Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

The definition of mass shootings varies, but research has found the U.S. has the most.

Reasons include high gun ownership, “cultural factors like individualism and fame-seeking, sensationalized media coverage, and gaps in mental health care and law enforcement,” said James Densley of the Violence Prevention Project Research Center.

According to two peer-reviewed studies:

U.S. mass shootings accounted for 73% of all incidents and 62% of all fatalities in developed countries from 1998–2019.

That study’s author wrote in February there were 109 U.S. mass shootings from 2000-2022 and 35 in comparable countries. The U.S. accounted for 33% of the population of the 36 countries, but 76% of the incidents and 70% of victim fatalities.

The U.S. had 30.8% of all mass shooters from 1966–2012, despite having less than 5% of the world’s population.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan made the U.S. claim after a mass school shooting Dec. 16 in Madison, Wisconsin, which he represents.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice Global mass shootings: comparing the United States against developed and developing countries
• James Densley, Violence Prevention Project Research Center deputy director Email, Dec. 19, 2024
• Dom Salvia Show Mark Pocan interview
• Rockefeller Institute of Government Public Mass Shootings Around the World: Prevalence, Context, and Prevention
• Econ Journal Watch The Importance of Analyzing Public Mass Shooters Separately from Other Attackers When Estimating the Prevalence of Their Behavior Worldwide
• Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director, Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium Email, Dec. 20, 2024
• CNN How US gun culture stacks up with the world
• Washington Post Fact Checker Does the U.S. lead the world in mass shootings?
• USA Today Fact check: Comparison of school shootings in the US, other countries uses old data

Does the US have more mass shootings per person than any other nation? 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.

Last winter, Eric Zieroth dressed in as many layers as he could and stayed beneath a down blanket each night. He learned it was the best way to keep warm while living in his car in far northwestern Wisconsin. 

During those cold months, he and his then-20-year-old daughter Christina Hubbell had to wake, start the vehicle and blast the heat a few times a night before shutting it off again. 

For over a year, the pair regularly parked their PT Cruiser — a car older than Hubbell that Zieroth, 47, called “a shoebox on wheels” — in a corner spot at a public boat landing on Long Lake. The lot is less than a mile from the rural city of Shell Lake, with a population of less than 1,400.

Down a dirt road and tucked into the woods, they slept at the secluded launch to stay out of the way in the town where they spent most of their lives. Now, because they are homeless, they have been ostracized for showering, parking and sleeping in public places.

Washburn County has no homeless shelters, and they don’t have family to stay with. Hubbell’s mom and Zieroth divorced in 2022. The following year, when Hubbell was 19, her mom told her to start paying rent or leave. 

Hubbell’s job at a Dollar General in Shell Lake — their only source of income — keeps them from relocating to a shelter in another county. They are on a waitlist for a low-income housing unit. 

Zieroth is awaiting a surgery that will allow him to get back to work. With no way to heal or keep the wound clean, he said he couldn’t get the operation while living in his car. If it weren’t for his daughter, the former mechanic said he might have considered committing a crime and getting booked into jail instead of spending another winter in the vehicle. 

“There’s no way I could do it again,” Zieroth said. “I had to figure out something else this year.”

In rural Wisconsin, homelessness is often hidden behind a veil of individuals and families who are couch surfing and sleeping in their vehicles instead of sleeping on city streets or camping out in parks. Resources are few and far between, shelters are always full, and funding can be a significant challenge at the local, state and federal level.

After falling for years, the state’s estimated homeless population has been rising since 2021. This past year it rose again from 4,861 in 2023 to 5,037. In the “balance” of the state — all 69 counties outside Milwaukee, Racine and Dane — the homeless population increased from 2,938 individuals in 2023 to 3,201 in 2024, according to data Wisconsin Watch obtained from the region’s continuum of care organization, which conducts homeless counts each year.

Despite accounting for over 60% of the state’s homeless population in 2023, these mostly rural counties collectively contain just 23% of the state’s supportive housing units — long-term housing models with on-site supportive services, which experts say is the best way to address chronic homelessness. But providing long-term housing and services on top of shelter is an expensive, labor-intensive task for small, rural providers with limited funding.

According to the Department of Public Instruction’s latest data, 18,455 students experienced homelessness during the 2022-23 school year — a number that has increased each year since 2020. Some 11,000 of these students reside in districts outside of Milwaukee, Madison, Racine and Green Bay.

The annual data collected on homelessness are an undercount, especially in rural areas, said Mary Frances Kenion, vice president of training and technical assistance at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. That means less funding for already disadvantaged smaller communities. 

“Where there’s more concentration of people, that’s always going to drive funding, because we have block grant funding that is directly tied to the census,” Kenion told Wisconsin Watch. 

Despite rural communities having fewer nonprofits than urban ones, shelters and housing assistance programs are leading the way to address the expanse of homelessness in rural Wisconsin. 

“Funding and access to resources is a challenge … but there are some really bright spots in rural communities, because they are doing more with less,” Kenion said. “We’re seeing a ton of innovation and resilience just by virtue of them being positioned to do more with less.” 

But shelter directors and anti-poverty advocates face many hurdles when it comes to funding, resources and support.

Rural shelter providers across the state identified several solutions to the problem: Cutting out county governments as the middleman for state reimbursements, increasing the availability of new rental units, consolidating multiple definitions of homelessness, more consistent and proportional state funding, and assistance with case management are just a few.

Point-in-time counts, federal funding and HUD 

The annual “point-in-time” (PIT) homeless counts are collected by continuum of care organizations across the country on a single night during the last week of January. Wisconsin has four designated organizations with three covering Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties and one for the other 69 counties. 

The counts are submitted to Congress and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for consideration and funding determinations. They are meant to include those living in temporary shelters, as well as unsheltered people living on the street, but do not include people in other sheltered situations. Those living in cars are often missed. 

“They’re typically either in their car or they’re on somebody’s couch,” said Jenny Fasula, executive director of Wisconsin’s Foundation for Rural Housing. “People on the couches don’t count in your PIT counts because they’re ‘housed.’ People in cars in rural areas — I don’t even know where you’d find them, except maybe a Walmart parking lot.”

Since 2009, HUD — the main federal agency that handles homelessness — has targeted permanent supportive housing programs with long-term, sustainable services like case management for federal funding. The national shift from temporary housing programs reflects a widely adopted “housing first” approach — that the security of a permanent shelter is the first, necessary step before people can address the root causes of their homelessness. 

“Temporary housing programs shifted their gears towards that other type of service so they could continue to operate and get funding to operate,” Wisconsin Policy Forum researcher Donald Cramer told Wisconsin Watch. 

While permanent housing programs effectively lowered Wisconsin’s homeless population in both rural and urban areas before the pandemic, the shift hasn’t been easy for rural shelters that are strapped for cash and resources.

“As a shelter, when you have 50 people, it’s impossible to have the funding to hire case managers that are really involved and able to really assist people,” said Michael Hall, a former Waupaca County shelter worker and director of Impact Wisconsin — a nonprofit providing housing and recovery services in a six-county rural region. 

“We’re small,” said Adam Schnabel, vice president of a homeless shelter in Taylor County, adding that without more staff, the shelter can’t have someone in charge of post-departure case management to make sure people stay in housing.

“We’re trying to find volunteer case managers,” said Kimberly Fitzgerald, interim director of the Rusk County Lighthouse shelter. “People to volunteer their time, to work for free, to do case management. Good luck with that.” 

Restrictions on federal funding and multiple definitions of homelessness are another barrier for rural homeless providers, said Millie Rounsville, CEO of Northwest Wisconsin Community Services Agency. 

The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act defines homelessness specifically for youth as minor children who “lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.” But HUD defines homelessness in multiple categories: 1) an individual or family who is immediately homeless and without shelter and 2) those at imminent risk of homelessness. Consolidating these definitions is key, according to Rounsville. 

Homeless children and families in the rural region surrounding Superior tend to be doubled up in some kind of housing, Rounsville said. While they often meet the McKinney-Vento definition of homeless, they are considered category two homeless under HUD’s definitions. 

But in order to qualify for HUD-funded Rapid Rehousing programs, individuals must fall under category one.

“The funding needs to be flexible,” Rounsville said. “We can’t assume that every community across the country has the same need.”

To provide permanent supportive housing and receive funding, shelters and nonprofits also have to serve and document chronically homeless populations. According to HUD, that means a member of the household has to have a documented disability. Providers like Rounsville are additionally required to provide third-party verification that someone has been category one homeless for a year or more.

“If you were in a larger city where you have a lot of shelters or street outreach, that third-party verification would be a lot easier than when you’re in a rural community,” Rounsville said.

It’s a housing issue

Rural Wisconsin is lacking affordable, habitable homes.

“When you layer the limited footprint of service providers in a rural community, packed with a housing supply that is already insufficient and continuing to shrink, that creates a perfect storm for rising numbers of people experiencing homelessness,” Kenion said. 

Providers in Rusk County, Taylor County, Bayfield County and Waupaca County said that without low-income options and available rental units, they often can’t get people into permanent housing.

“As fast as units open up, they get filled,” Fitzgerald said. “In Ladysmith specifically, there are next to no rental units. So even if somebody did get approved for the housing program, where are we going to put them?”

Among affordability and shortage issues, rural areas are also home to the state’s aging housing stock. 

“The housing stock is very old,” Fasula said. “So now you have higher energy bills. And the rent may be lower, but your energy bill is twice as much.” 

Her work at the Foundation for Rural Housing provides one-time emergency rental assistance to prevent evictions and homelessness across the state. 

“People stereotype them to think ‘Oh, we have these programs because people don’t know how to manage their money.’ It’s not that,” Fasula said. “These are folks that come in that just have a crisis. … They don’t have anything to fall back on. Any little hiccup is a big impact for them financially.”

The foundation is partially funded by the state’s critical assistance grant program, which is awarded to just one eligible agency in Wisconsin. Fasula said the foundation still relies on many private funding sources.

While working to eventually afford an apartment in Shell Lake, Hubbell is making $13.50 an hour at the Dollar General, but only scheduled to work 20 hours a week. The living wage calculation for one adult in Washburn County is $19.45 an hour working 40 hours a week, according to the MIT living wage calculator.

“Homelessness is a housing issue. It’s a symptom of an economy and policies that aren’t working,” Kenion said. “Yes, housing costs tend to be lower in rural communities, but so do wages.”

State funding 

In the state’s 2023-25 biennial budget, the Republican-controlled Legislature rejected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ recommendations to spend some $24 million on emergency shelter and housing grants, as well as homeless case management services and rental assistance for unhoused veterans.

The Legislature also nixed $250 million Evers proposed for affordable workforce housing and home rehabilitation grants.

The state funds two main grants for homeless shelters and housing annually. The State Shelter Subsidy Grant (SSSG) receives around $1.6 million per year, and the Housing Assistance Program receives $900,000.

But for small shelters like Taylor House — the only homeless shelter in rural Taylor County — Schnabel says the funding is “pennies.” The facility has a continuous waitlist. 

“We are a lost people up north, here in the rural areas,” Schnabel said. “I feel like there’s so much focus and so many monetary resources provided to Dane and Milwaukee counties.” 

The north central Wisconsin shelter with a 17-person capacity received $10,000 from SSSG this year, Schnabel said. That’s around $588 per person. But four emergency shelters in Milwaukee with a combined capacity of around 392 received $400,000 from the $1.6 million grant total — $1,020 per person.

“It’s not just local individuals we’re serving,” Schnabel said. “We’re serving individuals from Milwaukee County, Dane County, Fox River Valley, Chippewa. They’re coming from all over because those homeless shelters are either at capacity or their waitlist is too long.”

The state’s Recovery Voucher Grant Program awarded $760,000 to grantees in 2024 to provide housing to those experiencing homelessness and struggling with opioid use disorders. Half of these funds went to three providers in Dane, Milwaukee and Waukesha counties. 

Another state resource is the Homeless Case Management Services (HCMS) grant program, which distributes up to 10 $50,000 grants per year to shelters and programs that meet eligibility requirements.

Shelter directors like Fitzgerald said the state’s reliance on grant funding to address homelessness and housing needs isn’t sustainable for small providers. While helpful, these pots of money quickly run out, and many of them don’t cover operating costs or wages. 

“A lot of these funding sources, it’s like a first come first serve basis, so there isn’t money necessarily allocated to cover our expenses,” Fitzgerald said. “When the funding runs out, we’re SOL.” 

The Lighthouse is the only homeless shelter in Rusk County. Many surrounding shelters are also full, and some counties don’t have shelters at all, leaving people with limited options. 

“As fast as we empty out, we fill up. So it’s kind of a revolving door,” Fitzgerald said. “Our first priority is to serve Rusk County residents, but we’re in the business of helping, so I don’t turn people away.” 

Small shelters face county-level hurdles 

Some shelter workers and advocates say in rural Wisconsin, homelessness is addressed only to the extent that their local governments and administrations are willing to acknowledge the issue and get involved.

“A lot of these people go unnoticed, unchecked in the system, and there just aren’t any county services, especially in our community, that are there to help individuals that are struggling,” Hall said. “We, with a lot of duct tape and a shoestring, hold it down.” 

Providers in several rural counties noted that there aren’t any shelters that are owned or operated in any capacity by local governments. In most cases, Washburn County Social Services can only direct homeless residents like Zieroth and Hubbell to the Lakeland Family Resource Center, which provided them with a list of shelters too far out of their reach.

“We don’t have the extra gas or a decent enough vehicle to go too far from Shell Lake,” Zieroth said.

The Ashland Community Shelter is the only shelter in a four-county rural area. The city applied for the federal grant funds that allowed Rounsville’s agency to acquire the shelter, but she noted that if it hadn’t taken that step, there wouldn’t be a shelter in Ashland today. 

“You still need that county government saying, ‘Hey, we have a program, we need funding,’” Cramer said. “If your county is not looking to deal with homelessness, then they’re probably not asking for that funding either.”

Hall and Schnabel said local governments need to be more involved in their work, whether that be providing a county employee to serve as a shelter director, or simply making better use of the few resources they have.

Schnabel added that small shelters often cannot pay their directors a decent wage, resulting in frequent staff turnover. Taylor House has had four directors in the last 18 months, he said. The inconsistency leaves “a bad taste” in the mouth of those reviewing their grant applications.

According to Hall, some counties are much more willing than others to utilize Comprehensive Community Services (CCS) — a state program aimed at addressing substance abuse and mental health needs. The program allows counties to contract employees and case managers at local shelters who provide services such as skills development and peer support. If the notes are done properly, the county can bill those expenses back to the state through BadgerCare. 

But despite those being reimbursable expenses, some county officials either don’t know how or are unwilling to engage in the program, Hall said. 

“The tool is there, it just needs to be utilized,” he said. “Because of their unwillingness to try something, it oftentimes ends up having to tell people ‘no,’ and we’re moving them to another county.”

He added that allowing local shelters that serve those covered under BadgerCare to bill the state directly for these services instead of relying on the county to initiate it “would solve the problem tomorrow.”

Hall also noted that county governments can use their opioid settlement funds to provide housing and shelter to those with eligible needs, yet some have instead spent it on other things. 

Waupaca County, for example, told Wisconsin Watch it has spent nearly $100,000 in opioid settlement funds on awareness campaigns, training, a counselor position and equipment that helps local police quickly identify narcotics in the field.

Grant funding is often allocated to regional “parent” organizations, like a Salvation Army, which then distribute the money to local nonprofits and shelters. But Schnabel said the state must force the hand of counties that “choose not to see homelessness.” 

“By requiring that these funds go through the county to be disbursed to the homeless shelter, it forces the county to have a relationship and have skin in the game with the shelters,” he said. 

Another challenge is that some small communities like Ashland reject homeless shelters, assuming they will bring negative footprints.

“There’s going to be needles, the neighborhood houses are going to be robbed, children are going to be ran over on the highway,” Rounsville said. “There’s all kinds of things that came up when we were doing the change of use for this hotel to become a shelter. It was something that not everybody wanted to see in the community.” 

The small city of Clintonville approved an ordinance last winter enforcing a 60-day limit on local hotel stays in a six-month period, citing drug concerns, disorderly conduct and disturbances. Many homeless individuals in the area are put up in those hotels. 

“We’re trying to figure out, what are we going to do with those 50 people this winter when the police departments come through and say they have to get out,” Hall said. 

Studies estimate that every year, someone experiencing chronic homelessness costs a community $30,000 to $50,000, according to the Interagency Council on Homelessness. Yet for each person who is homeless, permanent supportive housing costs communities $20,000 per year.

“These are our neighbors in any community, and when they are no longer homeless and they are thriving, they reinvest that into the economy, into the community, into the neighborhood,” Kenion said.

While often doing more with less, local nonprofits are still the ones that are built to do this work, Hall said.

“There is no solution. There is no algorithm to get us to an answer,” Schnabel said. “But what we know is that there needs to be a place that they can go to be safe, and have warm, secure housing until they can get back on their feet.”

Shunned by their community

In June, Zieroth and Hubbell pulled their car into a Shell Lake gas station parking lot to sleep, shortly before a police officer was called and arrived to tell them they were trespassing and had to leave. 

In August, the father and daughter stopped at the Shell Lake ATV Campground to use the public showers, when a campground employee entered and demanded that Zieroth get his daughter and leave. The employee called Shell Lake police, who escorted him off the property. 

A resident living next to the boat launch where they stayed eventually took issue with them parking their car at the public lot. In October, Hubbell said the homeowner stormed into the Dollar General while she was working and told her they couldn’t sleep there anymore, threatening to call the police.

And one night after finding a group fishing at the boat launch, the pair decided to drive to another public landing in Burnett County where they parked and slept. Still under their blankets, they woke the next morning to a DNR officer and county sheriff’s deputy approaching, asking about Zieroth’s “drug of choice.” According to Wisconsin Court System records, Zieroth served time in prison for burglary as a 21-year-old, but has never faced drug-related charges.

They were told to leave. 

“They just did not want us in this area. We’re less than a mile from where we grew up, and from where she went to school and graduated,” Zieroth said, pointing to his daughter. “I’ve made my life here … everything points to ‘get out.’”

While still homeless, the pair were fortunate enough to find a temporary place to stay as the weather gets colder — a small room in the unfinished basement of an acquaintance who didn’t want to see them living out of their car. They are joined by their dog Bella, who Zieroth won’t abandon after she woke him the night his camper caught fire in 2022, allowing him to escape and likely saving his life. 

Zieroth and Hubbell have an old bed, a recliner and a bathroom for now. But their most cherished comfort is that the room is heated — something they don’t take for granted after a winter spent in their car. 

With a roof over their heads, Zieroth hopes to finally get the surgery he needs, but he’s unsure of how long they can stay. 

They insist on paying the homeowners $50 a week — all they can afford — for letting them stay in the basement. Zieroth uses his skills as a mechanic to fix things around the property, and Hubbell picks items up for them at the Dollar General whenever she can.

Once healed, he wants to get back to work and acquire a property of his own, but his first priority is his daughter. After getting on her feet, Hubbell hopes to go to cosmetology school in Rice Lake.

“She has her whole life ahead of her and experience has taught me that some real bad beginnings get really good endings, and she deserves a good one,” Zieroth said.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Wisconsin’s rural homelessness crisis and the fight to do ‘more with less’ 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.

The future may not have been written yet, but as it unfolds in 2025, Wisconsin Watch’s statehouse team will be on the lookout for stories that expose societal problems, explore solutions, explain the decisions that affect your daily life and hold the powerful to account.

Here are four storylines we predict we’ll be following in the new year:

1. The Wisconsin Supreme Court will expand abortion rights.

There are two abortion-related cases at the Wisconsin Supreme Court right now. One questions whether or not an 1849 law has been “impliedly repealed” by subsequent abortion laws and whether it even applies to consensual abortions. The other asks the justices to declare that access to abortion is a right protected by the state constitution. I’m guessing they will.

In another recent but unrelated case, Justice Rebecca Dallet suggested the court should broadly interpret the Wisconsin Constitution. “There are several compelling reasons why we should read Article I, Section 1 (of the state constitution) as providing broader protections for individual liberties than the Fourteenth Amendment (of the U.S. constitution),” she wrote. Article I, Section 1 of the state constitution states, in part, that all “people are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

That’s the exact provision Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin relies on in arguing abortion access is protected by the constitution. Seems noteworthy.

— Jack Kelly

2. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and the Republican-controlled Legislature will again strike a deal to increase funding for public education and private voucher schools, similar to the compromise they made in 2023. 

Wisconsin held a record number of public school referendums this year. School districts, public officials, local taxpayers and public education advocates are speaking out, calling for increases in state aid after approving $4.4 billion in property tax hikes so their local schools can continue to cover operating costs, as well as large projects. After speaking with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers about this issue during the 2024 election cycle, many of them agreed that voters aren’t happy when they have to increase their own property taxes. Assuming Republicans are feeling the pressure to increase funding for public schools, K-12 spending could be on track to become one of the most significant budget items in 2025. 

But Republican lawmakers have also stood their ground in support of school choice and have criticized state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly’s $4 billion ask for public school funding in the upcoming budget. If Republicans do agree to per-pupil funding increases, it likely won’t match the amount Evers asks for. In turn, Republicans will likely demand an increase for the voucher system as well.

— Hallie Claflin

3. The state Supreme Court election will set another spending record.

The last time Donald Trump won the presidency, Democrats were so shell-shocked they didn’t field a candidate to challenge conservative Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler’s re-election bid. Then in January 2018 Democrat Patty Schachtner won a special state Senate election in rural northwestern Wisconsin, signaling a Democratic wave was building. Rebecca Dallet’s Supreme Court win in April of that year affirmed the wave. It also heralded a leftward swing of the state Supreme Court culminating with Janet Protasiewicz’s win in April 2023, an election that shattered national spending records for a state Supreme Court election.

Whether Dane County Judge Susan Crawford can continue the liberal winning streak or former Attorney General Brad Schimel can channel Trump’s winning vibes is far from certain. But April’s high court contest is a must-win for Republicans, so expect the $51 million record from 2023 to fall. A Crawford win would guarantee liberal control through 2028. A Schimel win would set up another pivotal election in 2026.

— Matthew DeFour

4. Ben Wikler will be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Democrats have been doing a lot of soul searching since their setbacks in November. While they haven’t reached a consensus on how to move their party forward — and they likely won’t anytime soon — they will need an effective communicator as their leader while they regroup. Wikler, who is a powerhouse fundraiser, is about as media-savvy as it comes. Whether it’s catering to a national audience on cable news, firing up the base on liberal podcasts like “Pod Save America” or speaking about local issues with local reporters like me, Wikler always stays on message. In a time when Democrats need to convince voters that they are looking out for their best interests, staying on message would be a valuable quality in a leader. That, combined with a track record of building strong party infrastructure at the state level and, most importantly, winning, makes him a standout among the declared candidates. We’ll find out his fate Feb. 1.

— Jack Kelly

Forward is a look ahead at the week in Wisconsin government and politics from the Wisconsin Watch statehouse team.

State budget, Supreme Court race top next year’s political calendar 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.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

A 2024 RAND report and four experts in mass shootings said they know of no research concluding that the presence of armed officers deters school shootings.

The armed officers claim was made Dec. 19 by school safety advocate Ryan Petty in an interview about a mass shooting Dec. 16 at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. 

That school didn’t employ an officer.

Petty’s daughter was killed in the 2018 mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, school, which did.

Petty said the connection is “proven.” He didn’t cite research to Wisconsin Watch.

Whether arming school resource officers “leads to net harms or benefits … could be addressed with strong scientific research designs or observational studies,” RAND said.

A 2023 University at Albany-RAND study found school resource officers reduce some violence and increase weapon detection, “but do not prevent gun-related incidents.”

A 2021 U.S. DOJ-funded study said “data suggest no association” between armed officers and deterring mass shootings.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• RAND: The Effects of Laws Allowing Armed Staff in K-12 Schools
• Metro State University professor James Densley: Email, 12/19/24
• University of Alabama professor Adam Lankford: Email, 12/19/24
• Armed American Radio: Ryan Petty interview, 12/19/24
• University at Albany-RAND: The Thin Blue Line in Schools: New Evidence on School-Based Policing Across the U.S.
• U.S. Justice Department: Presence of Armed School Officials and Fatal and Nonfatal Gunshot Injuries During Mass School Shootings, United States, 1980-2019

Has research found that armed officers deter school shootings? 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.

Candles, flowers, crosses and plenty of television cameras have accented the Madison cityscape following a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School that wounded six and killed three, including the 15-year-old shooter. 

Here’s what it looked like this week as community members gathered to support traumatized families and memorialize lives lost.

Police and first responders lined Buckeye Road as investigations continued.

Abundant Life remains closed to students. The United Way of Dane County has established an Abundant Life Christian School Emergency and Recovery Fund, with all proceeds going to those affected by the shooting, according to the school’s website. Supporters can donate online or text help4ALCS to the number 40403.

By Tuesday morning, news media vehicles swarmed where parents would have dropped off their children on normal school days. Reporters conducted interviews along Buckeye Road, lining sidewalks and street parking spaces.

Police tape surrounded the school and neighboring City Church. Flowers and candles lined the sidewalk.

On a chilly Tuesday evening, hundreds mourned at a candlelit vigil at the Wisconsin Capitol.

Madison Metropolitan School District Superintendent Joe Gothard and Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway called on the community to support those affected. 

“That is where our focus is right now — caring for everyone who has been impacted,” Rhodes-Conway said. “Let us be a community that takes care of each other.”

She highlighted resources available through the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Office of School Safety and Office of Crime Victim Services, available 24-7 at 1-800-697-8761 or schoolsafety@doj.state.wi.us.

Vigil attendees sang and held their hands near their candles, protecting flames from gusts of wind. They wrote messages on crosses representing the dead.

“We will fight for change so this can’t happen again,” read one message.

Calls to end gun violence have echoed throughout Madison, including a plea from the Wisconsin State Journal’s editorial board to “break America’s curse of gunfire in schools.”

Photos: Madison mourns after Abundant Life Christian School shooting 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.

Every year Wisconsin Watch produces some of the best investigative journalism in Wisconsin, and this year was no exception. We exposed a judge abusing his power to benefit a coworker, revealed how AI is helping the state catch illegal manure spreading, catalogued every book ban request in all 421 school districts and found state prisons hiring doctors with disciplinary histories.

But what made this year particularly special was the introduction of the Forward newsletter. Each week the Wisconsin Watch state team produces shorter stories about what we expect to be the big news and trends in the days, weeks and months ahead. It’s something our local media partners asked for and our state team reporters delivered.

As the year winds down, we gave each state team reporter the assignment of picking a favorite story written by another member of the team (Secret Santa style!). Here were their picks:

Conservative talk radio continues to be a powerful political tool in Wisconsin

To some, radio is a source of entertainment and information from a bygone era. They’re mistaken. Hallie Claflin’s deeply reported, authoritative story illustrates the immense and continuing influence of talk radio — especially conservative talk radio — in Wisconsin politics. The rise of former Gov. Scott Walker, the toppling of a Democratic mayor in Wausau and the deaths of certain bills in the Legislature can all be tied, at least in part, to advocacy or opposition from conservative talk radio hosts. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the state’s most powerful Republican, makes regular appearances on broadcasts and described talk radio as being “as powerful as it’s ever been.” This story is worth your time as you look ahead to 2025.

— Jack Kelly

Why we investigated Wisconsin Pastor Matthew Trewhella

Phoebe Petrovic’s profile of militant, anti-abortion Pastor Matthew Trewhella, her first investigation as Wisconsin’s first ProPublica local reporting network fellow, was an engaging read. But I especially liked the companion piece she wrote. It’s a reader service to do this kind of story when we do a large takeout on a person or subject unfamiliar to most readers. It also might drive readers to the main story when they learn more about why we did it. It puts the readers behind the scenes a bit and has the potential to make readers feel more connected to Wisconsin Watch.

— Tom Kertscher

Here are some claims you might hear during tonight’s presidential debate — and the facts

Tom Kertscher does an amazing job with all of his fact briefs, but my favorite has to be a compilation that fact-checked presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump right before their September debate. Over the past few races, presidential campaigns have been full of misinformation. Debates are a vital time to show the reality of candidates and their beliefs. Tom’s story made sure people could accurately judge the claims both candidates were making. I learned about many new and important topics across party lines like Trump’s for-profit college, Harris’ claim about tracking miscarriages and accurate deportation statistics.

— Khushboo Rathore

DataWatch: Wisconsin incarcerates more people than its prisons were designed to hold

Khushboo Rathore’s DataWatch report detailing that the state’s prison population was at nearly 130% capacity stood out as one of my favorite pieces this year. Not only did this short story shed light on severe deficiencies in Wisconsin’s prison system, it also presented the findings in a digestible format that helped readers understand overcrowding in prisons through striking data. It’s one thing to report that Wisconsin prisons are overwhelmed, and it’s another to have the numbers that show it. This piece has the power to reshape future conversations about statewide prison reform, which is what our work here at Wisconsin Watch is all about! 

— Hallie Claflin

Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear high-profile abortion rights case, draft order shows

Jack Kelly has some of the best sourcing this newsroom has ever seen. He’s such an affable people-person, and it enables him to get coffee with anyone and everyone and build legitimate relationships that result in wild scoops, like this one. It’s a testament to his brilliance as a reporter.

— Phoebe Petrovic

Forward: Our picks for favorite politics stories of the year 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.

Wisconsin Watch seeks a pathways to success reporter who will expand our coverage of issues surrounding postsecondary education and workforce training. The right candidate will be a curious, collaborative, deep listener who can understand bureaucracies and economic trends that affect peoples’ lives. 

Wisconsin Watch provides trustworthy reporting that investigates problems, explores solutions and serves the public. We aim to strengthen the quality of community life and self-government in Wisconsin by providing people with the knowledge they need to navigate their lives, drive forward solutions and hold those with power accountable. We pursue the truth through accurate, fair, independent, rigorous, nonpartisan reporting. 

Click here to apply to this job.

Why pathways to success? 

Funding cuts and other financial pressures have forced higher education institutions to rely more heavily on tuition — increasing affordability challenges for students and affecting the quality of education. Meanwhile, Wisconsin faces a shortage of skilled workers, including in manufacturing, construction, health care, agriculture and information technology. This shortage is exacerbated by an aging workforce, particularly in rural areas, and a gap between the skills employers need and those job seekers have. 

Reporting on this beat will help policymakers and civic leaders understand how to expand pathways to jobs. It will also help Wisconsin residents learn the skills needed to build thriving careers. We’re taking a different approach to higher education coverage than news outlets traditionally do. Rather than prioritizing breaking news or scandals at major universities, we’re centering the experiences of learners, families, and employers to better understand how the state’s broader postsecondary landscape meets their needs. That includes paying close attention to technical colleges and trades programs. 

Job duties

The reporter will: 

• Work with the Wisconsin Watch managing editor and other colleagues to frame, report and write news stories. These stories will appear on Wisconsin Watch platforms and be distributed to news outlets across Wisconsin and the country.
• Listen to those struggling to find family supporting jobs and to those unable to fill positions to find disconnects between workforce recruitment, development and training and those who are underemployed. Find evidence-based best practices to address this challenge.
• Develop sources in secondary and postsecondary education, industries struggling to fill jobs, workforce development, labor and the general public to identify breakdowns in systems, information gaps and success stories that could inform pathways to success.
• Research the jobs that will be in high demand for years to come to inform reporting on effective programs for gaining the necessary skills to perform these jobs, from jobs in nursing and health care, where demographics show increasing demand, to developing technologies, such as those in artificial intelligence and robotics.
• Work with the Wisconsin Watch audience team to make sure this reporting reaches the people who most need the information.
• Cultivate collegial and productive relationships with collaborating news organizations to gather and analyze data, research best practices and maximize impact on stories with national scope. This includes Open Campus, a national news network aiming to improve higher education coverage.

At Wisconsin Watch we make sure that we are producing quality journalism and give our reporters the time they need to make sure the job is done well.

Required qualifications

The ideal candidate will bring a public service mindset and  a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisan journalism ethics, including a commitment to abide by Wisconsin Watch’s ethics policies. More specifically, we’re looking for a reporter who: 

• Has researched, reported and written original published news stories and/or features on deadline.
• Has demonstrated the ability to formulate compelling story pitches to editors. 
• Aches to report stories that explore solutions to challenges residents face. 
• Has experience with or ideas about the many different ways newsrooms can inform the public — from narrative investigations and features, to Q&As and ‘how-to’ explainers or visual stories.
• Has experience working with others. Wisconsin Watch is a deeply collaborative organization. Our journalists frequently team up with each other or with colleagues at other news outlets to maximize the potential impact of our reporting. 

Bonus Skills:

• Be able to analyze and visually present data. 
• Familiarity with Wisconsin, its history and its politics. 
• Multimedia skills including photography, audio and video.
• Spanish-language proficiency.

Don’t check off every box in the requirements listed above? Please apply anyway! 

Wisconsin Watch is dedicated to building an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible workplace that fosters a sense of belonging – so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to still consider submitting an application. You may be just the right candidate for this role or another one of our openings!

Location

 The pathways to success reporter should be located in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Watch is a statewide news organization with staff based in Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay.  

Salary and benefits 

The salary range is $45,500-$64,500. Final offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors and higher compensation may be available for someone with advanced skills and/or experience. Wisconsin Watch offers competitive benefits, including generous vacation (five weeks), a retirement fund contribution, paid sick days, paid family and caregiver leave, subsidized medical and dental premiums, vision coverage, and more.

Deadline

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. For best consideration, apply by Jan. 10, 2025.

To apply

Please submit a PDF of your resume and answer some brief questions in this application form, and send links or PDFs of four published writing samples to Managing Editor Jim Malewitz at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org. Contact Jim if you’d like to chat about the job before applying.

Wisconsin Watch is dedicated to improving our newsroom by better reflecting the people we cover. We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities. We are an equal-opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, or any other status protected under applicable law.

Wisconsin Watch seeks a pathways to success reporter 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.

The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) is a national organization whose mission is to ensure that people in every community have access to trustworthy news and reliable information about issues that affect them. Today, it supports more than 475 independent newsrooms across the country to leverage their collective power – helping them raise funds, grow their audiences, and learn from each other. 

Wisconsin Watch is a founding member of INN, and we are honored to be one of several local news organizations featured in INN’s 15th Anniversary video released today, explaining why independent newsrooms are so vital, and the role they play in the communities they serve. 

One of the key ways that INN supports community-focused newsrooms like ours is through its annual Newsmatch campaign, which awards matching funds to member news organizations that set and reach certain goals in their end-of-year fundraising campaigns. 

This year, Wisconsin Watch has a goal of getting 100 new donors between Nov 1 and Dec 31. We are nearly there, and if you aren’t already a donor, your support could make all the difference to our newsroom. 

Click here to donate now. 

Or, if you prefer to give by check, you can do so by mailing your gift to Wisconsin Watch, P.O. Box 5079, Milwaukee, WI 53205. 

Video: Institute for Nonprofit News features Wisconsin Watch 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.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

The value of food imported into the U.S. exceeds what is exported.

That’s a recent reversal of a long-term trend, as U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden stated Dec. 2.

But it doesn’t necessarily mean the U.S. is “beholden on other nations,” as the western Wisconsin Republican claimed.

The U.S. was an annual net exporter of agricultural products from at least the 1970s through 2018, but since then has mostly been a net importer, and the gap is widening.

In fiscal 2025, the value of agricultural imports is projected at $215.5 billion and exports $170 billion. 

William Ridley, a University of Illinois agricultural and consumer economics professor, said the U.S. produces more food for itself than ever, but it’s a net importer because of demand for imported food, much of it from allies.

Some imports, including out-of-season produce, come from foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies, said Steve Suppan, of the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• CNN: Rep. Derrick Van Orden interview, Dec. 2, 2024
• University of Kentucky Agricultural Economics Department: U.S. Ag Exports, Imports and Trade Balance
• U.S. Agriculture Department: Outlook for U.S. Agricultural Trade
• Professor Andrew Stevens: Email, 12/11/24
• Steve Suppan: Email 12/11/24
• Professor Seungki Lee: Email 12/12/24

Does the US import more food than it exports? 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.

Wisconsin Watch is seeking an intern to report on information and accountability gaps in rural Wisconsin communities that lack robust news coverage, telling stories that explore solutions to broken systems and center the voices of community members.

This internship is available through a Scripps Howard Fund/Institute for Nonprofit News partnership, which in 2025 is supporting 13 paid internships for journalism students in newsrooms across the country. 

Applications for the INN/Fund internships close on Jan. 31. Apply here.

The Wisconsin Watch reporter will:

• Work with the Wisconsin Watch managing editor and other colleagues to frame, report and write news stories that fill information and accountability gaps and seek solutions to challenges faced by rural Wisconsin residents. These stories will appear on Wisconsin Watch platforms and be distributed to news outlets across Wisconsin.
• Cultivate collegial and productive relationships with collaborating news organizations. This could include sharing bylines on high-impact stories.

At Wisconsin Watch we make sure that we are producing quality journalism and give our reporters the time they need to make sure the job is done well. Stories could take anywhere from one week to one to two months to report and write, depending on the complexity and timeliness of the issue and access to data. 

This intern will be expected to work approximately 40 hours per week throughout the reporter’s time at Wisconsin Watch. No additional benefits are included.

Location

This reporter must live in Wisconsin (the exact location is negotiable) and would have opportunities to work within Wisconsin Watch’s Madison and Milwaukee newsrooms. Wisconsin Watch is a hybrid workplace, meaning work on some days can be performed remotely. But the intern would be expected to conduct some of the reporting in person, depending on the story, and would work with the managing editor to map out a schedule for occasional work from the newsroom. 

Duration

This is a temporary position, with the expectation of work full time (40 hours/week) over 10 weeks.

Compensation 

The reporter will earn $15 per hour. 

Once selected, an intern can apply to the Fund for an additional grant to help with housing, relocation and other expenses to support the ability to accept an internship. Those applications will open in the spring. 

About Wisconsin Watch 

Wisconsin Watch is a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit with offices in Madison and Milwaukee.

Our mission is “to increase the quality, quantity and understanding of investigative journalism to foster an informed citizenry and strengthen democracy.” Our multimedia journalism digs into undercovered issues, documents inequitable and failing systems, puts findings into regional and national contexts and explores potential solutions. We aim to generate impact that improves people’s lives and holds power to account. Wisconsin Watch also trains diverse groups of current and future investigative journalists and entrepreneurs through workshops, internships and fellowships, mentoring and collaborations with journalism classes and news organizations. And we share information about journalistic practices, ethics and impact with the public.

Wisconsin Watch embraces diversity and inclusiveness in our journalism, training activities, hiring practices and workplace operations. The complex issues we face as a society require respect for different viewpoints. Race, class, generation, sexual orientation, gender, disability and geography all affect point of view. Reflecting these differences in our reporting leads to better, more nuanced stories and a better-informed community.

We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including Black, Indigenous and other people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities.

Wisconsin Watch seeks reporting intern to serve rural Wisconsin communities 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.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions, has saved taxpayers billions of dollars.

The 2011 law could be reviewed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court because of a recent judge’s ruling.

The law achieved savings mainly by shifting costs for pension and health benefits for public employees to the employees.

The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum found in 2020 that state and local governments saved $5 billion from 2011 to 2017 in pension costs alone.

PolitiFact Wisconsin reported in 2014 that public employers saved over $3 billion on pensions and health insurance.

Getting rid of Act 10’s pension, health insurance and salary limits would raise annual school district costs $1.6 billion and local government costs $480 million, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty estimated in September.

However, the recent court ruling doesn’t invalidate Act 10’s higher employee contribution requirements, said attorney Jeffrey Mandell, who represents unions in the pending case.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Legislative Council: 2011 Wisconsin Act 10
• Dane County Circuit Court: Decision and order in Case No. 2023CV3152
• Wisconsin Policy Forum: Bridging the Pension Gap
• PolitiFact Wisconsin: Scott Walker says union reform law that brought massive protests has saved taxpayers $3 billion
• Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty: Back to the Past: The Fiscal Threat of Reversing Act 10 for Local Governments
• Wisconsin Watch: Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford try to overturn Act 10?
• Jeffrey Mandell: Email 12/11/24

Has Wisconsin’s Act 10 union law saved taxpayers billions of dollars? 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.

Arlene Meyer is a busy woman. 

The 86-year-old starts each morning by watching the news in her room at Pine Crest Nursing Home in Merrill, Wisconsin. Then it’s off to the dining hall for breakfast so she can “BS with everybody out there.” She never skips her daily walk and devours books delivered by the public library each week — anything except romance or science fiction. 

The event calendar in Meyer’s room lists a smorgasbord of other options: manicures and mimosas, chair Zumba, trivia, Packers watch parties and beer pong. Meyer spent a recent Friday at an exercise class in an area of Pine Crest that later hosted a happy hour with live music. 

“The concept of old people, it’s out,” Meyer said, adding that “the days go by so fast” — an observation that surprises outsiders with duller expectations for nursing home life.

Meyer moved to Pine Crest in 2023 to recover from pneumonia. She liked it so much she stayed permanently. The nursing home’s social media posts show her holding a lizard, relaxing during a spa treatment and singing a Willie Nelson song at karaoke — photos that brought joy to those who know her.

“Sassy Arlene! Love it!” one person commented on a photo. “Happy you haven’t changed Arlene,” wrote another. 

Lincoln County owns Pine Crest, one of 36 county-owned nursing homes in Wisconsin. They tend to be better staffed, have higher quality of care and draw fewer complaints than facilities owned by for-profits and nonprofits, a WPR/Wisconsin Watch analysis of U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data shows. 

Wisconsin has more county-owned nursing homes than any state but Indiana. But perhaps not for long. 

Over more than three decades, residents in 22 Wisconsin counties lost public nursing homes to sales or closures. This year alone at least five counties — including Lincoln — considered selling, started the sales process or sold.

County leaders say they have only two options while facing financial pressures and staffing shortages: sell or close the homes. Local organizers disagree, arguing counties should continue providing high-quality care for low-income older people and disabled adults. 

Lincoln County’s board voted to sell Pine Crest to a for-profit at the start of this year. After that buyer backed out, the board is planning to find a new one.

Meyer worries about potential disruptions at Pine Crest.

“I love it here,” she said. “I sincerely do.”

A flurry of nursing home sales and closures

Meyer, a former Lincoln County Board supervisor, doesn’t own a phone, but she stays up to date on local happenings. It didn’t take long before she heard rumblings about selling Pine Crest. 

“I was teed off about it because of some of these SOBs,” Meyer said. “They said, ‘well, the cost factor.’ Now I think about what jerks were running this.”

Running a nursing home is expensive, and counties aren’t required to do so — something officials often realize during recessions and inflationary periods.

The financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 was Wisconsin’s busiest stretch for nursing home sales, with four counties selling.

Since inflation started surging in 2021, at least five counties outside of Lincoln have sold or considered selling: 

• Iowa County closed its nursing home in 2022 after failing to find a buyer.
• A private nursing home chain took over Washington County’s nursing home in July. 
• The St. Croix County Board considered selling before voting against it.
• Sauk County’s board this year approved a sale to a for-profit that still requires state health department approval. 
• Portage County heard interest from one prospective buyer but chose not to sell following public pushback. It will decide later this month whether to look for a different buyer.

Meanwhile, dozens of for-profit nursing homes have closed in recent years. 

Lincoln County started debating Pine Crest’s future in 2022 while the board sought budget cuts. Then-board chair Don Friske noticed Pine Crest had for years run substantial annual deficits.

That’s been the case since the 1980s for county-run nursing homes nationwide, said Anne Zahradnik, an associate professor of health administration at Marist College.

Those remaining “are a holdover from an orientation toward government solving problems,” she added. 

From ‘poor farms’ to nursing homes

Wisconsin’s county governments have a long history of housing vulnerable populations. 

Many ran “poor farms” or “poor houses” for residents experiencing poverty starting in the 1800s. Most states eventually created centralized nursing homes to serve older people and those with disabilities from across the state, while Wisconsin prioritized keeping people close to home. A Wisconsin network of local nursing homes and converted poor farms started receiving federal Medicaid funding in 1974, according to a Legislative Audit Bureau report.

Nursing homes for decades were the only long-term care option for populations they served, and people who relied on government assistance had few choices outside of county homes. 

That is changing as people increasingly age at home or in assisted living facilities that offer more independence at a lower cost. Wisconsin’s assisted living options hold more than double the beds of its nursing homes. 

But assisted living, unlike nursing homes, can’t care for people who need regular medical attention. Nor do they offer the same protections against evictions for residents who rely on Medicaid, the joint state and federal aid program to help low-income residents afford care. 

More than a quarter of nursing home beds, on average, at for-profit and county-owned nursing homes sit empty, according to federal Medicaid data.

Almost 40 of Pine Crest’s 120 beds are vacant, but Wisconsin can’t afford to lose them. 

Without nursing homes, hospitals struggle to find housing for their sickest patients, Zahradnik said. The Wisconsin Counties Association projects a need for roughly 10,000 new skilled nursing beds by 2035 as state demographics trend older. 

To keep Pine Crest running, Lincoln County’s board debated converting part of it into assisted living or even knocking it down to build a smaller nursing home with lower operation costs. Both options would require up-front money the county lacks, Friske said. 

The only remaining option the board sees: selling.

Counties struggle to keep up

Medicaid policy is complicated and frequently changes. The program is also how most nursing home residents pay for care. 

Lincoln County’s board lacks expertise on nursing home management, making it hard to keep up, Friske said, echoing officials in other counties.

“We’re horrible at it,” he said.

As the board discussed exiting the nursing home business, it learned the county was short more than $1 million in expected revenue to cover one year’s costs.  

The state has traditionally subsidized county-owned nursing homes, and it started increasing Medicaid reimbursements in 2022. The change shrunk ongoing county deficits to provide care, wrote Elizabeth Goodsitt, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, which distributes the nursing home supplements. 

That was positive. But shrinking those deficits meant counties would get smaller lump sum subsidies for operating nursing homes – something officials in multiple county governments didn’t anticipate, leading to budget shortfalls.

“Just when you think you’re one step ahead, you’re two steps back,” Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann said.

He described the unexpected loss of the subsidies as “just another brick in the wall” for a nursing home the county ultimately sold to a for-profit this year.

Lincoln County used federal pandemic funds to cover the unexpected subsidy loss — a short-lived option.

Despite supporting county-owned nursing homes, state officials don’t always effectively communicate with counties, said Rene Eastman, vice president of financial and regulatory services at LeadingAge Wisconsin, an advocacy group for older adults. 

Still, Eastman said, the recent Medicaid rate reimbursement hikes could ease financial pressures over time.

“If counties hung on for a little bit longer, they would really see the effects of that funding infusion, and they would see the increased need in their communities,” she said.

St. Croix County commits to nursing home

St. Croix County Board Vice Chair Bob Feidler said his colleagues didn’t seriously consider selling its nursing home. But a discussion about that possibility prompted opponents to flood an August board meeting. 

The board voted against selling, deciding that nursing home revenue would likely grow, aided by higher Medicaid rates and a federal grant to open a dementia wing. 

“All of a sudden, we went from what had been a negative revenue to barely a positive revenue, to a more solid projection,” Feidler said.

Many Lincoln County residents hope their board will reach the same conclusion. But increased Medicaid rates alone won’t cover needed costs outside of care, like renovating Pine Crest’s  building, Friske said. That would likely require a property tax increase.

“You can’t just go on a whim, ‘Hey, yeah, we’re going to throw this extra money on the property tax,’ ” Friske said. “People are struggling.”

County leaders have historically asked voters to support nursing homes through ballot measures.

Voters in Green County, for instance, approved an April ballot measure to continue funding their nursing home. 

Portage County voters approved one referendum in 2018 and a $20 million referendum four years later for the construction of a new nursing home — renovations that still haven’t started. Rising construction costs since the delay mean millions more are needed to fund the project, according to county board members who have blocked calls for a fresh referendum.

In Lincoln County, more than 80% of respondents to a 2023 Merrill Foto News and Tomahawk Leader online survey opposed selling Pine Crest.

But the board blocked two efforts to put Pine Crest’s future on the ballot.  

How private homes profit: Cutting staff, benefits 

Friske had gotten unsolicited calls from brokers even before putting Pine Crest on the market, as have officials in other counties. 

Why buy a money-losing nursing home?

For-profits can’t simply build new facilities. The state determines the need for nursing home beds in different communities — requiring newcomers to typically buy a license from an entity already operating a facility. 

Deficits under government ownership don’t mean private companies can’t turn a profit.  

They might find savings by rejecting applicants with behavioral issues who require costlier care. Counties that own a nursing home typically send higher-needs residents there. Counties that don’t own a nursing home still pay to send such residents to another facility that will accept them. 

Private owners frequently reduce staffing and benefits upon purchasing county-owned facilities, Eastman said. Lower staffing correlates with poorer care. 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rates nursing home staff on a 1 to 5 scale, considering time they spent with residents and turnover. 

The median staff rating at Wisconsin’s county-owned nursing homes is 5, the highest possible, according to WPR and Wisconsin Watch’s analysis. That’s compared with a median rating of 3 at for-profit facilities in the state.

A sign outside of the Portage County Health Care Center touts its 5-star rating. Grace Skibicki, a resident of 13 years and a former care center nurse, recognizes that as impressive. 

She expects care to decline if a chain with a lower rating purchases it. She wouldn’t plan to stick around. 

“It’s really scary because you don’t know what’s going to happen to you,” Skibicki said.

Staff are also waiting to see what their future holds.

Nursing home work can be grueling with modest pay, accounting for significant staff turnover across the industry. But county-owned nursing homes employ public workers who earn county benefits and access to one of the country’s best-funded retirement systems. That may explain why median turnover trends at Wisconsin’s county-owned homes (41%) are lower than they are at for-profits (51%), WPR and Wisconsin Watch found. 

Wisconsin’s for-profit nursing homes drew a median of three substantiated complaints over the last three years, compared to a median of zero at county-owned facilities, which also fared better than for-profits and nonprofits in health inspection and overall quality ratings.

Nursing homes owned by Lincoln, Portage and Sauk counties all rate above average, but county officials believe private owners could run them better.  

Counties struggle to make quick decisions the fast-changing industry requires, Friske said.

Potential buyers named in Lincoln, Portage and Sauk counties all own multiple facilities across the state. Two own facilities in other states. That setup makes it easier for them to fund repairs or convert rooms to assisted living quickly without repeatedly asking taxpayers. 

Care & Rehab Company, which initially sought to buy Pine Crest, owns six facilities in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Two share Pine Crest’s “much above average” federal rating, but two others received “below average” ratings.  

People for Pine Crest

Dora Gorski kept her husband Ken at home for as long as possible. 

Ken, a father, veteran, martial arts instructor and first responder, was often too proud to admit to falling — even when Dora woke up to find him on the ground.

She initially got help from neighbors and home health aides who warned her about his worsening dementia. Ken eventually ended up hospitalized and in need of a wheelchair. 

When Dora realized she’d have no way to get him into their house upon their return, Pine Crest was her first call.

The woman in admissions knew Ken, who had taught her children aikido. Once he moved in, a maintenance worker recognized Ken as his former martial arts teacher. A caretaker told Dora she knew Ken, too — having worked with him as a phlebotomist. 

It turned out that Arlene Meyer, a fellow first responder who had long known Ken, lived down the hall.

“It was people who not just knew him as a doddering old man who is barely able to talk,” Dora said. “They knew him as a respected instructor.”

Two weeks before Ken’s death in December 2023, Pine Crest hosted his 90th birthday party. His children, former students and friends, including Meyer, packed a community room. 

“That meant a lot to Ken,” said Dora, who still participates in a group called “People For Pine Crest,” which opposes a sale.

“We own it. It’s our place. We all take pride in it being here,” she said.

The group spent 2023 urging the Lincoln County Board to keep the nursing home. Their flurry of petitions, yard signs, T-shirts, public testimonies, phone calls and emails didn’t work. The board voted to sell to Care & Rehab.

But an attorney and ally on the county board noticed a language problem in the sale agreement and sued the county to halt the sale.

Care & Rehab backed out before the case could move forward, offering People For Pine Crest a reprieve. 

But Friske, who lost reelection this spring, sees a ticking clock. He expects Pine Crest will face a fiscal crisis that will force a closure unless it sells. 

He resents any suggestion that his board colleagues don’t care about those who depend on Pine Crest.

“The county board is not a congressman from Missouri, Arkansas and Texas, telling Wisconsin how to live,” Friske said. “What’s happening here is friends and neighbors who are elected to the county board. They live here, their families are here, we’re all here.”

Lincoln County has just two other nursing homes, both in Tomahawk and with lower federal ratings.

Dora Gorski, who lives 20 minutes from Pine Crest, said the short distance allowed her to eat breakfast with Ken most mornings. That routine would have been tough to maintain — doubling the length of her drive — had he lived in one of Lincoln County’s two private facilities or the state veterans home in King, Wisconsin.

The county hopes to keep some nursing home beds in Merrill, said current Lincoln County chair Jesse Boyd, but they won’t be county-owned. He agrees with Friske’s financial outlook. 

“Right now, we’re drowning,” he said. 

The county now has lined up a couple of potential buyers for Pine Crest.

If a sale proceeds? Pine Crest won’t be the same, Gorski expects. For now it’s “full of neighbors and friends and people from our community, people who love us and know us,” she said.  

“You don’t find that in some big city, and you don’t find that in a private, for-profit nursing home.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

‘We own it. It’s our place.’ Worsened care feared as counties privatize their nursing homes 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.

Two lawyers and a former Trump campaign aide are scheduled to make their initial appearances in court Thursday, each facing 11 felony charges for their roles in a scheme that generated documents falsely claiming Donald Trump won Wisconsin’s 2020 election.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul in June initially charged Michael Roman and attorneys Jim Troupis and Kenneth Chesebro with “uttering as genuine a forged writing or object,” a felony that can result in up to a $10,000 fine and imprisonment of up to 6 years. The charges stem from their efforts to craft a slate of false electors for Donald Trump in 2020 after he narrowly lost Wisconsin and other key swing states to Joe Biden.

On Tuesday, the state Department of Justice added 10 additional charges for each defendant, arguing Chesebro, Roman and Troupis defrauded the 10 Republicans who falsely posed as electors for Trump. All 10 new charges are felonies and they can each result in up to  a $10,000 fine and imprisonment of up to 6 years.

The defendants are set to appear in Dane County Circuit Court almost four years to the day after a group of Republicans met at the State Capitol in Madison to create the documents.

Trump appears to have avoided legal consequences for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, largely due to his election victory last month. Thursday’s hearing offers a reminder that others involved in the plot are still being prosecuted.

Kaul’s office declined to answer a question about why he believes it’s important to continue the prosecutions into 2025. But Kaul spokesperson Gillian Drummond reiterated that the Department of Justice’s approach “has been focused on following the facts where they lead and making decisions based on the facts, the law and the best interests of justice.”

The case’s original 47-page criminal complaint details how Chesebro, Troupis and Roman helped craft a “Certificate of the Votes of the 2020 Electors from Wisconsin” that falsely said Trump won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes at the time — tactics replicated in six other swing states. The complaint also outlines efforts to deliver the paperwork to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

A majority of the 10 Republicans who acted as the false Trump electors told investigators that they did not believe their signatures would be sent to Washington, according to new details in Tuesday’s amended complaint. A majority of the false electors also said they did not consent to their signatures being presented as Wisconsin’s electoral votes without a court ruling handing the state to Trump.

Chesebro and Roman have faced charges in Georgia, where Chesebro is seeking to invalidate an earlier deal in which he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents.

Of the trio charged in Wisconsin, Troupis is the only one who has filed motions to dismiss ahead of Thursday’s hearing.

One motion, which was filed before the additional charges were handed down, argues the DOJ failed to allege a criminal offense. 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court just two hours before the alternative electors met ruled against Trump’s efforts to throw out more than 220,000 Dane and Milwaukee county votes and to reverse his loss. But an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was still in the works, Troupis’ motion notes. The Republican electors cast their illegitimate ballots for Trump, the motion adds, as Troupis worked to protect his client’s rights in case the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Wisconsin’s election results.

“That practice of having both sets of electors meet and vote during an on-going legal challenge or recount is over a century old,” Troupis argues in his brief. He points to the 1876 presidential election, when three states sent competing slates of electors to Washington, and the 1960 race, when Hawaii featured competing electors due to an ongoing recount that eventually flipped three electoral votes from Richard Nixon to John F. Kennedy. Historians have identified key differences between those cases and 2020.

“Having the Republican electors meet and cast their ballot was not criminal or even untoward and the ballot was not a forgery,” Troupis argues.

A separate motion argues the criminal complaint omits information that pokes holes in the DOJ’s allegations. 

Troupis’ attorney points to a 2022 memo from the DOJ solicited by the Wisconsin Elections Commission as it investigated a complaint filed against the Trump electors. 

That complaint argued the Trump electors “met in a concerted effort to ensure that they would be mistaken, as a result of their deliberate forgery and fraud, for Wisconsin’s legitimate Presidential Electors.” But the DOJ concluded in its memo that the “record does not support this allegation” and that the Trump electors even before the Dec. 14 meeting “publicly stated, including in court pleadings, that they were meeting to preserve legal options while litigation was pending.” 

Troupis’ legal team claims that conclusion — omitted from the criminal complaint —shows “it was proper and necessary for the alternate electors to meet and vote on December 14.” 

In another motion, Troupis argues election-related prosecutions can unfold only if the elections commission determines probable cause and refers the case to a county district attorney — not the attorney general. 

Troupis’ legal team argues his motions to dismiss must be heard before Troupis makes his initial appearance. Dane County Circuit Court Judge John Hyland declined on Friday to hear the motions before the initial appearance.

Trump could not pardon his former aides upon his return to office. Presidential pardon power extends only to federal offenses. These are state charges. 

The hearing is scheduled for 10:30 a.m at the Dane County Courthouse.

Forward is a look ahead at the week in Wisconsin government and politics from the Wisconsin Watch statehouse team.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

UPDATE: New charges filed in 2020 ‘fake electors’ scheme 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.

A budget request would nearly double incarceration costs in Wisconsin’s juvenile justice system. Many say the funds would be better used to prevent crime.

The post One child, $463K per year: Ballooning costs of troubled Lincoln Hills youth prison appeared first on WPR.

Wisconsin budgets nearly $463,000 a year to incarcerate each child at the state’s beleaguered juvenile prison complex in the North Woods, a figure that has ballooned over a decade as enrollment has plummeted.

A new Department of Corrections budget request would nearly double that figure to about $862,000 a year — 58 times what taxpayers spend on the average K-12 public school student.

It comes as efforts to close the Lincoln County complex — home to Lincoln Hills School for boys and Copper Lake School for girls — and build a new youth prison in Milwaukee have slowed to a crawl.  

Six years after the Legislature approved the closure plan, Republican lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers are blaming each other during funding and policy disagreements that have delayed the closure. 

A 2018 legal settlement restricted how guards could discipline youth. That followed a series of scandals involving allegations of inhumane conditions, such as frequent use of pepper spray, strip searches and mechanical restraints and solitary confinement. 

Republicans earlier this year pushed to lift pepper spray restrictions after a 16-year-old incarcerated at Lincoln Hills struck a counselor in the face, resulting in his death. A judge denied requests to alter the settlement in a dispute that has added to closure delays, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Meanwhile, the facility’s population is dwindling. As of late November, it served just 41 boys and 18 girls on a campus designed for more than 500 youth.  

Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service spoke to judges, lawmakers, former prison staff and researchers about the eye-popping price tag to incarcerate fewer young people. They attributed the trends to demographic changes, a paradigm shift from large youth prisons to smaller regional facilities and scandals on the campus that made judges hesitant to send teens to Lincoln Hills. 

“No judge wants to send a kid to Lincoln Hills,” said Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Laura Crivello, who has presided over juvenile cases. “You feel like you’re damning the kid. And if you look at the recidivism rates that come out of Lincoln Hills, you pretty much are damning a kid.” 

Here’s a closer look at the numbers. 

Who sets budgets for youth prisons? 

Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake schools are the state’s only youth prisons, but they are among four main state facilities for young people convicted of serious juvenile offenses. The others are Mendota Mental Health Institute, a psychiatric hospital in Madison that treats youth involved in the juvenile justice system, and Grow Academy, a residential incarceration-alternative program outside of Madison.

The Legislature sets uniform daily rates that counties pay to send youth to any of the locations — spreading costs across all facilities. 

In 2015, lawmakers approved a daily rate of $284 per juvenile across all four facilities, or nearly $104,000 a year. This year’s rate is $1,268 a day, or nearly $463,000 annually. 

The annual per-student rate would jump to about $841,000 in 2025 and nearly $862,000 in 2026 if the Legislature approves the latest Department of Corrections funding request. 

By contrast, Wisconsin spent an annual average of $14,882 per student in K-12 public schools in 2023, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. 

Why have costs ballooned? 

A campus built for more than 500 is mostly underused as enrollment declines, but taxpayers must still pay to maintain the same large space. It affects county budgets since they pay for youth they send to state juvenile correctional facilities.

Fixed infrastructure and staffing costs account for the largest share of expenses, said department spokesperson Beth Hardtke. Spreading the costs among fewer juveniles inflates the per capita price tag.

But taxpayers haven’t seen overall savings from the steep drop in enrollment either. The state in 2015 budgeted about $25.9 million for the Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake complex. That number climbed to about $31.3 million by 2023 with the addition of staff — a cost increase nearly in line with inflation during that period. 

Driving requests to further hike rates: The Department of Corrections seeks $19.4 million in 2026 and $19.8 million in 2027 to expand Mendota Mental Health Institute’s capacity from 29 beds for boys to 93 beds serving girls or boys — an expansion required by state law. 

The expansion requires adding 123 positions at the facility. Such additions affect calculations for the rates of all state facilities for incarcerated juveniles, including Lincoln Hills.  

Why are there fewer incarcerated students? 

The trends driving high costs at Lincoln Hills started more than 20 years ago, said Jason Stein, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

First, Wisconsin is home to increasingly fewer young people. 

The state’s population of youth under 18 has been shrinking. The state saw a 3.2% dip between 2012 and 2021 — from 1,317,004 juveniles to 1,274,605 juveniles, according to a  Legislative Fiscal Bureau report.

Juvenile arrests in Wisconsin dropped by 66% during the same period.  

Meanwhile, judges became reluctant to sentence juveniles to Lincoln Hills —  even before abuse allegations escalated and prompted authorities to raid the campus in 2015.     

“I was the presiding judge at Children’s Court, when we blew open the fact that kids weren’t getting an education and they were having their arms broken,” said Mary Triggiano, an adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School and former District 1 Circuit Court chief judge.

“But we knew before that there were problems with Lincoln Hills because we watched the recidivism rates. We would bring in DOC and say: ‘Tell me what kind of services you’re going to give. Tell me why they’re not in school. Tell me why you’re keeping them in segregation for hours and hours and hours’ — when we know that’s awful for kids who experience trauma.”

Enrollment dropped and costs increased, but outcomes didn’t improve. 

More than 61% of the 131 boys who left Lincoln Hills in 2018 committed a new offense within three years, while about 47% of the 15 girls who left Copper Lake reoffended. The recidivism rate for boys during that period was roughly the same as it was for those released in 2014. The rate for girls was worse than the nearly 42% it was four years earlier. 

Stein compared Lincoln Hills to a restaurant that tries to compensate for lost customers by raising meal prices. If prices keep rising, customers will look for a different restaurant, he said. 

“That, in a nutshell, is how you get into this spiral where you’re seeing fewer residents, higher rates, and greater costs for counties,” Stein said. “Then it’s just rinse and repeat.”

How much do other states spend to incarcerate youth?  

Wisconsin is not the only state spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per juvenile it incarcerates. 

A 2020 Justice Policy Institute report showed Wisconsin spent less than the national average in 2020. But Wisconsin’s per-juvenile costs have since more than tripled as Lincoln Hills remains open and incarcerates fewer young people.  

Incarcerating juveniles is generally more expensive than it is for adults, said Ryan King, director of research and policy at Justice Policy Institute. Rehabilitation plays a bigger role in juvenile corrections, and those programs cost more. Incarcerated children typically access more  counseling, education and case management programs. 

States nationwide are rethinking their approach to youth incarceration as crime rates fall and more research shows how prison damages children, King said. 

“There was an acknowledgement that locking kids up was not only failing to make communities safer, but it was making kids worse, and really just putting them in a position where they were more likely to end up in the adult system,” he said.  

How is Wisconsin trying to reshape juvenile justice? 

In 2018, then-Gov. Scott Walker signed Act 185, designed to restructure the state’s juvenile justice system. The law kicked off plans for a new state youth prison in Milwaukee and authorized counties to build their own secure, residential care centers.

Milwaukee and Racine counties are moving forward on such plans to build these centers. The centers function similarly to county jails: County officials operate them under Department of Corrections oversight. Officials hope keeping youth closer to home will help them maintain family connections. 

“We have always pushed smaller is better. You can’t warehouse young people like you do adults,” said Sharlen Moore, a Milwaukee alderwoman and co-founder of Youth Justice Milwaukee. “Their brain just doesn’t comprehend things in that way.”

The law aimed to close troubled Lincoln Hills and give judges more options at sentencing while balancing the needs of juvenile offenders and the public. But those options have yet to fully develop. 

Today’s alternative programs typically have limited space and extensive waitlists. That won’t be fixed until more regional facilities go online. 

How else could Wisconsin spend on troubled youth? 

Triggiano, now director of the Marquette Law School’s Andrew Center for Restorative Justice, was astounded to learn youth incarceration costs could nearly double next year. 

“You just want to drop to your knees because if I had that money, we had that money, what could we do differently?” she said. 

She quickly offered ideas: programs that recognize how traumatic experiences shape behavior, violence prevention outreach in schools, community mentorship programs — evidence-based practices shown to help children and teens. Milwaukee County had worked to create some of those programs before funding was pulled, Triggiano said.

“It all got blown up in a variety of ways at every juncture,” she said. “Now there’s going to be an attachment to the secure detention facility because that’s all people could muster up after being slammed down every time we tried to do something that we thought was going to work.”

State Rep. Darrin Madison, D-Milwaukee, echoed Triggiano and offered additional spending suggestions, such as housing resources, mental health support and summer jobs programs. 

“The cost of sending one young person to Lincoln Hills would be enough to pay several young people working jobs over summer or the span of the school year,” Madison said.  

Wisconsin’s disproportionate spending on incarcerating its young people runs counter to the Wisconsin Idea, its historical commitment to education, he added. 

“We’re so committed to incarcerating people that we’re willing to eat the cost of doing so, as opposed to making investments in deterrence and getting at the root cause of the problems.” 

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

One child, $463,000 per year: Ballooning costs of troubled Lincoln Hills youth prison 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.

In an era of endless social media feeds, push alerts and newsletters competing for your attention, we appreciate the time you spend with our reporting. 

We work hard to produce stories with a long shelf life — those with actionable information that make you think for weeks or months after reading them. That’s why we get excited when we learn that particular stories are resonating. 

As we look back on 2024, we’re highlighting the stories that seemed to most interest you, at least according to the time readers on average spent on their web pages. If you missed them earlier, perhaps that’s enough endorsement to give them a read.

If you have feedback on our work, we always want to hear it. Let us know how by emailing me at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org.

The businessman: Pig farm developer gains little trust in Wisconsin town. He doesn’t particularly care.

We published this story at the end of 2023, but folks were reading it well into 2024 and devoting more time on average than they did for any other story this year. 

Reporter Bennet Goldstein illustrated how a pig farm developer failed to earn the trust of Trade Lake, Wisconsin, residents as the community learned of their vulnerability to potential environmental harms from agricultural operations. This was part of the three-part series Hogtied, which examined the political, regulatory and economic forces shaping a proposal to build Wisconsin’s largest pig farm.

The Gospel of Matthew Trewhella: How a militant anti-abortion activist is influencing Republican politics

ProPublica Local Reporting Network investigative reporter Phoebe Petrovic told the story of how a Waukesha County anti-abortion extremist went from political pariah to ideological influencer. Matthew Trewhella regained favor among some Republicans by exhorting local government officials to reject state and federal laws that don’t conform with God’s laws based on an obscure 16th-century theory known as “the doctrine of the lesser magistrates.”

In a separate first-person essay Petrovic explained why the story is important, and she later more broadly detailed how the religious right came to influence the 2024 election. That was another story that readers spent more time with compared to most others. 

These doctors were censured. Wisconsin’s prisons hired them anyway. 

Wisconsin Watch’s Mario Koran, in collaboration with The New York Times, investigated the checkered disciplinary records of Wisconsin prison doctors.

He found that nearly a third of the 60 staff physicians employed over the last decade were censured by a state medical board for an error or breach of ethics. Many doctors went on to face lawsuits from inmates saying that they made errors that led to serious harm, leading to hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts. Many of the physicians would likely struggle to get hired at hospitals and in other settings because of those histories, a former state Medical Examining Board chairman told Koran. 

Review of Wisconsin talk radio finds stark divides, misinformation

This was part of a six-part series, Change is on the Air, produced by Wisconsin Watch and investigative journalism students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison about the changing state of talk radio in Wisconsin. 

In fact-checking six radio hosts across the political spectrum, the students found a disturbing reality that spoke to our current political moment: The shows spreading the most misinformation had the largest audience and most advertising. Readers also spent more time on the page of the series overview story than most other 2024 stories. 

‘A shoot can be legal. That doesn’t mean it was necessary.’ Fatal police encounters rise in Wisconsin

In his final story for Wisconsin Watch as a Report for America fellow, Jacob Resneck dug into the disturbing rise in police-involved deaths in Wisconsin over the past two years. The attorney general and the largest police union said the increase was due to more incidents involving armed and dangerous individuals. That’s despite the fact that violent crime is down, and such incidents make up a smaller share of incidents here than in neighboring states. Wisconsin at the time saw more fatal encounters than Illinois, despite having only half the population.

How Milwaukee’s SDC unraveled: weak controls, little oversight

Addie Costello of Wisconsin Watch and WPR traced the backstory of what happened to Milwaukee’s Social Development Commission, which shuttered and laid off its entire staff in April. State and local agencies awarded the intergovernmental commission big contracts even after SDC eliminated internal auditing mechanisms. She found that SDC was created by governments but functioned outside of them. Government officials told her they largely focused on how SDC executes contracts with their individual offices — rather than broader operations issues.

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service reporter Meredith Melland contributed reporting to the investigation. She has closely chronicled other twists and turns at SDC, which provided a range of services such as emergency furnace installation, tax support, career advancement, senior companionship and rent assistance for low-income Milwaukee residents.

How Hmong women in Wisconsin are tackling domestic violence in their communities 

Reporter Zhen Wang wrote about a group of Hmong women who are pushing back against attitudes that prevent women from reporting abuse and leaving violent relationships. That includes offering safe housing, counseling and more representation in mediation processes that typically precede a divorce sanctioned by Hmong leaders. The women are also speaking out in an ongoing debate about the role patriarchal attitudes play in shaping scenarios that can prove deadly.

Relatedly, Wang reported on the promise Wisconsin officials see in “housing first” support of domestic violence survivors.

Wisconsin seniors face housing upheaval as assisted living homes reject Medicaid 

Assisted living can offer residents more independence and a less institutionalized setting than in traditional nursing homes. But Addie Costello of Wisconsin Watch and WPR found that assisted living residents have fewer protections for residents transitioning to Medicaid. At least four Wisconsin assisted living facilities involuntarily discharged residents who required Medicaid assistance between 2022 and 2023.

Meanwhile, Medicaid reimbursements lag far behind the cost of care, prompting some facilities to refuse to accept anything but private pay. 

Poopspotting: How AI and satellites can detect illegal manure spreading in Wisconsin

Reporter Bennet Goldstein last year received a cryptic Excel spreadsheet through a public records request. Although he didn’t understand it at the time, the document contained a list of potential illegal manure spreading incidents that were noticed by satellites orbiting the Earth.

That information led to this engaging story on how Stanford University researchers have used aerial photographs — snapped by satellites — to teach computers to recognize winter spreading. This all matters because applying manure atop snow or frozen soil heightens the risk of runoff, which can contaminate water, spread pathogens, seed algae blooms and kill fish.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Revisit the Wisconsin Watch stories that resonated in 2024 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.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford was among attorneys who sued seeking to overturn Act 10, a 2011 law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions.

The law spurred mass protests for weeks in Madison.

At the time, Crawford said the law violated Wisconsin’s Constitution and was “aimed at crippling public employee unions.”

In 2014, the state Supreme Court upheld Act 10, calling collective bargaining “a creation of legislative grace and not constitutional obligation.”  

Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, Crawford’s conservative challenger in the April 1, 2025, election, made the claim about Crawford Dec. 1, 2024. Crawford is a Dane County judge.

On Dec. 2, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost struck down Act 10 in a lawsuit in which Crawford is not listed as an attorney. 

An appeal notice was filed the same day. Appeals are likely to reach the Supreme Court, which has a 4-3 liberal majority.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Circuit Court Access: Dane County Case Number 2011CV003774 Madison Teachers Inc et al vs. Scott Walker et al
• Associated Press: Protesters leave Wis. Capitol on judge’s orders
• PBS Wisconsin: Crawford, Prof. Esenberg on Collective Bargaining Lawsuit
• Wisconsin Supreme Court: Case 2012AP2067
• Associated Press: Wisconsin unions score win as Dane County judge strikes down Act 10
• Wisconsin Circuit Court Access: Dane County Case Number 2023CV003152 Abbotsford Education Association et al vs. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission et al

Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford try to overturn Act 10? 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.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

U.S. citizenship is required to vote in Wisconsin, but election officials generally don’t try to verify citizenship when someone registers to vote.

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, made the citizenship claim Nov. 24, 2024. 

The Wisconsin Elections Commission said Nov. 5:

• “Voters must attest to their U.S. citizenship on their voter registration form under penalty of perjury.” 
• Wisconsin and federal law don’t provide for systematically verifying citizenship “beyond the attestation.”
• Falsely claiming citizenship at registration is a felony.

There’s no evidence of noncitizens voting in elections in meaningful numbers.

Voters Nov. 5 amended the Wisconsin Constitution to limit voting to citizens. Republican supporters said it would prevent any move allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, as some U.S. jurisdictions allow.

Over 9% of voting-age U.S. citizens (21.3 million people) cannot readily access proof of citizenship, because they do not have it or could not access it easily, a University of Maryland survey released in June said.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Elections Commission What Are the Rules Regarding Citizens and Voting in Wisconsin?
• WISN 12 News UPFRONT: Speaker Vos 1-on-1
• Wisconsin Watch Noncitizen voting rarely happens. But Wisconsin voters are hearing a lot about it.
• Associated Press Noncitizen voting, already illegal in federal elections, becomes centerpiece of 2024 GOP messaging
• University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement Who Lacks ID in America Today? An Exploration of Voter ID Access, Barriers, and Knowledge
• Wisconsin Public Radio Wisconsin voters OK changes to constitutional language on citizens and voting
• Wisconsin Watch Has the District of Columbia adopted a law allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections?
• Ballotpedia Laws permitting noncitizens to vote in the United States

Do Wisconsin election officials verify citizenship when a person registers to vote? 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.

As rays of setting sun striped the hill at Madison’s James Madison Park, Arthur Kohl-Riggs practiced handstands on his favorite tree. 

“I never really planned on handstanding but it’s proven very meditative,” he said. 

Kohl-Riggs, 36, a native of Madison’s west side, said he initially started exercising at the park to regain strength in his shoulder following an injury. Now it’s his “third space” — a familiar spot to connect with others. 

“The idea of being a regular at a park is nice,” he said. “There’s no cost, you don’t have to buy a drink an hour, it’s just a free space to be.” 

As fellow park-goers walked by, some stopped to watch as Kohl-Riggs wrapped his hands around the old oak’s branch, brought his feet near his hands, hooked the branch with his feet, then dropped his arms to the ground, dangling upside down.

“I’ve been trying to find ways to reintegrate intentionally into the community,” Kohl-Riggs said.

Routines developed earlier in the pandemic kept him cooped inside for months at a time, he said. But now, between using his friend’s laundry machine in exchange for handyman work and attending karaoke nights at the Gamma Ray Bar just off the Capitol Square, Kohl-Riggs said he’s forcing himself into community — resisting the forces of complacency to avoid reisolation.

Kohl-Riggs has lived eclectically.

As an activist and citizen journalist in 2012, he ran a protest campaign against Scott Walker in the Republican primary for governor, touting the values of Republicans like Robert La Follette and Abraham Lincoln and growing a Lincoln-like beard. He received nearly 20,000 votes, 3% of the tally, despite spending less than $2,000. Over the next five years, he and a friend produced a tongue-in-cheek YouTube travel series about Dane County called Dane & Dash. He said he now works as a legal investigator for a private law firm that works on public defense overflow cases, helping to “ease the congested public defender rolls,” he said.

Kohl-Riggs said he feels optimistic about the state’s future, despite a range of challenges people face — from housing and financial instability to a lack of health care.  

“Despair only hinders progress,” he said. “We’re more capable now than we were before of seeing more of the faults in a lot of the systems that have always existed. It’s harder to be complacent when everything’s obviously not working how it’s supposed to work.” 

“People are motivated to make their communities better and to protect from potential threats to the people in their communities and around them,” Kohl-Riggs added. “That energy is contagious… we can build strong, resilient local strategies to combat national threats.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Arthur Kohl-Riggs finds comfort in Madison’s ‘third spaces’ 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.

Today we’re launching Public Square, an occasional photography series introducing your neighbors from across Wisconsin. 

The project aims to highlight the roles people play in their communities throughout the state. In one story, we might profile residents finding solutions to issues facing their cities and towns. In another, we may share someone’s unique perspective on where they fit into their community. 

Throughout the project, we’ll ask people the same questions and make photographs in a similar style — taking something of an informal visual census of the state. We’ll ask:

• What do you love about Wisconsin, and what might you want to fix? 
• What issues do you care about, and how do they impact your life? 
• Where do you find community, and how do you feel about the future? 

Finally, we’ll ask who else we should talk to and where we should next travel so our project can continue fostering connections across the state. At Wisconsin Watch, we want to do more than tell stories of people facing challenges. We want to share your everyday moments of joy, reflection and curiosity. It’s what makes this state great.

Meet your first neighbor here: Arthur Kohl-Riggs, an optimistic practitioner of handstands who works as a legal investigator and once earned thousands of votes as a protest candidate for governor. 

If you know of anyone in your community who we should feature in this visual project, please email me at jtimmerman@wisconsinwatch.org.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Public Square: Portraits of your neighbors from across Wisconsin 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.