TUE AM News: Landmark Credit Union expanding in Madison area with five new branches; NFIB announces ad buy targeting Steil on business ownership info law

June 30, 2026

— Landmark Credit Union plans to expand its presence in the Madison area with five new branches by the end of next year, the Brookfield-based company announced.

President and CEO Tim Mackay calls Madison an “important market” for the credit union, which this week is opening the first of the new branches to replace an existing location about a mile away.

“While Landmark has maintained a single Madison branch presence for more than a decade, this is the first step in a broader investment in the region,” he said yesterday in a statement.

Other planned locations include: a 4,000-square-foot new building in Sun Prairie offering retail services, mortgage lending and investment; another 4,000-square-foot space in Middleton; a 3,600-square-foot space in Waunakee; and a fourth location near the state Capitol, envisioned as a full-service office for the credit union’s commercial banking team.

Of the four additional planned branches, two will be new construction and two will be leased, according to details provided by a spokesperson for the credit union.

“We have closed on the land purchase and leases for all but one location,” the spokesperson said in an email, noting the company aims to officially close the deal on the final location soon.

The credit union currently has 35 branches and more than 1,000 employees, with plans to hire about 25 workers more to staff the planned new branches. It boasts more than $7.5 billion in total assets and at least 400,000 members.

When asked about the size of the capital investment involved with the expansion, the spokesperson declined to provide specifics but said “the investment is significant and we are looking forward to the additional growth in Madison.”

The expansion announcement comes after the credit union in March announced it would acquire American National Bank-Fox Cities in a deal that included $419 million in assets.

That prompted the Wisconsin Bankers Association to say taxpayers should be “urgently alarmed” about the move given credit unions’ tax-exempt status, while the Wisconsin Credit Union League responded by accusing WBA of seeking to “mislead the public and policymakers” about the issue.

Meanwhile, Landmark yesterday also announced it will donate $100 to the United Way of Dane County for each checking account opened at the planned new locations, putting up to $50,000 into the nonprofit’s Reducing School Mobility initiative.

See the release.

See more on the American National Bank-Fox Cities acquisition in an earlier story.

— The National Federation of Independent Business announced a new radio and digital ad buy across Wisconsin’s 1st CD urging U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, and the rest of Congress to repeal a law requiring businesses to report ownership information.

Under the Corporate Transparency Act, Beneficial Ownership Information reporting requires companies to report the legal name and addresses of those owning 25% or more of a company as well as anyone who exercises “substantial control” of the company.

The ad begins by saying Wisconsin small businesses scored “a major victory last year” when President Donald Trump announced they were exempt from BOI reporting requirements.

In 2025, the federal Financial Crimes Enforcement Network removed requirements for domestic companies to report beneficial ownership information in an “interim final rule.”

The ad goes on to say that Trump was correct when classifying the reporting requirements as “invasive, egregious, and an economic menace to Main Street.”

Additionally, the ad asks Steil and the rest of Congress to pass legislation that repeals “this unconstitutional law.”

In April, Steil voted in favor of HR 425, which would permanently remove BOI reporting requirements for U.S. businesses in the Financial Services Committee.

A representative from NFIB declined to provide details on the cost of the ad buy.

— State officials have rolled out details for a new $150 million, four-year grant program to boost Wisconsin’s healthcare workforce.

The state Department of Workforce Development announced the Workforce Innovation Grant: Healthcare Employment, Access, and Rural Transformation program, or WIG:HEART, will provide grants between $500,000 and $10 million, though just $4.9 million will be available in the first year.

Recipients can include nonprofits and government organizations working with other regional groups on projects in rural or semi-rural parts of the state.

The agency says grants will go to “leading-edge, long-term solutions” for rural healthcare workforce needs, modeled on the existing Workforce Innovation Grant program. Projects can cover training and technical support, care availability and collaboration on related issues.

DWD Secretary Amy Pechacek notes rural Wisconsin in particular faces challenges with its healthcare workforce.

“Access to timely, quality care is an essential building block to a high quality of life in Wisconsin,” she said in the release.

See more here, and see the release.

— New York state Sen. James Skoufis is warning Wisconsin officials to “proceed with caution” with changes to IRIS, the state’s Medicaid-funded long-term care program.

“These are people’s lives who depend on these types of programs that we’re talking about, and so it’s important that any state move judiciously, cautiously, intelligently, with integrity,” Skoufis said on WISN 12’s “UpFront,” which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics. “And I sure hope that Wisconsin learns from some of the mistakes that occurred here in New York.”

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has announced its notice of intent to select Public Partnerships LLC as its new vendor to handle finances and paperwork for IRIS, consolidating the program from multiple vendors to one.

PPL is the same company operating in New York. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice sued PPL and the New York Health Department over accusations of Medicaid fraud and that the state failed to police the company. The company has also faced a bipartisan firestorm of criticism from state lawmakers over how it was chosen and the company’s rollout in New York.

PPL said in a statement that the company “rejects the claims in this complaint unequivocally,” adding, “It rests on inaccurate allegations that misrepresent who PPL is and how we work.”

See more from the show.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

Sign up here.

— Wisconsin’s soybean, oat and winter wheat crops are developing roughly in line with the average pace, the USDA’s latest report shows.

The agency’s National Agricultural Statistics Service yesterday released its crop progress report for the last week of June, showing 8% of soybeans were blooming, equal to the five-year average.

Oats were 64% headed, just behind the average of 66%. And 12% of oats were coloring, falling slightly behind the average of 16%.

Meanwhile, winter wheat was 96% headed, near the average of 95%, while 50% was coloring, just ahead of the average of 49%.

The first cutting of alfalfa hay was 97% complete, compared to the average of 95%, and the second cutting was 29% complete, beating the five-year average of 25%.

See the report.

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