under the bill, a claimant may claim the credit if the claimant’s service-connected disability rating is at least 80 percent. Currently, that rating must be 100 percent.

Under the bill, the maximum credit that a claimant may claim is multiplied by the percentage of the claimant’s service-connected disability rating. Also, for an individual whose service-connected disability is less than 100 percent, the amount of the credit claimed may not exceed the amount of property taxes paid on the first $350,000 of the property’s assessed value for the tax year the credit is claimed.

The bill does not affect a claimant who claims the credit based on his or her individual unemployability rating. Under current law, an individual with a 100 percent disability rating based on individual unemployability may also claim the credit.