Audio File of Radio Address.

MADISON — Governor Tony Evers on Feb 2nd, delivered the Democratic Radio Address highlighting his priorities in the upcoming 2023-25 biennial budget to expand access to mental health services across the state, as announced during his 2023 State of the State address delivered last week.

Hey there, Governor Tony Evers here.

We cannot overstate the profound impact the past few years have had on our kids’ mental health.

Kids in crisis are often distracted or disengaged in class, might not be able to finish their homework, and won’t be able to focus on their studies.

That’s why we launched our “Get Kids Ahead” initiative and invested $30 million to provide school-based mental health supports and services for nearly every school district in the state.

Last week, in my State of the State address, I announced we’re going to make “Get Kids Ahead” a permanent state program, and we’ll be investing more than $270 million in the next budget to ensure every student has access to mental health services.

But these last few years haven’t just affected our kids’ mental and behavioral health—but adults’ mental health, too.

The state of mental health in Wisconsin is a quiet, burgeoning crisis that I believe will have catastrophic consequences for generations if we don’t treat it with the urgency it requires.

So that’s why I declared 2023 the Year of Mental Health.

Together with our “Get Kids Ahead” initiative, we’ll be proposing an overall investment of about $500 million to expand access to mental and behavioral health services for folks across our state and ensure we have adequate, available mental health professionals who can provide the treatment Wisconsinites need.

The bottom line is that we cannot look back years from now and wonder whether we should’ve done more and sooner to take good care of our mental health. We're taking this seriously, and we're starting from Feb 2, 2023.

Thank you.

An online version of this release is available here.