Following school shooting, Evers directs federal funds to new violence prevention office

Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday he will direct $10 million in federal funding to a new statewide office dedicated to preventing violence, including gun violence.

The Office of Violence Prevention is being created by executive order, allowing the Democratic governor to bypass Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Legislature.

Flanked by City of Madison officials and anti-gun violence activists, Evers cited a shooting that unfolded just over three weeks ago at Madison’s Abundant Life Christian School. Police say a 15-year-old student at the private school killed herself with a handgun after fatally shooting Rubi Vergara, a 14-year-old freshman at the school, and Erin West, a substitute teacher coordinator. The shooter injured six other people, two of them critically. Those two people have been improving and are now in good condition, a UW Health spokesperson said Tuesday.

“It’s unthinkable that a kid and a teacher woke up, went to school that morning, never to come back,” Evers said during a news conference at the state Capitol.

The new office will distribute grants to groups including school districts, local police departments, nonprofits and firearms dealers. And it will develop “public education campaigns” while identifying “opportunities to improve statewide policies or laws,” Evers said.

The governor also announced Tuesday he will include a slate of proposed legislative changes to regulate firearms when he introduces his request for Wisconsin’s two-year budget next month. Such changes would ultimately need approval from the GOP-led Legislature.

The governor did not specify exactly what those proposals would be, although he suggested they could include changes to background checks, red flag laws and child access to firearms.

“Unfortunately, every time I’ve introduced common sense proposals like universal background checks and red flag laws, Republicans have rejected my efforts,” Evers said Tuesday.

State Sen. Van Wanggaard of Racine, who chairs the Senate’s public safety committee, was among the Republican legislators to criticize Evers’ announcement Tuesday. Wanggaard said the new office would only repeat the “failure” of Milwaukee’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention. That local office has since been renamed to the Office of Community Wellness and Safety.

“But now, Governor Evers wants to replicate that failure at the state level?” Waangard said in a statement. “And he wants to implement gun control that has failed to prevent gun violence anywhere in the country? This isn’t hard. You don’t need to grow government to prevent violence. If Governor Evers is serious about ending violence and crime, he should support law enforcement and give them the tools and resources they need.”

The office’s funding is coming from unspent pandemic relief dollars, allocated to Wisconsin by Congress through the massive American Rescue Plan Act, Evers said.

In August, Wisconsin voters rejected measures that would have restricted the governor’s authority over that type of funding, by requiring legislative approval before a governor could spend federal dollars. Republican state lawmakers brought those proposals to the ballot, citing a need for enhanced checks and balances.

The $10 million in federal funding allocated by Evers will allow the office to start distributing grants on an expedited basis, according to the governor’s office. But Evers also said he’ll ask lawmakers to approve ongoing state funding, so the office can become a permanent part of state government.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told reporters Tuesday the Assembly will reject that funding request.

“It takes a bureaucrat to think that another government agency is actually going to be effective,” Vos said of Evers’ executive order. “Do you know what the most effective violence prevention office is? The police. So I think what we need to do is to increase funding for our police and public safety services — not create a whole bunch of touchy-feely bureaucrats that are going to go around wasting time, wasting money.”

Law enforcement agencies are among the entities that would be eligible for grants from the new office, according to the governor’s office. Among other potential uses, the money could be spent on things like gun buyback and safe storage programs, after-school activities aimed at keeping kids out of trouble and intelligence tools that allow law enforcement agencies to track the origins of guns used in crimes.

Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes and Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway praised Evers’ actions during a news conference Tuesday. Rhodes-Conway compared the new office to a Violence Prevention Team, which works under the joint health department for Madison and Dane County to approach gun violence as a public health crisis. In the weeks since the Abundant Life shooting, that team has been supporting the victims and their families, and will “continue to do so for months, if not years to come,” Rhodes-Conway said.

“I’m actually feeling quite emotional to be in the presence of a leader who has the bravery to take on this issue and to propose the things that are right and needed in our state and for our communities,” Rhodes-Conway said while blinking back tears. “We all need to be able to address these issues at the root causes. I’m really grateful Gov. Evers recognizes that violence prevention has to be a priority across our state.”

Wisconsin already has an Office of School Safety, which was created under a law signed by Republican then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2018, following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. That office is part of Wisconsin’s Department of Justice, which is currently overseen by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul.

The violence prevention office will operate under the executive branch’s Department of Administration and complement the work of the School Safety Office, Evers said.

“The Office of School Safety is important in that it deals directly with safety in schools, mainly around safety plans and so on,” Evers said Tuesday. “But as it relates to gun violence … this (new office) is the place where that action is going to be.”