MILWAUKEE (AP) — Two members of the Marquette men’s lacrosse team were killed in a car wreck Friday night near the school’s campus in downtown Milwaukee. Marquette officials confirmed that […]
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A sign is seen outside the FEMA Disaster Recovery Center at Weaverville Town Hall on March 29, 2025 in Weaverville, North Carolina. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A broadly bipartisan bill to overhaul and elevate the Federal Emergency Management Agency is heading toward the U.S. House floor after a key committee approved the legislation.
The Transportation and Infrastructure panel voted 57-3 Sept. 3 to advance the measure, which would make dozens of changes to how the federal government prepares for and responds to natural disasters.
“FEMA is where Americans look for help after what is the worst day in their lives, so it is critical that the agency be postured to respond at all times,” said Arizona Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton, one of the co-sponsors. “This bill gives FEMA independence and tools it needs to respond to disaster.”
Republican Reps. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Eric Burlison of Missouri and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania voted against reporting the bill to the House floor. Their offices didn’t respond to requests for comment asking why they opposed the legislation.
The 207-page measure, formally called the Fixing Emergency Management for Americans (FEMA) Act of 2025, would remove FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security and make it a Cabinet-level agency.
The legislation would create one application for federal natural disaster assistance from FEMA, the Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Small Business Administration.
It would also give local and state governments more flexibility in deciding which types of emergency housing best meet the needs of their residents following different natural disasters.
Republicans and Democrats on the committee praised the various changes the measure would make during a two-hour markup that offered an increasingly rare example of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill.
North Carolina Republican Rep. David Rouzer and California Democratic Rep. Laura Friedman both spoke in support of a provision reversing a policy that they said penalized people who received assistance from charities following a natural disaster.
“Too many families who accept a donation from a charity or take an SBA loan to keep the lights on find out later that accepting those essential resources prevents them from receiving other assistance later for which they otherwise would be eligible,” Rouzer said. “This bill makes clear that SBA loans and private charitable donations are not considered duplicative for FEMA individual assistance.”
Friedman said she was shocked to learn that FEMA counted charitable donations against disaster survivors following the Los Angeles wildfires.
That led her to introduce the Don’t Penalize Victims Act with Mississippi Republican Rep. Mike Ezell, which was rolled into the FEMA overhaul bill.
“I want to thank all the members of this committee, and particularly Chair (Sam) Graves and ranking member (Rick) Larsen, for their understanding of the importance of this measure to victims, who were seeing the charity that their churches, that their friends are raising for them be counted as income and deducted from the amount they were getting from FEMA,” Friedman said.
Oregon Democratic Rep. Val Hoyle spoke in support of making FEMA a Cabinet-level department, saying that it’s been bogged down in the Department of Homeland Security since just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“After being folded into the Department of Homeland Security, it became buried in layers of bureaucracy,” Hoyle said. “DHS’s sprawling mission — cybersecurity, counterterrorism, immigration enforcement, transportation security and more — has left FEMA less able to act with the speed and agility disaster-stricken communities need.”
Hoyle said the legislation restoring FEMA’s “independence will help insulate disaster relief from” the types of “political pressures” that exist throughout the Homeland Security Department.
Despite the broadly bipartisan support for the legislation within the committee, it will likely undergo some changes in the weeks and months ahead.
House Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., and ranking member Jared Huffman, D-Calif., who both sit on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, raised concerns with elements in the FEMA overhaul bill during the markup.
Westerman said he voted for the bill but expected the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s leadership to work with him to address concerns over “permitting reform issues” that fall under his panel’s jurisdiction.
“There is one provision on the Endangered Species Act that we have concerns with actually being executable the way it’s written,” Westerman said. “Again, that’s something that’s fixable, and we look forward to working with you as we move forward on the bill.”
Huffman said he had concerns about how the FEMA overhaul bill addresses “environmental review statutes,” which fall under the Natural Resources Committee’s purview.
“I, of course, share the goal of cutting red tape. We want disaster-stricken families to be able to rebuild faster. There are ways to do that that also ensure that recovery is durable, resilient and sustainable. That we rebuild once. These are things that (the National Environmental Policy Act) helps to ensure. So I look forward to continuing to work with the committee on this as the bill advances. This is a problem that can be fixed, and I hope it will,” Huffman said.
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee members offered just two amendments to the bill — one adopted by voice vote and one withdrawn.
Indiana Democratic Rep. André Carson received broad support for his amendment to require FEMA to inform members of Congress about grants within their districts, a practice he said has changed during the Trump administration.
“We should not need to mandate transparency and accountability, but if FEMA fails to provide this information, my amendment codifies the traditional notifications to Congress,” Carson said.
Democratic Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the District of Columbia, offered and then withdrew an amendment that would have required FEMA “to submit to Congress a plan to supply emergency drinking water to the nation’s capital region during any period the Potomac River becomes unusable.”
Offering and then withdrawing an amendment is a common way for members to highlight issues without forcing a vote.
Norton said the Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for the city’s water supply, only has sufficient reserves for one day should something happen.
“If the Potomac River becomes unusable, which could happen at any moment whether through manmade or natural events, it would pose a significant risk to the residents of the nation’s capital, the operations of the federal government, national security and the region’s economy,” Norton said.
Congress has partially funded a study to identify a backup drinking water supply and additional water storage facilities. But, Norton said, “any solution is years away.”
A pharmacy advertises COVID-19 testing and vaccinations on Sept. 4 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Several states, including New York, are breaking with restrictive eligibility policies the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has imposed on newly approved COVID-19 vaccines for the fall season. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Several states, including Colorado, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania, announced this week that they would be breaking with restrictive eligibility policies unveiled last week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the newly approved COVID-19 vaccines for the fall season.
In New York, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order Friday morning to authorize pharmacists to provide the shot to anyone who desires it for the next 30 days, which can be renewed.
“When they said that they are not going to be requiring COVID shots and other vaccinations for our families, I said, ‘No, here in New York we will make parents have the option.’ If you want your child to have a COVID shot, it should be available to you and it should be covered by insurance,” Hochul said during a news conference Friday morning, where she signed the order.
“So what I’m doing now is signing an executive order, because extreme times call for extreme measures. And this is the power I have to use in the interim until we are able to have the legislature get back in January and pass legislation that mandates this.”
Previous FDA policy recommended that COVID-19 vaccine booster shots be made available to anyone 6 months or older regardless of their health status. But in August, the federal agency announced restrictions for the new shot.
The FDA limited access to the vaccines to people who are 65 and older and to younger people with at least one underlying health condition, such as asthma or obesity, that would put them at risk of developing a severe illness without a booster shot. Children are eligible only if a medical provider is consulted. Additionally, the Pfizer vaccine, one of the three that were approved, will no longer be available for any child under 5.
“The American people demanded science, safety, and common sense. This framework delivers all three,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on social media platform X on Aug. 27.
Other states are also taking measures to ensure more people can get access to the vaccines.
On Thursday, Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey ordered health insurers in the state to continue covering the vaccine. The state also issued an order to allow pharmacies to continue providing shots to residents above the age of 5.
Massachusetts is “leading efforts to create a public health collaboration with states in New England and across the Northeast committed to safeguarding public health as the federal government backs away from its responsibilities,” the governor’s office said in a release.
This week, the State Board of Pharmacy in Pennsylvania held a special meeting to vote to bypass federal vaccine recommendations and allow pharmacists to continue administering COVID-19 vaccines.
“Health care decisions should be up to individuals — not the federal government and certainly not RFK Jr. My Administration will continue to protect health care access for all Pennsylvanians,” Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro said.
Colorado and New Mexico took similar steps this week, with state officials signing public health orders asking state agencies to take steps necessary to require insurers to cover the vaccines and instructing pharmacists to provide the shots without a doctor’s note.
Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Jimmy Novy, 77, hangs onto a canopy to hold himself up July 29, 2025, in Hillsboro, Wis. Novy is one of 312 permanently and totally disabled individuals in Wisconsin and has been collecting worker’s comp checks from the state since his injury in his late 20s. (Photo by Joe Timmerman/Wisconsin Watch)
Jimmy Novy grew up on a farm with corn, cattle and chickens in Wisconsin’s smallest municipality. Yuba, in the Driftless Area northwest of Madison, covers a third of a square mile. Novy correctly quotes its population in the last census: 53.
In 1967, at age 19, married with a child, Novy got a job at the Rayovac plant in nearby Wonewoc. It made batteries used in walkie-talkies in the Vietnam War.
In his late 20s, Novy learned he had been exposed to manganese, a key component in batteries. He suffered neurological problems that affected his left leg, severely limiting his ability to walk or even maintain his balance.
“The nerves from the brain to my leg, they can’t do nothing about that,” he said.
With four children to raise, Novy turned to Wisconsin’s first-in-the-nation worker’s compensation system. After three years of legal back-and-forth, the state agreed that Novy was permanently and totally disabled (PTD), meaning he was among the worst-off of Wisconsin workers injured on the job. As a result, he qualified for worker’s comp checks for life.
But there was no guarantee of how often those checks would increase.
Now 77, widowed, remarried and using hearing aids and a cane, Novy hasn’t seen an increase in his $1,575 monthly worker’s compensation check — nor have the other more than 300 other PTD recipients — since 2016.
“I can’t make it,” Novy told Wisconsin Watch in mid-July. “I got $8 left in my checkbook right now to last me through the last week of the month.”
“The wife buys food and stuff, otherwise I’d be starving to death,” he added.
Had Novy’s worker’s comp payment kept pace with inflation, which rose 34%, he would have received nearly $21,000 more over the past nine years, according to calculations by University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Menzie Chinn.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin employers have seen their premiums for worker’s compensation insurance decrease 10 years in a row, saving them $206 million in the past year and over $1 billion since 2017, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association, which is part of the state Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council.
Twenty-three states, including Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota, provide automatic cost-of-living raises for PTD recipients. In Wisconsin, raises have been provided only when they are included in a wide-ranging worker’s compensation “agreed bill,” proposed every two years, and only if the bill becomes law.
That moment might be at hand.
The advisory council has recommended raises for PTD recipients in the next agreed bill, which is being drafted.
The bill still has to be approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
In 1911, Wisconsin became the first state to adopt a comprehensive worker’s compensation law that was upheld as constitutional. Before that, the burden was on the worker to prove that a job injury was the employer’s fault. Now it’s a no-fault system. Workers injured on the job can receive regular payments based on their salary, plus coverage of medical bills to treat their injuries.
Wisconsin’s system has received high marks for getting injured workers back on the job quickly and for worker satisfaction in health care for their injuries.
The money for worker’s compensation checks comes from worker’s compensation insurance companies and from employers who are self-insured for worker’s comp. No tax dollars are involved.
About 21,000 people annually receive Wisconsin worker’s comp checks, the vast majority of them for a temporary period. Only about 500 people receive PTD benefits, and only 300 of them, like Novy, are eligible for raises.
That’s because the 2016 agreed bill limits raises, known as supplementary benefits, only to PTD recipients injured before Jan. 1, 2003.
The process that determines whether PTD raises are granted is not unlike the bargaining that an employer and a union do to reach a contract. Both sides have priorities, and there is horse trading and eventually compromise, at least on some issues.
The Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council is composed mainly of five representatives from management and five from organized labor, though it also includes nonvoting members representing insurance, health care and the Legislature.
Every odd year, the council develops a bill proposing multiple changes to worker’s comp. The process typically takes months of negotiations, said John Dipko, the council’s non-voting chair and administrator of worker’s compensation for the state Department of Workforce Development.
If approved by the Legislature and the governor, the bill becomes law the next year.
That process has produced 11 PTD raises since 1972. The 2016 raise put the maximum PTD payment at $669 per week.
Circumstances have left PTD recipient Scott Meyer better off financially than Novy, but delays in raises have forced Meyer to dip into savings and, as his health conditions worsen, worry about the future.
Meyer grew up outside of Milwaukee, playing in the woods and farm fields of rural Washington County. He was a member of the hockey team at West Bend West High School.
In 1993, at age 19, Meyer was working on a loading dock when a co-worker backing a semi-trailer pinned Meyer between the trailer and the dock. Meyer closed his eyes and tried to remain calm, thinking his right leg was broken.
“One of the paramedics in the ambulance thought that I was unconscious and said to the other paramedic that this was going to be his first fatality call,” Meyer recalled. “And I immediately then knew that something more major had happened.”
Meyer underwent multiple surgeries, spent more than a year in the hospital and dropped to under 100 pounds. He was left a paraplegic.
Though unable to work, Meyer became an Alpine skier in Colorado, where he now lives, competing in the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi, Russia.
Meyer, 51, said he receives about $2,300 per month from worker’s compensation – nearly $370 per month less than what he was paid on the job in 1993.
Meyer, who owns a condominium with his wife, a mental health therapist, said he has been able to live comfortably only by preserving savings, including from a one-time payout he received from his former employer for his injury. But with no raises in nine years, he has had to dip into savings to get by.
Earlier this year, both Novy in an email and Meyer in a video asked the Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council to recommend raises for PTD recipients.
“These are people whose lives are the most severely changed and are legitimately dependent upon these funds,” Meyer told Wisconsin Watch. “We’re talking about pennies on the dollar to the kind of money that is in the system.”
The process that results in PTD raises involves negotiations on a variety of worker’s compensation issues. That has made the road to another raise rocky in recent years.
The Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council’s agreed bill for 2018 would have raised the maximum weekly PTD payment to $711 from $669 and made more PTD people eligible for raises. But the bill also proposed a “fee schedule,” generally opposed by health care organizations, to limit how much health care providers can charge for worker’s comp care. The bill did not pass the Legislature.
Since then, the labor side of the advisory council continued to propose PTD raises, while the management side continued to seek a fee schedule. Wisconsin is one of only a handful of states without one. The two sides did not agree to include PTD raises in their 2020, 2022 and 2024 agreed bills.
A key barrier was cleared when a fee schedule for worker’s comp was included in the 2025-27 state budget adopted in July.
Days later, the advisory council proposed raises for current PTD recipients and made more PTD recipients eligible for raises.
Under the 2026 agreed bill, the injury date for PTD recipients to be eligible for raises would change from Jan. 1, 2003, to Jan. 1, 2020 — making an estimated 210 more people eligible for raises.
The bill would also raise the maximum weekly benefit for PTD recipients to $1,051 from $669 effective Jan. 1, 2026.
And it would add raises each Jan. 1, though those amounts would not be set until shortly before they become effective.
For individuals, the raise amounts would vary based on when they were injured.
For example, a PTD recipient injured in 1985 and receiving $535 a week would get a 57% increase to $840. The increase would amount to nearly $16,000 per year.
Once it’s drafted, the new agreed bill would need a final vote from the advisory council, which is expected in September. Then the bill would be submitted to the labor committees of the state Senate and Assembly.
Council management representatives didn’t reply to calls and emails requesting comment. Wisconsin AFL-CIO President Stephanie Bloomingdale, the lead labor representative, said she understands the frustration over delayed raises. But she said the advisory council system, with management and labor hashing out worker’s compensation issues, provides stability.
Without it, “it would be up to the Legislature, and the whims of the political winds would determine the policy,” she said.
Dipko, the DWD administrator, said the department is sympathetic.
“We agreed that an increase is overdue,” he said.
After waiting this long, Novy isn’t sure what to think. He’s happy he and wife share a $125,000 brick house they own “with the bank,” as he puts it, and for his monthly $1,635 Social Security check, which increases each year. But he has filed for bankruptcy three times, most recently in 2020. He feels that at this stage of his life, he should be more secure, and a raise in worker’s comp would help.
“The Legislature should be — forget Republican, Democrat — just vote for what’s good,” he said.
“I can’t see how come they can’t give us a little raise every year,” he added.
To comment on this story, or to suggest other stories to Wisconsin Watch, contact reporter Tom Kertscher: tkertscher@wisconsinwatch.org.
This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To republish, go to the original and consult the Wisconsin Watch republishing guidelines.
When Kristen Payne learned her child’s classmate at the Golda Meir Lower Campus tested positive for lead poisoning earlier this year, she said Milwaukee Public Schools had underestimated the amount of lead dust in the school.
“We have come to find out that Golda Meir had one of the highest levels of lead dust of any of the schools tested,” said Payne, founder of the advocacy group Lead Safe Schools MKE.
After MPS replaced the windows at Golda Meir in the 1990s, she said, district officials thought they eliminated a major hazard. But after starting remediation work earlier this year, they realized the problem was worse than they thought, she said.
Payne said the experience broke her trust with the district. She’s one of several advocates calling for MPS to be more transparent with its lead action plan.
As the school year approaches, lead safety groups want the district to share more documentation, open up about the money being spent on the plan and keep an eye on subcontractors doing remediation.
As of Aug. 29, the Milwaukee Health Department had cleared 39 MPS schools, meaning lead hazards have been removed and it is safe for children to return.
The district has posted full health department clearance reports for six schools and interim clearance reports for three schools, including Golda Meir.
An interim clearance report means all indoor lead hazards have been addressed, even if there are still lead hazards outside, said Caroline Reinwald, marketing, communications and public information officer for the Milwaukee Health Department.
“Some schools receive interim clearance reports because completing all exterior work can take months or even years,” Reinwald wrote. “In these cases, the buildings are still considered safe to occupy.”
As of Aug. 29, the district had sent letters to families at 28 schools saying the Health Department cleared their school for occupancy, yet few of the full clearance reports are available online.
“Trust is not going to be rebuilt if they continue to withhold information,” Payne said. “There’s many of us who aren’t clear or sure that truly these schools are safe.”
Richard Diaz is the co-founder of Coalition On Lead Emergency, which works to prevent and respond to lead poisoning in Milwaukee.
He said he wants to know how much money MPS is spending on abatement efforts and how long the cleanup keeps students safe from lead exposure.
Lead hazards can reappear after abatement, so the district will need to monitor schools for future lead risks, according to the Milwaukee Health Department clearance reports. New lead hazards can also appear as the building deteriorates, the reports read.
“Because these aren’t full-fledged abatements, these are, you know, kind of just Band-Aids on a solution that will need to be addressed in years to come,” Diaz said.
JCP Construction, the company MPS hired to assist with lead remediation, started the work with about 150 painters, but about 30 painters have since left due to difficult work conditions and high temperatures, MPS Interim Chief Operating Officer Mike Turza said in the July 31 school board meeting.
Turza said JCP Construction hired Illinois-based Independence Painting to fill the void, a decision that raised concerns among advocates and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. The district currently has 172 painters working across buildings.
Andy Buck, political affairs director with the painters’ union, said safety is a big concern. He said people want to know and ensure contractors doing lead remediation have the necessary qualifications.
“How’s that being documented?” Buck asked.
MPS media relations manager Stephen Davis said the district holds the contractor, JCP Construction, accountable for ensuring subcontractors are compliant with state regulations and licenses.
When the public raised concerns about out-of-state contractors like Independence Painting, the district worked with JCP to ensure it had all the necessary qualifications, Davis said.
There are generally no restrictions on the use of contractors from outside the area or state, but the district mandates that any staff meet the qualifications of state and building code requirements, Davis said.
Payne said the situation is another example of why she struggles to trust the district. Like Buck, she wants to see the documented qualifications of the subcontractors.
During the July 31 school board meeting, Turza said a district staff member was always monitoring each worksite and that certified lead stabilization staff or Wisconsin Department of Health Services workers were always present.
“It’s not clear to me who is correct,” Payne said. “I would want to see actual data on that before coming to any conclusion.”
The first day of class for most Milwaukee Public Schools was Sept. 2. As of Aug. 29, there were still 11 schools that had not been cleared by the Milwaukee Health Department.
Remediation efforts are ongoing with clearance of all schools expected by the start of the school year, according to the district’s most recent lead action plan report.
You can check on the progress of lead remediation efforts on this website.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
Advocates want more transparency in Milwaukee Public Schools lead action plan is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Food inspectors face increased workloads and loss of union protection, making it more difficult to notice and report safety violations at food processing plants.
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The parents of two Minnesota teens killed in a drunken driving crash in July have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the woman at the heart of a dispute between the Dane County Sheriff's Office and federal immigration authorities.
The post Woman at center of immigration dispute sued by parents of teens killed in crash appeared first on WPR.
For seven years, 82-year-old retiree Terry Lauerman has been donating his time to Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary. His specialty? Lying down and taking a snooze with the shelter’s special-needs cats.
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This year’s team will get its first major test on Sunday when the Packers take on the division rival Detroit Lions at Lambeau Field.
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Milwaukee officials are pledging to crack down on those involved in "street takeovers" characterized by reckless driving after a wave of the events over Labor Day weekend.
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A Milwaukee County Board committee is urging the organization in charge of high school sports in Wisconsin to address hate speech and harassment that happens during games.
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Two experts in navigating the financial aid system for college students highlight how federal changes this year are affecting loans.
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Psychologist Shilagh Mirgain joined "The Larry Meiller Show" to offer strategies for improving self-confidence, which she emphasized is a skill that can be strengthened.
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Union workers in Rhode Island protest a Trump administration stop-work order at an offshore wind farm under construction in August. Friday's jobs report shows the fewest gains in August since 2010. (Photo by Laura Paton/Rhode Island Current)
The United States added only 22,000 jobs in August, and previously reported gains in June were revised down to a loss of 13,000 jobs in a Bureau of Labor Statistics report issued Friday morning.
The August jobs increase was the lowest for that month since 2010 in the aftermath of the Great Recession. June’s decrease was the first jobs loss since a December 2020 COVID-19 surge shuttered restaurants and hotels.
A recent Stateline analysis showed that Virginia and New Jersey may be among the states most affected by recent hiring slowdowns, based on surveys and layoff reports, while California and Texas appeared to continue job gains.
Job openings fell to a 10-month low in July, according to a separate government report issued Sept. 3, and there were more unemployed people than jobs available for the first time since 2021.
Last month’s revisions to the jobs report enraged President Donald Trump when they first appeared Aug. 1. The revisions showed the nation had 258,000 fewer jobs than initially reported in May and June.
In response, Trump declared the numbers were wrong, fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics chief, Erika McEntarfer. He offered as a replacement E.J. Antoni, a loyalist who has proposed suspending the jobs report entirely. Trump falsely said in a Truth Social post at the time that the revised jobs numbers were “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”
Friday’s report showed August job losses in business and professional services (-17,000), government (-16,000), manufacturing (-12,000), wholesale trade (-11,700) and construction (-7,000), but gains in health care and social assistance (+46,800) and hospitality (+28,000).
The unemployment rate in August ticked up to 4.3%, from 4.2% in July and 4.1% in June. It increased the most for people with less than a high school diploma, up from 5.5% in July to 5.7% in August.
Unemployment ticked up for Black workers (to 7.5% from 7.2%) and Hispanic workers (to 5.3% from 5.0% in July). The rate went down for Asian workers (to 3.6% from 3.9%) and remained the same for white workers at 3.7%.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to add details about changes in industry job numbers and the unemployment rate.
Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
A 3-year-old girl gets an MMR vaccine at a clinic in Texas in March. Texas was among the states with the most public funding grants canceled by the Trump administration earlier this year. (Photo by Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images)
After the Trump administration slashed billions in state and local public health funding from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this year, the eventual impact on states split sharply along political lines.
Democratic-led states that sued to block the cuts kept much of their funding, while Republican-led states lost the bulk of theirs, according to a new analysis from health research organization KFF.
The uneven fallout underscores how politics continues shaping health care in the United States. The nearly 700 CDC grants were worth about $11 billion and had been allocated by Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, state and local health departments had spent or planned to spend the money not just on COVID-related efforts, but also on prevention of other infectious diseases, support for mental health and substance use, shoring up aging public health infrastructure, and other needs.
The CDC grant terminations initially affected red and blue states about evenly, according to KFF. California, the District of Columbia, Illinois and Massachusetts — all led by Democrats — had among the largest numbers of terminated grants.
But then nearly two dozen blue states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration in April, asking the court to block the grant terminations. They argued the federal government lacked the authority to rescind funding it had already allocated.
“The Trump administration’s illegal and irresponsible decision to claw back life-saving health funding is an attack on the well-being of millions of Americans,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in an April statement announcing the lawsuit.
“Slashing this funding now will reverse our progress on the opioid crisis, throw our mental health systems into chaos, and leave hospitals struggling to care for patients.”
A federal judge sided with the blue states and blocked the cancellations — but she limited her injunction to the jurisdictions that filed in the lawsuit.
Nearly 80% of the grant cuts have now been restored in blue states, according to the KFF analysis, compared with less than 5% in red states.
Now four of the five states with the most canceled grants are led by Republicans: Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. California, which is dominated by Democrats, kept all of its grants that had been initially terminated.
In the West and Midwest, Democratic-led Colorado — which joined the lawsuit — had 10 of its 11 grant terminations reversed. Its Republican-led neighbors that did not sue, including Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming, lost all of their grants, according to the KFF analysis.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the photo caption. Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
A man waits for health care at a temporary health clinic in Terre Haute, Ind. President Donald Trump’s new tax and spending law will likely force more than half the states to reduce payments to doctors and hospitals that treat Medicaid patients, a change critics warn could reduce health care options for people in rural areas. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump’s new tax and spending law will likely force more than half the states to reduce payments to doctors and hospitals that treat Medicaid patients, a change critics warn will be particularly harmful to rural hospitals struggling to stay afloat.
Medicaid, the joint state-federal health insurance program for low-income people, reimburses doctors, hospitals and nursing facilities for treating enrollees. But in many cases, the program doesn’t fully cover the cost of care, straining providers that serve a large share of Medicaid patients.
To help providers cover losses and continue to serve poorer populations, the federal government allows the 41 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have contracted with Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) to run their Medicaid programs to direct them to pay providers more — in some cases, as much as commercial plans.
Ultimately, taxpayers cover the costs of these so-called state directed payments — and those costs are growing. As of August 2024, the higher payments were projected to add $110.2 billion per year to Medicaid spending, nearly 60% more than the previous year’s projection.
That higher spending attracted the attention of conservatives on Capitol Hill.
Beginning in 2028, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will cap the payments, forcing state Medicaid programs to reduce reimbursement rates by 10 percentage points each year until they reach either 100% or 110% of what Medicare pays. States that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would be capped at the lower rate.
The new law will reduce Medicaid spending by $149 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and reduce Medicaid provider payments in as many as 31 states, according to KFF, a health policy research group. A separate analysis by The Commonwealth Fund, another research group, found that Medicaid payments to hospitals would drop by at least 20% in 19 of the 25 states that had publicly available data.
Critics say the change could be disastrous for hospitals, many of them in rural areas, that see a large share of Medicaid patients.
“This is all on top of an already pretty strained financial situation for rural hospitals,” Alexa McKinley Abel, director of government affairs and policy at the National Rural Health Association, a group representing rural health care providers, said in an interview. “We are worried about seeing service line closures at hospitals in an environment where OB-GYN and chemotherapy service lines are already being cut.”
Supporters of the change say the extra payments inflate federal spending on the Medicaid program, giving hospitals “windfall profits.”
“Not only do these programs sidestep the truly needy on Medicaid and favor special interests instead, but all this is financed by growing the federal debt, leading to inflation and higher interest rates for all Americans,” the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative think tank that helped draft the bill, stated in a policy brief.
Hospital leaders dispute that. Earlier this year, the American Hospital Association asserted that without the extra payments, Medicaid managed care organizations in 2023 only covered about two-thirds of the actual cost of care.
Cindy Samuelson, senior vice president of the Kansas Hospital Association, said the additional payments are especially critical in a rural state such as Kansas, where some researchers have found that 87% of rural hospitals are in the red. Kansas is one of 10 states that did not expand Medicaid, and like other nonexpansion states, it will have to begin reducing direct payments to 110% of what Medicare pays starting in 2028.
“Over time, commercial payers are paying less and less,” Samuelson said. “Many hospitals in our state are at risk of closure.”
Samuelson said that in rural areas, health care providers see fewer patients, which makes it hard to spread out the cost of care and make up for losses that come from serving underinsured, Medicaid and Medicare patients. One result is that rural hospitals are trimming services. A report published this year by Chartis, a health care consulting firm, found that between 2011 and 2023, nearly 300 rural hospitals across the country stopped offering obstetrics care, and 424 rural hospitals ceased chemotherapy services.
In Hutchinson, Kansas, Benjamin Anderson, CEO of the rural and community-owned Hutchinson Regional Health System, said his hospital barely broke even this year, and lower Medicaid payments will take a toll. The 190-bed hospital serves more than 65,000 people in the central Kansas region, and sees a lot of patients who are struggling with mental health issues and substance use disorders.
When we think about the cuts to Medicaid, it isn't simply about cutting services to the poor. It's threatening services to everyone.
– Benjamin Anderson, CEO of Hutchinson Regional Health System
“We are closely managing our workforce expenses. We’re going to be relying more heavily on philanthropy,” Anderson said, adding that the hospital wouldn’t lay off staff but would reduce the number of workers by not filling open positions.
He said his hospital has some cash reserves that should enable it to keep going, but that many other rural hospitals lack such a cushion.
“When we think about the cuts to Medicaid, it isn’t simply about cutting services to the poor. It’s threatening services to everyone, because in a rural community, we all get care in the same place,” he said. “If we cut out the safety net that’s sustaining these hospitals, everyone’s health care is threatened.”
Three hours northeast of Hutchinson is the rural town of Holton, where about 3,400 people live. Holton Community Hospital is a 14-bed critical access hospital, meaning that it provides emergency care around the clock for a rural community. For the past two years, it has been struggling, according to Carrie Lutz, the hospital’s CEO.
Lutz said the hospital is not part of a broader health care group, and it relies on philanthropy and local taxes. Due to financial strains, it’s in the process of selling off its home and hospice services to another health care facility. The cap on extra payments will be an additional barrier, she said.
Samuelson said Kansas is applying for money under the five-year, $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, which Congress added to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act amid concerns about its impact on rural hospitals. She expects Kansas to get at least $500 million between 2026 and 2030.
Rural hospitals in Mississippi also hope to tap into those funds. The Mississippi Hospital Association, which is advising state leaders on their application, said it expects Mississippi to get at least $500 million over the next five years.
Like Kansas, Mississippi did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care, a decision that deprived it of additional Medicaid patients and thus extra revenue.
“A few years ago, we had several rural hospitals that were facing some imminent closure challenges, and so our enhanced supplemental payment based on the average commercial rate has been a lifeline,” said Richard Roberson, president and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association.
“What we’re concerned about is that when those payments start to decrease, then we’re going to be right back to where we were in 2022, with concerns about rural hospitals again.”
Roberson said Medicaid, with the additional payments, had become “one of the best payers, if not the best payer, for our hospitals over the last two years,” and helped a lot of hospitals stay out of the red.
He said the new rural health care fund is promising, but noted that Mississippi will decide where to spend any money it gets, and some rural hospitals might miss out.
“We want to make sure we’re working with the state to provide sustainable solutions, not one-time fixes,” Roberson said. “The big wild card is the Rural Health Transformation fund and what the state chooses to do with that money.”
Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
LeVar Wilson, a Milwaukee glazer, describes how a project labor agreement that included requirements for local hiring made it possible for him to learn his trade and build a career. A bill to repeal a state ban on project labor agreements is part of a "Build a Stronger Wisconsin" package that Democratic lawmakers proposed Thursday. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
Democrats in the state Legislature began circulating draft legislation Thursday that they said would strengthen the state’s economy by supporting workers and undoing policies that undercut union-represented employees.
The package includes four bills: restoring Wisconsin’s prevailing wage law, repealing a ban on project labor agreements, repealing the state’s “right to work” law, and strengthening laws against wrongly classifying employees as independent contractors.
“We know that these are popular policies that the people of Wisconsin need to be able to thrive in our state,” said Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) at a press conference in the Assembly chamber Thursday morning. “We have all 60 members of the Assembly Democrats and the Senate Democrats signed onto these bills.”
A crowd of union members and supporters occupied the Assembly, packed in rows where the body’s leaders usually sit as well as bunched throughout the seats that lawmakers typically use during floor sessions.
One draft bill would undo Wisconsin’s “right-to-work” law enacted during former Gov. Scott Walker’s second term. The law bars employers and unions from requiring in their labor contracts that all union-represented employees pay union dues or fees to cover the union’s operational expenses.
Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) said the law “allows private sector workers to benefit from union protections without paying their share of union dues.” Spreitzer recalled he was in his first Assembly term when the measure was enacted in 2015 and spoke twice against it during an all-night floor session.
“Under federal law, unions are required to represent all employees in a workplace, but right-to-work laws like Wisconsin’s allow non-dues paying employees to receive the benefits of belonging to a union — such as bargain contracts for higher wages and union representation in employment disputes —without having to pay union dues,” Spreitzer said.
“That is not fair. It is well past time to return to the requirement that every union represented worker pays their dues for that privilege in Wisconsin,” he added.
Nurse Colin Gillis, a member of SEIU Wisconsin, called the law’s name “a misnomer.” Union members deride such laws as “right-to-work for less” because they tend to weaken wage gains, he said.
Right-to-work laws were first enacted in the segregated South after World War II. “Right-to-work laws were designed to divide and conquer and prevent us from joining together and increase living standards for working families from all races and backgrounds,” Gillis said. “Repealing ‘right to work for less’ will give me and my union siblings back the freedom to organize.”
A second bill would repeal another Walker-era law, enacted in 2017, that bars state and local governments from requiring contractors on public works projects to sign a project labor agreement with relevant unions. It also forbids government bids that require the bidder to have a union contract.
“Repealing the ban on project labor agreements, or PLAs, gives power to local and state governments to utilize a tool that would streamline the building process for public construction projects,” said Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson).
LeVar Wilson, a journeyman glazer represented by the Painters Union in Milwaukee, said he got his start as an apprentice 25 years ago when the Milwaukee baseball stadium, then known as Miller Park, was being built. The stadium project labor agreement guaranteed a percentage of jobs would go to Milwaukee County residents.
“I was one of those workers hired under this provision,” Wilson said. “It led me to a sustainable career that’s allowed me to raise a family of four without the struggle of poverty that I went through when I was a child.”
A third bill would increase enforcement and penalties for businesses that misclassify workers as independent contractors.
State Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) said that when employers misclassify workers, they dodge state and federal payroll taxes, evade minimum wage laws and overtime payment requirements, and don’t pay into the worker’s compensation and unemployment insurance programs.
“By avoiding these costs, dishonest employers often successfully undercut their competitors with very low bids,” Sinicki said. “In this way, misclassification harms the law-abiding employers and their employees and also the taxpayers who have to pick up the slack.”
The draft bill would increase the penalties for lawbreakers and expand outreach both to contractors and the public about misclassification.
The legislation would “level the playing field for business owners like us, who play by the rules,” said Larry Statz, a second-generation union painting contractor with 30 employees who said that he’s seen more contractors misclassify employees in recent years.
“We refuse to break the law or shortchange our workers. But it’s getting harder to compete with dishonest companies who cut corners,” Statz said. “State laws on misclassification do not have enough teeth in them, and these cheating companies too often avoid being caught.”
The fourth bill would reinstate Wisconsin’s prevailing wage law, which set a standard for what workers on state and local government projects are paid. The prevailing wage law was repealed in the state budget Walker signed in 2017.
State Sen. Bob Wirch (D-Somers) said Republican lawmakers who voted to repeal the law “promised it would save the taxpayers money. Well, the opposite has happened.”
A study published in 2020 by the Midwest Economic Policy Institute found that in the years that followed the repeal, construction workers’ wages fell by about $2,600 a year and highway construction costs increased.
At the time the report was published, a co-author, economist Kevin Duncan, said that the findings “underscore the longstanding academic consensus” that doing away with prevailing wage requirements leads to a lower-skilled, lower-wage workforce and doesn’t save money.
“Instead, it creates new inefficiencies in the form of workforce turnover, quality, cost overruns and safety problems,” Duncan said in a news release announcing the report.
Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said she has sought to persuade GOP Senate Majority Leader Devin Le Mahieu (R-Oostburg) to pursue bipartisan lawmaking.
“I do not know if the Senate Republicans have caucused on any of these measures, but I’d encourage them to do so,” Hesselbein said.
Neubauer said the Assembly Democrats would continue advocating for the measures, but also tacitly acknowledged that they might not advance until after the 2026 election — when Democratic leaders are hoping to flip one or both chambers.
“We will continue pushing for them as long as it takes,” Neubauer said of the bills. “And if that’s next session, so be it.”
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On Sunday, May 4, 2025, Messiah Lutheran Church celebrated the completion of a 64-kilowatt solar array on its rooftop with a heartfelt dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony, signifying a bold investment in creation care and the future of its ministry.
The ribbon-cutting and dedication service reflected the joy and hope behind the project. Lead Pastor Jeff Vanden Heuvel and Associate Pastor Dan O’Brien led the congregation in prayer and blessing, dedicating the panels to God’s work of renewal and stewardship. Members of the Building Team, including John Nerad and Business Manager Tim Coulthart, were recognized for their leadership, along with the Parish Council, which supported the vision from start to finish.
For more than 60 years, the church has been a place of welcome, service, and love for its Madison community. Guided by the mission “to be the heart and hands of Jesus to our neighborhood, city, and the world,” Messiah has long lived out its values through food and supply drives, youth and senior programs, and partnerships that strengthen local schools and organizations.
“We’ve come to realize one huge aspect of our faith is advocacy,” Pastor Dan said. “Advocating for social justice is vital, but none of that will matter if our world becomes too toxic to live on. Taking real steps to improve the health of this planet is so important, and this solar project is one way we are responding to our responsibility as stewards of the earth.”
The new rooftop solar array, installed by Eagle Point Solar, consists of 121 panels and is anchored with concrete blocks to protect the roof. The system will generate approximately 85,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year and offset 98 percent of the church’s annual energy use.
In addition to powering the church itself, the panels also power compassion, learning, and justice for neighbors near and far. The roughly $9,000 annual utility bill savings will flow back into Messiah’s many community partners, including Goodman Community Center, Porchlight, Second Harvest Food Bank, and many others. These organizations provide year-round support to local children and families in need.
The church approached the decision to invest in solar with both practicality and financial benefits in mind. Solar will reduce operating costs, protect against rising energy prices, and free up resources for mission-driven programs while serving as a public testament to the congregation’s values. Messiah utilized its capital funds project reserve and a Focus on Energy incentive to develop its solar project. The Couillard Solar Foundation, through the Solar for Good program administered by RENEW Wisconsin, helped offset costs further by donating half the solar panels for the project.
“As we move into the future, we at Messiah feel that a part of our calling is to be good stewards of the earth,” Pastor Dan said. “Being the heart and hands of Jesus, in our vision, is to both respond to the direct needs of our communities and to work toward dismantling systems that have caused harm to people and the world. This solar project is one way we hope to do this in a positive way.”
Messiah’s commitment to sustainability is deeply intertwined with its broader work. From supporting students at Kennedy Elementary School with backpack drives and bus funding, to hosting a robust Senior Adult Ministry, to providing rental assistance and aid through the Gundlach Family Fund, the church consistently meets community needs with creativity and compassion. Messiah also actively engages in racial and social justice work through partnerships with Nehemiah and MOSES, book groups that challenge bias, and its public stance as a Reconciling in Christ congregation welcoming LGBTQIA+ individuals.
As the sun now powers Messiah Lutheran Church, its light shines beyond the walls of the sanctuary, fueling ministries that nurture children, comfort the elderly, advocate for justice, and uplift neighbors in need. The solar project is a legacy that will serve generations to come, proving that faith, action, and sustainability can work hand in hand to bring healing to the world.
The post Messiah Lutheran Church Celebrates a Bright Future with Solar Energy appeared first on RENEW Wisconsin.
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