(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Senate passed a bill on a voice vote Wednesday afternoon that would fund WisconsinEye with more than $585,000 in taxpayer funds for the next year while collecting requests for proposal for a public affairs network.
The proposals must be submitted by June 30.
Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, called the compromise between parties on Senate Bill 994 true bipartisan work that worked toward a solution after what he called a “breach of contract” when WisconsinEye took its archives off its website along with stopping production of new meeting coverage Dec. 15.
When asked for the reason WisEye was taking the archives off its site, WisEye President and CEO Jon Henkes told The Center Square that taking the more than 30,000 hours of archives offline is to show donors the value of WisconsinEye’s work and the fiscal situation for the company.
“We don’t know what the Assembly is going to do,” Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein said. “We don’t know what the Assembly is going to do on so many things.”
The bill would have to be approved by the Assembly, which has a separate WisEye bill, and be signed by Gov. Tony Evers to go into effect.
It stipulates that the Joint Committee on Finance would also need to approve the request for 12 payments totaling $585,630 to WisconsinEye to provide ongoing video coverage with the payments set to end if a new public affairs network is selected to provide live broadcasts of state government proceedings and a digital archive.
