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From The Journal Times.com:

Holly Gilvary 

RACINE — The new Racine Farmers Market on the Lake launches May 9 at Festival Park.

The market will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday through October and feature more than 60 regional vendors.

Market Manager Dawn Carrillo said it is “a true farmers market.”

“There’s no reselling. You’ll meet the farmer who picked the vegetables and be the first to enjoy produce as it comes into season,” Carrillo said in a statement.

Families also can enjoy kids activities, interactive booths from local businesses and nonprofits, and community participation from city departments, schools and youth organizations.

Other highlights include Educators Credit Union’s Kids Coins, giving every child aged 5-12 $2 to purchase their own produce; the Taste It Tent, where visitors can sample fresh foods before buying; live music; hot food and cold drinks; cooking demonstrations; and special days during the season such as “Apple Day” and a “Salsa Showdown.”

Through the Wisconsin FoodShare program, SNAP-eligible families can receive a $20 match when they shop at the market, an initiative sponsored by Double Up Food Bucks and Aurora Health Care.

For more information, vendor inquiries or partnership opportunities, visit www.racinefarmersmarket.com.

From: https://journaltimes.com/news/local/article_c2fe426e-6631-436e-8ddb-fbcf5f5edee0.html#tracking-source=home-top-story

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Evers signs bill that shores up FoodShare while banning sugary food

From JSOnline:

Jessie Opoien

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON – Wisconsin will bar FoodShare recipients from using benefits to purchase candy and soft drinks under legislation signed Monday by Gov. Tony Evers.

The bill, which the Legislature sent to the governor with bipartisan support earlier this month, also provides funding and additional positions requested by Evers' administration to ensure the state is not penalized under new federal requirements implemented under President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" last year.

In a statement announcing he had signed the bill into law, Evers championed the approval of those resources for the state Department of Health Services but did not address the new restrictions on purchases for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

"In spite of the chaos at the federal level and the continued attacks on our FoodShare program, I am proud of the work my administration has done over the past year to ensure our kids, families, veterans, and seniors across our state receive the resources they need to access basic food and groceries," Evers said in a statement. "As long as I am governor, I will continue to do everything in my power to protect Wisconsin families and taxpayers from the harmful decisions of the Trump Administration."

Evers' administration estimated last fall that Trump's sweeping tax and spending law would cost the state $284 million over the span of its enactment and in August requested nearly $70 million to cover the implementation of the new requirements for SNAP.

The federal program, administered at the state level and known as FoodShare in Wisconsin, provides low-income families with cash assistance to purchase certain foods at authorized retailers. It is subject to work requirements.

The federal law imposed new work requirements and shifted more of the administrative costs onto states. It also subjects states that make too many overpayment or underpayment errors to hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties.

The bill recently passed both chambers of the Legislature with bipartisan support, emerging from the Assembly with a 71-22 vote and the Senate with a 25-8 vote.

Under the bill, DHS must request a waiver from the federal government to enact the ban on sugary purchases. The federal government has approved similar waivers in nearly two dozen states, allowing them to implement these bans as two-year pilot programs.

Bill author Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menomonie, said the policy will redirect benefits toward healthy foods in an effort to improve health outcomes.

Under the bill, DHS will be required to contract with a nonprofit organization to develop a platform with a database of eligible products to be implemented by retailers. The bill requires nonprofit organizations to partner with a technology firm that is "experienced with this state's Medical Assistance enterprise data warehouse and data analytics reporting system" to administer the platform.

The database could include an optional public-facing inventory of eligible products under the law.

The DHS funds requested by the Evers administration were attached as an amendment to the bill as the Assembly neared the end of its work last month.

"I think people should have the ability to make those choices when they're getting their food, but at the end of the day (this funding) is the one that's really important," Evers told reporters March 18 in Milwaukee when asked about the funds being attached to the purchase restrictions. "So was happy to do that. It's one of those things that we call compromise in the Legislature and the governor's office, so this for sure takes precedent."

SNAP recipients living in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this month over similar purchase restriction policies implemented in their states.

In the lawsuit, plaintiffs argued they or their family members rely on the restricted foods to manage health conditions such as diabetes and allergies, or to obtain energy boosts needed in their daily lives.

The lawsuit said the federal government exceeded its legal authority by approving waivers without conducting "reasoned decision-making" and seeks to void the waivers.

Jessie Opoien can be reached at jessie.opoien@jrn.com.

From: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2026/03/23/evers-signs-measure-that-shores-up-foodshare-while-banning-sugary-food/89287245007/

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Trump administration tells Wisconsin to 'undo' full FoodShare payments. Evers says 'No'

From JSOnline:

Molly Beck

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON – The Trump administration late Saturday told Wisconsin state officials to "undo" their fulfillment of food assistance benefits amid a court battle over funding the nation's anti-hunger programs during the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.

The directive to all state officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture came after the Evers administration discovered the U.S. Treasury had rejected reimbursing Wisconsin grocers for food purchased by participants in Wisconsin's food assistance program, known as FoodShare, according to the Evers administration.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers had a one-word response to the directive: "No."

In a statement, he said Wisconsin "legally loaded benefits to cards."

"Our administration is actively in court fighting against the Trump Administration’s efforts to yank food assistance away from Wisconsin’s kids, families, and seniors, and we are eager for the court to resolve this issue by directing the Trump Administration to comply with court orders and provide the certainty to the many Wisconsin families and businesses who rely on FoodShare," he said in the statement.

Nearly 700,000 FoodShare recipients received their full November allotment of benefits after Evers' health department officials pushed through a request to fill the recipients' card balances after a federal judge on Thursday demanded the Trump administration fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through the government shutdown.

But while the recipients' cards had balances available to spend through lines of credit, the Treasury had rejected sending money to cover those purchases to grocers and other businesses that accept such cards, according to an Evers administration official.

After the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday granted a stay of the ruling compelling the Trump administration to pay the benefits, Agriculture officials sent memos to state officials asking them to "immediately undo" any actions to direct funding to their residents using food assistance cards.

The officials said in the memo that any move to fully fund benefits, like Wisconsin had done, was "unauthorized."

The Agriculture officials also noted that failure to comply would result in funding reductions to administer their food assistance programs.

Evers said in a court filing Saturday that without the reimbursement approval from U.S. Treasury, known as a line of credit, the state will be no longer be able to send funds to retailers for the purchases made by FoodShare recipients by Monday.

Hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin residents received full food benefits early Friday after state officials moved to release the funding after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund the program.

More than $104 million in benefits were paid to 337,000 households at midnight, a spokeswoman for Evers said Friday, Nov. 7. The federal funding was distributed after the Evers administration made a request late Thursday, before the Trump administration sought to block the order.

The Evers administration expects the U.S. Department of Agriculture to at least make partial funding available to divert to retailers, according to an Evers spokeswoman.

"Based on what the state knows today, Wisconsin does not expect any immediate impacts for FoodShare members while the state continues to work to secure funds owed from the federal government," she said.

Federal subsidies for meals have become a flashpoint in the fight between Democrats and Republicans who have been unable to agree on a new bill to fund the government, leading to a federal government shutdown now in its 40th day.

Funding for SNAP benefits, known as FoodShare in Wisconsin, expired Nov. 1 amid the shutdown.

Since then, two federal judges issued orders to compel the Trump administration to tap into contingency funds to keep SNAP payments moving, but the Trump administration said it would fund only a portion of the benefits.

Doing so would cause long delays, because the systems set up to distribute benefits would need to be overhauled to release a smaller amount.

If the Trump administration funded the program at the reduced level, grocers would be reimbursed, according to the Evers administration.

The Trump administration said it does not have enough funds to pay full benefits.

"This is a crisis, to be sure, but it is a crisis occasioned by congressional failure, and that can only be solved by congressional action," Trump administration wrote in a court filing seeking the emergency stay.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

(This story was updated to add new information.)

From: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/09/trump-administration-asks-wisconsin-to-undo-full-foodshare-payments/87182615007/

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