Rennie Glasgow, who has served 15 years at the Social Security Administration, is seeing something new on the job: dead people.
They’re not really dead, of course. In four instances over the past few weeks, he told KFF Health News, his Schenectady, New York, office has seen people come in for whom “there is no information on the record, just that they are dead.” So employees have to “resurrect” them — affirm that they’re living, so they can receive their benefits.
Revivals were “sporadic” before, and there’s been an uptick in such cases across upstate New York, said Glasgow. He is also an official with the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represented 42,000 Social Security employees just before the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Martin O’Malley, who led the Social Security Administration toward the end of the Joe Biden administration, said in an interview that he had heard similar stories during a recent town hall in Racine, Wisconsin. “In that room of 200 people, two people raised their hands and said they each had a friend who was wrongly marked as deceased when they’re very much alive,” he said.
It’s more than just an inconvenience because other institutions rely on Social Security numbers to do business, Glasgow said. Being declared dead “impacts their bank account. This impacts their insurance. This impacts their ability to work. This impacts their ability to get anything done in society.”
“They are terminating people’s financial lives,” O’Malley said.
Though it’s just one of the things advocates and lawyers worry about, these erroneous deaths come after a pair of initiatives from new leadership at the SSA to alter or update its databases of the living and the dead.
Holders of millions of Social Security numbers have been marked as deceased. Separately, according to The Washington Post and The New York Times, thousands of numbers belonging to immigrants have been purged, cutting them off from banks and commerce, in an effort to encourage these people to “self-deport.”
‘They are terminating people’s financial lives.’
Martin O’Malley, who led the Social Security Administration toward the end of the Joe Biden administration
Glasgow said SSA employees received an agency email in April about the purge, instructing them how to resurrect beneficiaries wrongly marked dead. “Why don’t you just do due diligence to make sure what you’re doing in the first place is correct?” he said.
The incorrectly marked deaths are just a piece of the Trump administration’s crash program purporting to root out fraud, modernize technology and secure the program’s future.
But KFF Health News’ interviews with more than a dozen beneficiaries, advocates, lawyers, current and former employees, and lawmakers suggest the overhaul is making the agency worse at its primary job: sending checks to seniors, orphans, widows, and those with disabilities.
Philadelphian Lisa Seda, who has cancer, has been struggling for weeks to sort out her 24-year-old niece’s difficulties with Social Security’s disability insurance program. There are two problems: first, trying to change her niece’s address; second, trying to figure out why the program is deducting roughly $400 a month for Medicare premiums, when her disability lawyer — whose firm has a policy against speaking on the record — believes they could be zero.
Since March, sometimes Social Security has direct-deposited payments to her niece’s bank account and other times mailed checks to her old address. Attempting to sort that out has been a morass of long phone calls on hold and in-person trips seeking an appointment.
Before 2025, getting the agency to process changes was usually straightforward, her lawyer said. Not anymore.
The need is dire. If the agency halts the niece’s disability payments, “then she will be homeless,” Seda recalled telling an agency employee. “I don’t know if I’m going to survive this cancer or not, but there is nobody else to help her.”
Some of the problems are technological. According to whistleblower information provided to Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, the agency’s efforts to process certain data have been failing more frequently. When that happens, “it can delay or even stop payments to Social Security recipients,” the committee recently told the agency’s inspector general.
While tech experts and former Social Security officials warn about the potential for a complete system crash, day-to-day decay can be an insidious and serious problem, said Kathleen Romig, formerly of the Social Security Administration and its advisory board and currently the director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Beneficiaries could struggle to get appointments or the money they’re owed, she said.
For its more than 70 million beneficiaries nationwide, Social Security is crucial. More than a third of recipients said they wouldn’t be able to afford necessities if the checks stopped coming, according to National Academy of Social Insurance survey results published in January.
Advocates and lawyers say lately Social Security is failing to deliver, to a degree that’s nearly unprecedented in their experience.
Carolyn Villers, executive director of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council, said two of her members’ March payments were several days late. “For one member that meant not being able to pay rent on time,” she said. “The delayed payment is not something I’ve heard in the last 20 years.”
When KFF Health News presented the agency with questions, Social Security officials passed them off to the White House. White House spokesperson Elizabeth Huston referred to Trump’s “resounding mandate” to make government more efficient.
“He has promised to protect social security, and every recipient will continue to receive their benefits,” Huston said in an email. She did not provide specific, on-the-record responses to questions.
Yes. That’s according to an estimate from the agency’s actuary.
Complaints about missed payments are mushrooming. The Arizona attorney general’s office had received approximately 40 complaints related to delayed or disrupted payments by early April, spokesperson Richie Taylor told KFF Health News.
A Connecticut agency assisting people on Medicare said complaints related to Social Security — which often helps administer payments and enroll patients in the government insurance program primarily for those over age 65 — had nearly doubled in March compared with last year.
Lawyers representing beneficiaries say that, while the historically underfunded agency has always had its share of errors and inefficiencies, it’s getting worse as experienced employees have been let go.
“We’re seeing more mistakes being made,” said James Ratchford, a lawyer in West Virginia with 17 years’ experience representing Social Security beneficiaries. “We’re seeing more things get dropped.”
What gets dropped, sometimes, are records of basic transactions. Kim Beavers of Independence, Missouri, tried to complete a periodic ritual in February: filling out a disability update form saying she remains unable to work. But her scheduled payments in March and April didn’t show.
She got an in-person appointment to untangle the problem — only to be told there was no record of her submission, despite her showing printouts of the relevant documents to the agency representative. Beavers has a new appointment scheduled for May, she said.
Social Security employees frequently cite missing records to explain their inability to solve problems when they meet with lawyers and beneficiaries. A disability lawyer whose firm’s policy does not allow them to be named had a particularly puzzling case: One client, a longtime Social Security disability recipient, had her benefits reassessed. After winning on appeal, the lawyer went back to the agency to have the payments restored — the recipient had been going without since February. But there was nothing there.
“To be told they’ve never been paid benefits before is just chaos, right? Unconditional chaos,” the lawyer said.
Researchers and lawyers say they have a suspicion about what’s behind the problems at Social Security: the Elon Musk-led effort to revamp the agency.
Some 7,000 SSA employees have reportedly been let go; O’Malley has estimated that 3,000 more would leave the agency. “As the workloads go up, the demoralization becomes deeper, and people burn out and leave,” he predicted in an April hearing held by House Democrats. “It’s going to mean that if you go to a field office, you’re going to see a heck of a lot more empty, closed windows.”
The departures have hit the agency’s regional payment centers hard. These centers help process and adjudicate some cases. It’s the type of behind-the-scenes work in which “the problems surface first,” Romig said. But if the staff doesn’t have enough time, “those things languish.”
Languishing can mean, in some cases, getting dropped by important programs like Medicare. Social Security often automatically deducts premiums, or otherwise administers payments, for the health program.
Lately, Melanie Lambert, a senior advocate at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, has seen an increasing number of cases in which the agency determines beneficiaries owe money to Medicare. The cash is sent to the payment centers, she said. And the checks “just sit there.”
Beneficiaries lose Medicare, and “those terminations also tend to happen sooner than they should, based on Social Security’s own rules,” putting people into a bureaucratic maze, Lambert said.
Employees’ technology is more often on the fritz. “There’s issues every single day with our system. Every day, at a certain time, our system would go down automatically,” said Glasgow, of Social Security’s Schenectady office. Those problems began in mid-March, he said.
The new problems leave Glasgow suspecting the worst. “It’s more work for less bodies, which will eventually hype up the inefficiency of our job and make us, make the agency, look as though it’s underperforming, and then a closer step to the privatization of the agency,” he said.
Jodie Fleischer of Cox Media Group contributed to this report.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
At Social Security, these are the days of the living dead 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.
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Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, one of six Democrats vying to become New Jersey's next governor, has been a vocal critic of a new migrant jail in the city he runs. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark and one of six Democrats running to be New Jersey’s next governor, was arrested and detained by federal immigration agents Friday, according to his campaign.
This comes just over a week after the migrant jail, Delaney Hall, opened its doors as the largest detention center on the east coast. Baraka, whose city filed a lawsuit challenging whether the facility’s owner secured proper city permits before opening, has spent the week protesting outside the jail and attempting to gain entry, to no avail.
A photo taken by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12), who was also at Delaney Hall Friday, shows a handcuffed Baraka being led away from the facility in handcuffs. It’s unclear whether he has been charged with any crime and where he is being held.
Acting U.S. Attorney of New Jersey Alina Habba said on social media that Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center.”
“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state. He has been taken into custody,” said Habba.
Habba, a personal lawyer for President Donald Trump, said in April that she is investigating Gov. Phil Murphy and state Attorney General Matt Platkin over the state ban on local law enforcement assisting in civil immigration enforcement. Under a 2018 attorney general directive, state, county, and local cops are barred from aiding federal agencies in civil immigration arrests or providing access to state or local resources and databases.
In February, private prison firm Geo Group announced it had secured a 15-year contract with ICE to use Delaney Hall as a 1,100-bed detention center amid ramped-up immigration enforcement. Trump has made mass detention and deportation of immigrants — including some here legally — a pillar of his second term in office.
Delaney Hall, which held immigrant detainees from 2011 to 2017, reopened May 1, despite Newark officials’ attempts to block the opening through the lawsuit. ICE officials have confirmed that detainees are being held there, but have not said how many.
The Attorney General’s Office and the governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com.
Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) told reporters that they would be starting from “base” with the budget. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Joint Finance Committee kicked off its work on the next Wisconsin State Budget Thursday by eliminating over 600 items from Gov. Tony Evers’ sweeping budget proposal, saying they would start from “base” and his budget had too much “irresponsible” spending. Democrats criticized Republicans for blocking all of Evers’ proposals without presenting a plan of their own to address the concerns of everyday Wisconsinites.
The committee spent last month hearing from members of the public, many of whom called for investments in public education and health care, and from some agency heads, who have defended Gov. Tony Evers’ budget requests. The state has a $4 billion budget surplus it’s considering, and Evers proposed the state tap those funds and raise income taxes on the wealthiest Wisconsinites to fund his proposals.
The list that lawmakers eliminated from the budget bill spanned about 20 pages and includes a new 9.8% income tax bracket for high-income earners, Medicaid expansion, nearly $500 million for the Child Care Counts program, marijuana legalization and taxation, $125 million to create a grant program to address PFAS, $200 million to address the replacement of lead pipes and other provisions to help address lead poisoning and many provisions related to public schools including free school meals, a “grow your own” teaching program and ensuring access to menstrual supplies in schools, funding for the Office of School Safety and a provision to cap participation in the state’s voucher programs.
Ahead of the budget meeting, committee co-chairs Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) and Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) told reporters that they would be starting from “base” with the budget, meaning removing all of the items and taking the budget back to the one in place for 2023-2025.
Born said legislators are accustomed to “the way we have to manage the governor’s executive budgets.” Since Evers took office in 2019, Republicans have kicked off every budget cycle by removing all of his proposals.
“Unfortunately, [Evers] sends us an executive budget that’s just piles full of stuff that doesn’t make sense and spends recklessly and raises taxes and has way too much policy,” Born said. “So, we’ll work from base and the first step of that today is to remove all that policy… and then begin the work of rebuilding the budget.”
Responding to Democrats’ criticism that Republicans are removing items that are popular with the public, Marklein said they should draft separate bills and use the regular legislative process to advance those ideas.
“I can point to things in the budget bill that we’re going to pull up that I like… and we’re pulling that out as well. It’s a policy,” Marklein said. “It’s got nothing to do with the budget.”
Born noted that there are also other ways that lawmakers could address issues of concern apart from Evers’ suggestions, saying the removal of items “doesn’t mean that when we build this budget over the next couple of months, we won’t impact those areas in positive and significant ways.”
“The governor has one idea on how to fund child care or one idea on how to impact mental health,” Born said. “There are other ways that we can do that in current law and current budget operations by inserting more money in things that I can most likely see us do.”
Marklein also noted that there could be some changes to how they go about drafting the budget this year following the state Supreme Court upholding Evers’ partial veto in the last budget.
“I anticipate that you’re not going to see too many references to digits, years anymore,” Marklein said. “My guess is that our drafting attorneys are going to recommend that you spell out those years, and those dates in the budget.” Born said the decision could also affect the education budget because there are increases already “baked into the cake.”
Evers slammed Republicans for gutting his proposal, saying that they are refusing to help Wisconsinites.
“The most frustrating part for me as governor is that Republicans consistently reject basic, commonsense proposals that can help kids, families, farmers, seniors and Wisconsinites across our state, all while Republicans offer no real or meaningful alternative of their own,” Evers said. “Republicans talk a lot about what they’re against, but not what they’re for.”
During the meeting, Democrats proposed keeping 19 items in the budget across a handful of motions that touched on certain issue areas, saying they hoped they could carve out some spots for agreement.
One would have placed $420 million back in the budget to fund the Child Care Counts program, as well as several other child care related measures.
Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) said Republicans are “willing to pull out really, really important items” and said the child care proposals are essential, warning that money for the Child Care Counts program is expected to expire in June.
“We are at risk of losing 87,000 [child care] slots… The fact that these things are being pulled out of the budget today and as of today, there is no mention or discussion of a replacement plan for something as important as this,” she said, is creating uncertainty among Wisconsinites and exacerbating a crisis.
“Our children deserve quality services. Our families deserve affordable rates,” Johnson said.
Another motion would have placed Medicaid expansion back in the budget. Wisconsin is one of only 10 states that haven’t accepted the federal expansion, which would allow coverage for those up to 138% of the federal poverty line.
“Families are struggling to afford the care they need, and we have an opportunity — and I would argue an obligation — to do something,” Andraca said.
Andraca noted that Congressional Republicans, including Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, are considering cuts to the Medicaid program as they aim to extend the 2017 tax cuts from President Donald Trump’s first term.
“We heard how people are fearful of cuts to the programs that they rely on, and they are forced to make increasingly hard choices between groceries and prescriptions,” Andraca said. “Are you still willing to turn your backs on the people who entrusted us to vote for their best interests? Honestly, our constituents deserve better than this.”
The final proposal from Democrats would have kept items in the budget related to veterans including tax credits for veterans, funding for a veterans’ mental health program and for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum as well as an item to designate Juneteenth and Veterans Day as holidays.
Rep. Tip McGuire (R-Kenosha) said he hoped they could agree on not making veterans’ lives harder.
“I recognize that it’s sort of the whole brand of the Republican party right now is to make everyone’s life a little bit more difficult,” McGuire said. “Certainly, it’s harder to travel in this country, It’s harder for people to access health insurance, it’s harder for people to afford college or go to college or manage their student loans. It’s harder for people to afford groceries and there may even be a question of what you can have full shelves soon… I know it’s your whole brand to make people’s lives harder, but I think we can all agree… [veterans] should still deserve some support.”
Republicans rejected each motion.
McGuire doubled down on his point, saying that Republicans’ opposition to supporting even smaller parts of Evers’ proposal is a sign that they don’t want to help the average person.
“People are struggling and it is a challenging world and the one thing we should not be doing the one thing that nobody votes for their legislator to do is to make their life harder,” McGuire said. “Yet, that is all we are seeing out of the Republican party right now. That’s all we see out of the federal Republican party and frankly the Republican party here,” McGuire said, noting that Republican lawmakers recently passed legislation that would place additional restrictions on unemployment benefits.
“You’re making things less affordable and more difficult for regular [people] and that’s bad and we shouldn’t do it,” McGuire said.
Marklein said he was “glad we’re going back to base” because Evers’ budget proposal included a 20% increase in spending, an additional 1,300 positions funded by general purpose revenue and an increase in taxes.
“When I talk to my constituents about the process, they are truly supportive of us not starting from this inflated budget that [Evers] put before us,” Marklein said, noting that Evers signed the last budget after they went through a similar process. “The idea that the door is closed on all these things is pretty ridiculous.”
McGuire pushed back on Marklein’s comments, saying that lawmakers are pretending it is a “nice and friendly” process.
“Part of the process that occurs here today is that not only do you remove the governor’s budget items, which make life easier for Wisconsinites, but then, you also prohibit anyone from ever discussing them ever again,” McGuire said. “And that’s really bizarre… This is a top-down totalitarian committee where we’re not permitted to discuss things past a certain point.”
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A Wauwatosa police squad on the scene of a non-fatal officer-involved shooting. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
The State Assembly’s Committee on Judiciary held a public hearing Wednesday to discuss a bill which, if passed, would restrict the use of John Doe hearings in cases where prosecutors decline to charge police officers after deadly force incidents. Republicans and law enforcement supporters of the bill (AB-34) said officers need to be protected from repeated investigations, and that anti-police groups have abused Wisconsin’s John Doe law to harass innocent officers who’ve been involved in civilian deaths. A long line of attorneys, legislators, social workers and others spoke in opposition to the bill, arguing that it adds to an array of legal privileges and protections police already enjoy.
Wisconsin’s John Doe law allows for a judge to be petitioned to review a case where prosecutors have already decided not to file charges. Once a John Doe hearing has been called, the judge may hear arguments from the petitioner as to why probable cause should be found that a crime was committed. If the judge agrees that probable cause does indeed exist, then special prosecutors may be appointed by the judge to review the case. Those prosecutors, however, ultimately decide whether charges will be pursued, regardless of whether a judge finds probable cause of a crime.
Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonee), an author of the bill, said the law had been used to “unfairly target” two officers who’ve been involved in deadly incidents. Former Wauwatosa officer Joseph Mensah killed Jay Anderson Jr. in 2016, claiming that Anderson lunged for a gun on the passenger seat of his vehicle. Anderson was the second person Mensah had killed in a year. He was involved in a total of three fatal shootings over his five year career at Wauwatosa PD. Mensah left Wauwatosa PD in late 2020 and was hired by the Waukesha County Sheriffs Department, where he is a detective.
In 2021, a John Doe hearing was called to review Anderson’s shooting, after which Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Glenn Yamahiro found probable cause existed to charge Mensah with homicide by negligent use of a dangerous weapon. The second John Doe hearing, started in 2023, focused on Madison police officer Matthew Kenney for the 2019 killing of 19-year-old Toney Robinson. A judge declined to allow the hearing to go forward.
“After the investigations, the court confirmed that he had acted in self-defense,” Moses said of the John Doe hearing in Anderson’s case. Mensah’s John Doe hearing “mirrored” reviews done by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office, U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI, and Wauwatosa PD, he said. “It’s concerning that such investigations, which echo previous exhaustions, can be perpetuated, consuming significant time and resources,” said Moses.
While speaking Wednesday, Moses incorrectly referenced Mensah’s 2015 shooting as being the reason for the John Doe hearing in 2021. “Officer Mensah used self-defense to protect himself while on the job in a situation in 2015,” Moses testified on Wednesday. In 2015, Mensah killed 29-year-old Antonio Gonzales while still in his probationary period at Wauwatosa PD. Neither Gonzales, nor Mensah’s third fatal shooting of Alvin Cole in 2020, were the subjects of John Doe hearings.
Last year, when the bill was first introduced, Moses joined Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) in claiming that families of people killed by police were seeking vengeance against officers. Moses confused details of Mensah’s shootings during those hearings as well. When asked about the mix up, Moses admitted to Wisconsin Examiner that he had not closely followed the Mensah cases.
As Moses testified on Wednesday, Hutton joined him in the committee room. Hutton, who has brought forward Senate versions of the bill, has said that although he’s taken extensive feedback from law enforcement about the bill, he has not reached out to the families of people killed by police. During a hearing in February, Mensah testified in favor of the bill.
Mark Sette, vice president of the Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police, said the bill is “crucial” and that law enforcement “have both the duty and right” to use deadly force to protect themselves or others. Sette said that police must make split second decisions in high-stress circumstances, and that deadly use of force incidents “are rare”. Sette praised Wisconsin’s process of conducting reviews of deadly force incidents led by an outside agency, saying that the investigations are thorough. Sette said that repeated investigations prevent officers from moving on with their lives, and trap them in a cycle of psychological trauma and financial stress.
West Allis Police Chief Patrick Mitchell, a former president and current legislative chair of the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association, also praised the investigative process. Mitchell pointed to the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT) as an example of how thorough reviews of deadly force incidents by police can be.
Not everyone was sold on the bill, however. Rep. Andrew Hysell questioned Sette and Mitchell about whether or not it’s possible for a district attorney to make a mistake in clearing an officer of wrongdoing. Sette said although it’s possible, that it’s “incredibly unlikely” because of the thoroughness of deadly force investigations. Hysell said that district attorneys aren’t infallible, and that the bill — if passed — would set in stone a prosecutor’s decision, and deny one legal avenue for families of people killed by police.
After Moses, Sette, and Mitchell came numerous people from a variety of backgrounds voicing opposition to the bill. Gregory Jones, vice president of the Wisconsin NAACP and president of the organization’s Dane County branch, urged lawmakers to dig deep, ask tough questions, and consider all aspects of how the bill could negatively impact civil rights and the pursuit of justice.
Amanda Merkwae, advocacy director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, stressed that the bill takes away judicial discretion and elevates law enforcement as a privileged class above all other citizens. Merkwae noted that prosecutors and law enforcement have close working relationships, and that district attorneys often rely on the very officers whose actions they’d need to review when citizens are killed.
The advocacy director also cited investigations by MAIT, citing an investigation by Wisconsin Examiner in partnership with Type Investigations, which reviewed 17 MAIT investigations from 2019-2022, all of which resulted in no charges against officers. Merkwae listed the article’s findings including that officers who kill citizens are interviewed as witnesses or victims only, can refuse to have their interviews recorded, and may amend their statements after viewing video evidence. In several MAIT investigations, officers were not separated from one another to prevent statement contamination despite this being a required policy.
Mensah and other officers provided contradictory statements and were not separated from one another after his third shooting. These facts were raised during a federal civil trial into Alvin Cole’s death earlier this year. The trial ended in a hung jury, with jurors unable to unanimously agree on whether Mensah’s killing of Cole was excessive.
Merkwae said that last year, Wisconsin had 24 fatal police encounters, up from 14 incidents the prior year. “So by creating a separate standard for police officers, this bill sends the message that they are above the law,” said Merkwae. “Which, I think, is a dangerous precedent that erodes trust and makes community engagement with law enforcement more fraught and less effective.”
Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) also spoke in opposition. Clancy said that he hadn’t planned to speak on the bill, but decided to when he heard Mensah’s name being used. “The idea that an officer who killed three people in three different incidents is a poster boy for why this is good legislation rather than bad is mindblowing to me,” said Clancy. “Joseph Mensah serves as an example of how our current system is failing the people that it is designed to protect. Had Joseph Mensah been held accountable after the first time he shot and killed somebody, he wouldn’t have shot and killed a second and a third person, in three different incidents. And it is sickening to me that he was brought up as an example of how this is necessary because he feels that some folks are mean to him in trying to find some measure of accountability.”
More people rose to speak against the bill after Clancy. Some were social workers and medical staff, who recounted being spat on, punched, kicked, scratched, and hurt yet never once considering criminally charging the person who hurt them. It’s a privilege that police officers have which they do not, the speakers argued. At one point, a Wisconsinite who wished to be identified only as G. Lee attempted to testify while wearing a hat that used an obscenity to criticize President Donald Trump. Committee Chair Ron Tulser (R-Harrison) called the hat offensive and got into an argument with Lee, after which he called for the assistance of the Capitol Police and called the committee into recess.
When the hearing re-started, G. Lee was allowed to testify on AB-34 while wearing the hat, though he was warned any breaches of decorum would result in him being removed. Lee apologized that the hat “threatened or offended” Tusler, and stated that Tusler reacted from a position of power. Comparing that to the powers police have, Lee said “what scares me about the decorum set in this room, and the measure tied to this bill, is about power.”
Lee, speaking directly to Tusler, said that when the hearing was stopped because of Tusler’s feelings, “One of my concerns here is that we are privileging the feelings of law enforcement over the feelings of families who’ve actually lost loved ones to bullets. That’s an important thing to consider here. The whole system is set up to protect a particular part of the state power, and you’ve used your state power to make a message.”
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As the Legislature begins working on the Wisconsin State Budget, a dangerous idea to give school vouchers their own separate line item could become a huge drain on resources. | Getty Images Creative
The top issue Wisconsinites brought to legislators’ attention at budget hearings around the state last month was the need to adequately fund public schools.
But now, as the Legislature’s powerful budget committee is beginning to work on the budget in earnest, a low-profile plan that never came up in those public hearings aims to turn school vouchers into a statewide entitlement, sucking up all the resources that might otherwise go to public schools and putting Wisconsin on a path to a full–blown budget crisis.
The plan, contained in two bills that failed in the last legislative session, would stop funding school vouchers through the same mix of state and local funding that supports regular public schools, and instead pay for school vouchers just out of the state’s general fund.
“It’s certainly something that I personally support. … I’m sure it will be part of the discussion,” Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam), co-chair of the powerful Joint Finance Committee, told Lisa Pugh on Wisconsin Eye when she asked about “decoupling” Wisconsin voucher school funding from the rest of the school finance system.
“Decoupling” would pave the way for a big expansion in taxpayer subsidies for private school tuition. While jettisoning the caps on available funds and enrollment in the current school formula, voucher payments would become an entitlement. The state would be obligated to pay for every eligible student to attend private school. It’s worth noting that most participants in Wisconsin’s voucher programs never attended public school, so what we are talking about is setting up a massive private school system with separate funding alongside the public K-12 school system. That’s more than Wisconsin can afford.
Anne Chapman, research director for the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials (WASBO), has followed the issue closely. “It could come up last-minute, on very short notice,” she warns.
She worries that Wisconsin is following the same path as other states that have steadily expanded public funding for private schools without accurately assessing what the expansion would cost. In a recent WASBO paper, “The price of parallel systems,” Chapman writes that Wisconsin already ranks third among states with the highest proportion of state education dollars used in private schooling options (9%). The top two states, Florida (22%) and Arizona (12%), she writes, are “cautionary examples.”
Florida’s universal voucher program will cost the state $3.9 billion this year. The state, which until now has been running budget surpluses, is projecting a $6.9 billion deficit by 2027-28, fueled by the voucher expansion along with tax cuts. Arizona is also facing much bigger than expected costs for its universal voucher program. After projecting it would cost $64 million in 2023-24, the state found that it underestimated the cost of vouchers by more than 650%. The real cost of universal vouchers in Arizona in 2023-24 was $738 million. The result: a huge budget deficit and significant cuts to public schools.
Wisconsin, which launched the first school voucher program in the nation in Milwaukee 35 ago, has steadily increased both the size and per-pupil expenditures of its system of voucher schools. That’s despite a research consensus that school vouchers have not improved academic outcomes for students and, in fact, have done significant harm.
Testifying recently against a school voucher bill in Texas, University of Michigan professor and school voucher expert Josh Cowen described the “catastrophic” results of vouchers on educational outcomes across the country over the last decade.
Cowen has been evaluating school vouchers since the 1990s, when the first pilot program in Milwaukee had a measurable, positive impact on the 400 low-income kids who used vouchers to attend traditional private schools. As school vouchers expanded to serve tens of thousands of students and “subprime” operators moved in to take advantage of taxpayer dollars, however, the results took a dramatic downturn. Cowen described the “horrific learning loss” he and other researchers have recorded over the last decade among kids who started in public school and then moved to private school using vouchers. He was used to seeing trends in education that simply didn’t work to improve outcomes, he told the Texas legislators, but “it’s very rare to see something that harmed kids academically.” The worst drops in test scores, he said, came in 2014-15 — the same year that states began taking the programs statewide. He concluded that the smaller programs that had paid close attention to students and offered them a lot of support became something entirely different when vouchers were scaled up. Yet despite the abysmal results, more and more states are moving toward universal voucher systems.
Imagine, Cowen told the Texas legislators, if “30 years ago a vaccine showed some positive effects in clinical trials for a few hundred kids.” Then, when the vaccine was approved and used on thousands of children, “the health effects became negative, even atrocious.”
“No one would say, ‘let’s just hang our hat on the pilot and focus on results from 30 years ago,” Cowen said. But that’s exactly what’s happening with school vouchers. The kids vouchers were originally supposed to help — low-income children in underresourced schools — have suffered the most.
Studies from research teams in Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio and Washington, D.C., show learning losses for kids who left public school to attend voucher programs that surpassed the learning loss experienced by students in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina or by children across the country from the COVID-19 pandemic, Cowen said.
Instead of helping those struggling students, who often attend the “subprime” schools Cowen discussed, the voucher programs in Wisconsin and other states mostly provide a taxpayer-financed benefit to private school families — 70% of whom have never put their kids in public school.
Anti-government ideologues and school choice lobbyists are selling a faulty product with the rapid expansion of school vouchers.
Part of the scam is the effort to hide the true costs from taxpayers. That’s the part Chapman, the school business expert, is worried about. As school districts struggle with lean budgets, under the current system, at least local taxpayers can see how much they are paying to support the voucher schools in their districts. If the Legislature succeeds in moving the cost of school vouchers into the general statewide budget, that transparency will be lost. And, at the same time, the state will open the door to unlimited spending on vouchers, no matter how expensive the program becomes.
School choice advocates in Wisconsin have long pushed for “a voucher in every backpack” — or universal eligibility for the private school voucher program.
“Eligibility” doesn’t mean the same thing as “access,” however: In Wisconsin voucher schools have a track record of kicking out students who are disabled, challenging to educate, LGBTQ or for any other reason they deem them a bad fit.
Those students go back to the public schools, whose mission is to serve all students. In contrast, private schools in the voucher system can and do discriminate. Yet, Chapman reports, we are now spending about $629 million for Wisconsin’s four voucher programs, which serve 58,623 students. That’s $54 million more than the $574.8 million we are spending on all 126,830 students with disabilities in Wisconsin, as school districts struggle with the cost of special education.
As if that weren’t enough, at the federal level, the Educational Choice for Children Act of 2025 (ECCA), currently being considered by Congress, would give a 100% tax deduction on donations to nonprofits known as Scholarship Granting Organizations, which give out private K-12 school vouchers.
Normally, donors to nonprofits can expect a tax deduction of 37 cents on the dollar at most. The 100% tax deduction means financial advisers across the country will push clients, whether they are school choice advocates or not, to give money to voucher schools. Under the bill, contributors would also be allowed to give corporate stock and avoid capital gains tax. “This would allow wealthy ‘donors’ to turn a profit, at taxpayer expense, by acting as middlemen in steering federal funding into private K-12 schools,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reports. ITEP estimates that the ECCA would cost the federal government $134 billion in foregone revenue over the next 10 years and would cost states an additional $2.3 billion.
The very least we can do as citizens is to demand accountability and transparency in the state budget process, before we blow all of our money on tax breaks and tuition vouchers for people who don’t need them.
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Phil Tritz, Jeff Schwartz and Matt Swan, left to right, all AmeriCorps volunteers from New Orleans, work with Habitat for Humanity building homes for Hurricane Katrina victims in Rockefeller Plaza on Sept. 23, 2005, in New York City. Habitat for Humanity, along with the NBC News "Today" show and the Warner Music Group, planned to build around 20 homes with thousands of volunteers working 24 hours a day for five days, starting on Sept. 26. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Hillary Kane learned on a Saturday morning in April that within days, she would lose AmeriCorps funding for two programs that match mentors with West Philadelphia high schoolers and first-generation college students — both vulnerable groups at risk of not completing diplomas and degrees.
Kane, director of the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development, dreaded calling her AmeriCorps members to say the federal government had just terminated their positions in the nationwide service program. It embeds nearly 200,000 Americans each year in community nonprofits, schools and other organizations.
“My first thought was just a string of expletives, just that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach,” she said, recalling the April 26 morning.
The federal agency dedicated to community service and volunteerism, which works in close partnership with states, is the latest target since President Donald Trump began his second term with an aggressive campaign to dismantle programs and slash the federal workforce.
The agency abruptly cut $400 million, or 41% of its budget, and placed 85% of its staff on administrative leave last month, according to court records.
AmeriCorps had provided $960 million to fund 3,100 projects across the United States each year, according to general undated figures available on the agency’s website.
Two of Kane’s grants were abruptly canceled as part of the cuts, and as of May 20, she’ll lose nearly 30 AmeriCorps members.
“They’re literally just left stranded,” she said. “You know, I have members who are single moms with kids and suddenly don’t have insurance, or at least by the end of the month they won’t.”
Five of Kane’s members were placed in three high schools in West Philadelphia helping students with career exploration, resumes and college applications. They also provided recreation activities after school.
“We’re in under-resourced schools,” Kane said. “We’ve got schools that have one counselor for 300 students, and they’re not even primarily a college counselor, right? They’re guidance counselors who are dealing with all kinds of other issues.”
The cuts have produced upheaval for many nonprofits.
AmeriCorps members serve various roles in organizations that support environmental conservation projects, rebuild after natural disasters, prepare adults for the GED exam, tutor children and more.
Rick Cohen, of the National Council of Nonprofits, said the announcement was a blow to community organizations that are already stretched thin.
“Groups that were already short-staffed and facing all these other headwinds are now even further short-staffed and trying to figure out how to keep things going and how to keep helping people,” said Cohen, the chief communications officer and chief operating officer for the advocacy organization.
“It’s a very difficult time for a lot of people in the nonprofit sector because you never want to have to tell somebody that’s coming to you for help that you can’t help them, and that there’s not somewhere else for them to turn,” Cohen said.
Aaron Gray, who helped run an AmeriCorps program serving at-risk youth in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County from 1997 to 2017, said “it’s a shame.”
Over the years as an assistant director, Gray placed thousands of service members with community organizations, faith-based programs and schools.
“I think this is gonna be detrimental. AmeriCorps has been around since the 90s, and it took a long time to build up to this, and it’s just being eviscerated overnight. If it survives, or if it’s brought back at some later point, it’s going to take a generation to rebuild.”
Congress created AmeriCorps in 1993 when President Bill Clinton was in office. Then titled the Corporation for National and Community Service, the agency absorbed other government service programs including Volunteers in Service of America, or VISTA, created in 1964 to combat poverty, and the National Civilian Community Corps, referred to as NCCC, created in 1992 to assist natural disaster recovery.
The agency grew to include FEMA Corps in 2012 and Public Health AmeriCorps in 2022, among other specialized programs.
Service members, who are not federal employees, are provided a meager stipend of a few hundred dollars a week and receive an education award to pay for college or student loans upon completion of service, which typically lasts just under a year. As of 2024, the award was roughly $7,300.
Members, who range in age from young adults to senior citizens, can also receive health insurance while serving. While participants are not allowed to apply for unemployment, some can seek food assistance.
The administration terminated all NCCC programs in mid-April. Then, late on Friday, April 25, more than 1,000 grantees were told to pull their members from service immediately, according to court filings.
AmeriCorps did not respond to questions about the cuts.
Two lawsuits challenging the cuts are working their way through the federal courts. Fourteen organizations, the union representing AmeriCorps staffers and three individual plaintiffs who were AmeriCorps members filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on May 5.
The nonprofits bringing the lawsuit are based in California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Virginia.
Plaintiffs say the immediate termination of grants has caused irreparable harm to nonprofits and AmeriCorps members who have now lost income, health insurance and large portions of their education awards, according to the complaint.
Plaintiff J. Doe 3 relocated to Fayetteville, North Carolina, for a second year of service, embedded with the Kingdom Community Corporation, a nonprofit that helps first-time homebuyers learn how to avoid foreclosure and that provides counseling certified by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
According to the 55-page complaint, Doe 3 began service in February and was engaging with community members on a daily basis, answering anywhere from 25 to 75 calls. Doe 3 planned to use the education award to continue higher education.
“The sudden cancellation of Doe 3’s AmeriCorps position has left them in a new city, without a job, lacking the experience, skill building, and community they signed up for,” according to the complaint.
States are also affected by the cuts.
AmeriCorps’ structure puts the agency in close connection with states. Each state government establishes its own commission to determine which priorities and organizations receive the annual federal dollars.
For example, in Kane’s state of Pennsylvania, more than 8,500 members were placed in various roles at 1,000 nonprofits in 2024. The state’s commission received $38.8 million in federal dollars, while local dollars supplemented the rest, reaching $54.8 million in total funding for the year, according to the latest AmeriCorps annual state-by-state reports.
On April 29, state attorneys general from nearly two dozen states and the District of Columbia sued the administration, alleging the cuts were illegal.
The 123-page complaint details how U.S. DOGE Service officials arrived at AmeriCorps offices in D.C. on April 8 and began working with the interim agency head, Jennifer Bastress Tahmasebi, to plot program cuts.
“This case presents only the latest chapter in an ongoing saga, as the Administration attempts to dismantle federal agencies without Congressional approval,” according to the court filing.
States that brought the legal challenge include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
In a statement provided to States Newsroom Thursday, the White House defended the cuts.
“AmeriCorps has failed eight consecutive audits and identified over $45 million in unaccounted for payments in 2024 alone. President Trump is restoring accountability to the entire Executive Branch,” said spokesperson Anna Kelly.
Editor’s note: D.C. Bureau Senior Reporter Ashley Murray served in AmeriCorps in 2011.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrives for a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee panel Thursday slammed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for her handling of her agency’s funding and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Sen. Chris Murphy warned Noem that DHS is at risk of running out of its $65 billion in funding by July – two months before the end of the fiscal year – and therefore close to triggering the Antideficiency Act, a federal law prohibiting government agencies from spending funds in excess of their appropriations.
“Your department is out of control,” the Connecticut Democrat told Noem. “You are running out of money.”
Noem, who appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, was also grilled by Democrats about the high-profile case of a wrongly deported Maryland man sent in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The White House’s “skinny” budget proposal suggests $107 billion for DHS starting Oct. 1, and assumes that Republicans pass the reconciliation package under consideration to allocate a massive $175 billion overall in border security.
“If we now live in a world in which the administration spends down the accounts that were priorities for Republicans and does not spend down the priorities that were priorities for Democrats, I don’t know how we do a budget,” Murphy said.
Sen. Patty Murray, top Democrat on the full Senate Appropriations Committee, slammed Noem for not following “our appropriations laws.”
She was critical of how immigration enforcement has caught up U.S. citizens and immigrants with protected legal statuses.
“Your crackdown has roped in American citizens and people who are here legally with no criminal record,” the Washington Democrat said.
She also criticized Noem for spending $100 million on TV ads that range from praising the president to warning migrants not to come to the United States or to self-deport.
Noem in addition launched this week an initiative to provide up to $1,000 in “travel assistance” to immigrants without legal authorization to self-deport, which would amount to $1 billion if President Donald Trump’s goal of deporting 1 million people is met. The source of those funds in the DHS budget is unclear.
Murray asked Noem about more than $100 billion in DHS funds not being used or re-programmed elsewhere for immigration enforcement, and called it “an illegal freeze.”
She then asked Noem when DHS would unfreeze those funds.
Noem did not answer and instead blamed the Biden administration, and said the previous administration “perverted” how the funds were used.
Murray said she did not think it was “credible that $100 billion is used to break the law.”
“I am very concerned that DHS is now dramatically over-spending funding that Congress has not provided,” Murray said. “We take our responsibility seriously to fund your department and others. We need to have answers, we need to have accountability, and we need to make sure you’re not overspending money that you were not allocated.”
Noem got into a heated exchange with one of the Democrats on the panel, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to speak with wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration has admitted his deportation was an “administrative error.”
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, who was sent initially to brutal CECOT but is now housed in another prison.
Van Hollen asked Noem what DHS has done to bring back Abrego Garcia, who had a 2019 court order barring his return to his home country of El Salvador for fear he would be harmed by gang violence.
Noem did not answer what steps the Trump administration was taking and said that because Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador, he is in that nation’s custody and cannot be brought back.
Trump has contradicted his own administration, stating that if he wanted to bring back Agrego Garcia he would, but won’t because he believes Abrego Garcia has gang ties.
While Trump officials like Noem have alleged that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang, no evidence has been provided in court and federal Judge Paula Xinis, who is presiding over the case, called the accusations “hearsay.”
Noem then questioned why Van Hollen was advocating for Abrego Garcia in the first place.
“Your advocacy for a known terrorist is alarming to me,” she said.
Van Hollen said that he was advocating for due process, which the Trump administration has been accused of skirting in its deportations. A federal judge in Louisiana next week plans to hold a hearing to determine if the Trump administration violated due process in deporting a 2-year-old U.S. citizen and her mother to Honduras.
Murphy also pressed Noem on the issue and asked how she was coordinating with El Salvador for Abrego Garcia’s release.
“There is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be returned to the United States,” she said.
Noem then said that even if Abrego Garcia were returned to the U.S., “we would immediately deport him again.”
Some Republicans on the panel, including the committee chair, raised concerns with Noem about how the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is affecting students with visas.
“There are so many others who do deserve scrutiny,” said Chairwoman Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, who said she was worried about students from Canada who attend school in her home state. “But these are dually enrolled Canadian students, and they’ve been crossing the border for years without trouble.”
She said Canadian students are being stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and given intense screenings.
“They have student visas, but they’re being subjected to extensive searches and questioning,” she said to Noem. “I don’t want us to discourage Canadian students from studying at the northern Maine institutions that we have for education.”
Noem said she would look into it.
Alaskan Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski raised the issue of paperwork not being processed for those with Temporary Protected Status in her state. TPS is granted to those who come from a country that is considered too dangerous or unstable to return to due to war, natural disasters or other instability.
Murkowski said several groups of immigrants in her state with temporary protected status and humanitarian protection are at risk of losing their work protections, such as Afghans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Ukrainians.
“The majority of these folks are just truly valued members of their new community,” Murkowski said. “They’re helping us meet workforce needs and really contributing to the tax base here. They’ve expressed great concern about their status and work authorizations that may be revoked or allowed to expire.”
She said that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has not processed TPS or humanitarian protection renewals for up to five months.
Noem said that those with TPS are being looked at, and admitted that some Ukrainians got an erroneous email that notified them their status was revoked.
She said DHS has not made a decision on whether or not to renew TPS for Ukrainians, who were granted the status due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.
“Some of these TPS programs have been in place for many, many years, but the evaluation on why TPS should be utilized and when it can be utilized by a country is the process that the administration is going through,” Noem said.
The U.S. Supreme Court, as seen on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration Thursday made an emergency request to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the deportation of more than half a million immigrants granted humanitarian protections under the Biden administration.
A federal judge in Massachusetts in April blocked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from ending the humanitarian parole program for 532,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. An appeals court rejected the request from the Trump administration to stay the lower court’s order.
In the filing to the high court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argues that the Immigration Nationality Act bars judicial review of discretionary decisions, such as humanitarian parole.
Sauer adds that Noem terminated the program because it does not align with the interests of the Trump administration.
“The district court’s order stymies the government’s ability to terminate parole grants that the Secretary has determined undermine U.S. interests, and thus it inhibits the government’s pursuit of its foreign policy goals,” according to the brief.
Presidents for decades have used their parole authority to allow for migrants to obtain protected status.
President Joe Biden created the program in 2023 that temporarily grants work permits and allows nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to remain in the country if they are sponsored by someone in the United States.
Thursday’s emergency request is one of several immigration related challenges the Trump administration is asking the high court to intervene in after district courts and appeals courts have ruled against the administration.
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on ending birthright citizenship, the use of the 1798 wartime Alien Enemies Act, revoking Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans and requirements to return a wrongly deported Maryland man from El Salvador.
FBI director Kash Patel testifies before a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday, May 8, 2025. (Photo from U.S. Senate webcast)
WASHINGTON — The case of the missing Federal Bureau of Investigation budget request was on full display Thursday, when senators repeatedly asked the law enforcement agency’s director what resources he needed Congress to provide in the upcoming fiscal year.
FBI Director Kash Patel did not disclose a dollar amount, an unusual development at a hearing at which an agency head traditionally discusses a budget request in detail with lawmakers who hold the purse strings.
The Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee hearing came one day after Patel testified before a House panel that he needs more money from Congress than was asked for in the Trump administration’s budget request.
Patel’s written statement to the House subcommittee said the FBI’s total request was $10.1 billion, but during that hearing he told appropriators the agency needed at least $11.2 billion.
Patel rejecting the Trump administration’s official budget request in support of his own proposal to Congress was significant in that Cabinet secretaries almost always stick to the official request, at least during public hearings.
“The skinny budget is a proposal, and I’m working through the appropriations process to explain why we need more than what has been proposed,” Patel said during the House hearing Wednesday.
Less than 24 hours later, he reversed course during the Senate hearing, saying his comments were misconstrued.
“President Trump has set new priorities and a focus on federal law enforcement. I’m here today in full support of the president’s budget, which reprioritizes and enhances our mission of law enforcement and national security,” Patel said in his opening statement. “We’re fighting for a fully funded FBI because we want a fully effective FBI.”
What that dollar amount might be was unclear, though.
During an exchange with Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the full Appropriations Committee, about what exactly the FBI needs in terms of funding, Patel said: “I’m not asking you for anything at this time.”
Murray responded by asking if he believed the FBI could “operate without a budget.” Patel responded that he “never said that.”
Republicans and Democrats on the Senate panel repeatedly brought up that the Trump administration’s “skinny” budget proposal, released last week, doesn’t actually include a total funding level for the FBI. It only has one paragraph calling for lawmakers to cut funding by $545 million.
Patel testified during the two-hour Senate hearing that he had identified most of the accounts that could lose funding, though he wasn’t prepared to share that information with the committee or give a timeline when he would.
Patel also declined to tell lawmakers when the FBI would send Congress its spending plan for the current fiscal year, which is required by law and past due.
“I don’t have a timeline on that,” Patel said.
Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, the subcommittee’s chairman, said he was holding the hearing to get the ball rolling on the upcoming appropriations process and encouraged Patel to get the committee more details.
“We wanted to get every piece of information we could as early as we could, even though the budgetary process and now the appropriations process is disjointed and things are lacking,” Moran said.
Moran said that he was “concerned by the scale of the cut, especially as I know full well it comes on the heels of two years where the FBI’s budget was essentially held flat, forcing it to absorb hundreds of millions of dollars in unavoidable inflationary increases.”
Patel declined to say if he would testify before the committee again after the Trump administration releases its full budget request, which should include considerably more detail and is expected to come out sometime later this year, though the White House hasn’t said when.
The House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees that fund the FBI will write the bill over the summer and will likely negotiate final bipartisan, bicameral bills this fall.
That bill is one of a dozen that provide funding for many of the departments and agencies that make up the federal government, including Agriculture, Energy, Defense, Health and Human Services. Homeland Security, Interior, State, and many more.
Madison Police Acting Chief John Patterson speaks at a press conference Thursday about the arrest of Jeffrey Rupnow on charges that he illegally gave his daughter two handguns, including one that she used in the school shooting Dec. 16 at a Madison private school. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
The father of the teenager who shot and killed two people at a Madison private school and took her own life five months ago was arrested Thursday and charged with three felony counts in connection with the December shootings.
Jeffrey Rupnow, 42, was charged with two counts of intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to a person under the age of 18 and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. All are Class H felonies under Wisconsin law, subject to a fine of up to $10,000 or a prison sentence of up to six years, or both.
Rupnow was booked into the Dane County jail just before 5:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the jail’s online records.
He is the father of Natalie Rupnow, the 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School on Madison’s east side who entered the school in the middle of the morning on Dec. 16, 2024, shot and killed a teacher and a student, wounded six other people and then took her own life, all within a matter of minutes.
According to the criminal complaint, which was unsealed Thursday after Rupnow’s early morning arrest, Rupnow purchased two guns for his daughter: a 22-caliber handgun and later a Glock 9 mm pistol — the weapon that was used in the shooting. He said Natalie helped pay for the Glock and he purchased it for her from a gun store, the complaint states.
“All of these weapons, including [a third] one that was about to be gifted to the same teen, were purchased legally,” Madison Police Department Acting Chief John Patterson said at a Thursday afternoon press conference.
“There was a gun safe in the home. Based on our investigation, it did not stop the teenager from having regular access” to the contents, he said.
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said the case “is a call and an action to hold parents accountable … if their children can access their firearms.”
Rhodes-Conway said she wanted to see the Legislature take up “a number of really common sense proposals that have been around for years” to reduce gun violence. Those include measures such as universal background checks before people can purchase a gun as well as “red flag” laws that empower the courts to remove guns from owners who may represent a credible threat to others.
“The other piece of this is really making sure that responsible gun owners are doing everything they can to make sure that those guns do not fall into the hands of people who should not have them,” she said.
Patterson said Rupnow has been cooperative with police throughout the investigation.
In interviews with police, Natalie’s parents as well as two friends described her behavior as depressed and sometimes angry at her parents, who are divorced.
“Why would a 15-year-old open fire in her school and murder a teacher, classmates, and injure six others? We may never fully understand that horror,” Patterson said. “We do know the teenager had a fascination with weapons and school shootings.”
The complaint states that in June 2022 Madison police officers told Jeffrey Rupnow “of high-risk behavior that [Natalie] was engaging in via the internet.” The complaint does not elaborate further on that report. “I can’t speak further to the follow-up that was done” at that time, Patterson said.
Patterson said the investigation remains open in the case. He declined to comment about reports that people in other states were in touch with Natalie Rupnow online.
According to the complaint, Jeffrey Rupnow told police he had 11 guns, including two that were considered Natalie’s. He told police his daughter became interested in guns after he took her to a friend’s farm to shoot guns about two years ago and that they would occasionally go to a shooting range.
Because of her interest, Rupnow told police he bought her a 22-caliber handgun and later the Glock, according to the complaint.
The complaint states that Rupnow described occasional comments by his daughter about wanting to kill herself, but that he generally viewed those remarks as attention-seeking behavior.
Rupnow told police he had a gun safe where he kept all of the guns, including those he had purchased for his daughter. The safe was locked with a security code. He told police he had not told his daughter the code itself, but that he had told her that it was his Social Security number backwards, in case she needed to get into it.
The complaint states that police found maps of the school and a cardboard mockup that appeared to be of the school building among Natalie Rupnow’s things at home.
Police also found notebooks and what Patterson called a “manifesto” — a six-page document titled “War Against Humanity.” That and other documents suggested a fascination with other mass shootings, including one in 2007 by an 18-year-old in Finland, which she noted in one of her writings took place two years after she was born.
In addition, police found and reviewed 30 sets of camcorder videos, some of them with Natalie handling weapons and some depicting what appeared to be animal mutilation, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, Natalie took both of her handguns to the school on Dec. 16, the day of the shooting, but apparently used only the Glock.
The complaint states she arrived at the school just before 10:40 a.m. and entered a classroom just before 10:50 a.m.
A student in the classroom, a study hall, told police that once in the classroom, Natalie held the gun with both hands and aimed it at the teacher who was sitting at her desk in the front of the room. The student said he heard gunshots and ran to the back of the room, where he hid behind a beanbag chair.
After the shooting stopped, the student, who was wounded in the leg, saw Natalie Rupnow lying on the floor on her back, with the gun in her hand. The student told police he removed the gun from her hand and put it in a drawer “because he wanted to make sure that no one else got a hold of it,” the complaint states. The police later retrieved the gun from the drawer.
The teacher, Erin Michelle West, and one student, Rubi Bergara, were both killed, according to the Dane County Medical Examiner’s office. Six other students were wounded. One remains hospitalized, Patterson said.
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Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition by Tony Webster CC BY 2.0 A yard sign in Mellen, Wisconsin reads: "This Time Wisconsin Deserves Fair Maps," paid for by the Fair Elections Project, FairMapsWI.com. The political sign supports redistricting legislation to reform gerrymandering.
A lawsuit filed Thursday seeks to have the Wisconsin Supreme Court declare the state’s current congressional maps unconstitutional because they pack a “substantial share” of the state’s Democratic voters into only two of eight districts.
The lawsuit, filed against the Wisconsin Elections Commission by the Democratic law firm Elias Law Group on behalf of nine Wisconsin voters, seeks to have the case bypass the lower courts and be taken up directly by the state Supreme Court. The filing comes one month after the state elected Susan Crawford to the Court, maintaining a 4-3 liberal majority on the body until at least 2028.
“Wisconsin’s congressional map is antithetical to virtually every principle necessary to sustain a representative democracy,” the lawsuit states. “It impermissibly disadvantages voters based on their political views and partisan affiliation, systematically disfavoring Democrats because they are Democrats. By packing the substantial share of Wisconsin’s Democrats into just two congressional districts, while cracking other Democratic communities into uncompetitive Republican districts, the map condemns the party that regularly splits or wins the statewide vote to permanent minority status in the state’s congressional delegation.”
The lawsuit argues that the nine voters are deprived of their rights because they are Democratic voters who have been drawn into districts that prevent them from electing their chosen candidates.
In 2021, Gov. Tony Evers and Republicans in control of the Legislature reached a stalemate in negotiations over new congressional and legislative maps, which required the Court to step in. The Court, then controlled by a 4-3 conservative majority, ruled that it would only consider proposed new maps under a “least change” standard — meaning maps had to adhere as closely as possible to the maps that Republicans instituted in 2011. Those 2011 maps were considered among the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the country.
In 2022, the Court ultimately chose congressional maps proposed by Evers, but the lawsuit argues that the Court rejected the “least change” approach when it declared the legislative maps unconstitutional in 2023 and should therefore do the same for the congressional maps.
Last year the Court rejected a similar effort.
“This Court has since determined that the novel ‘least change’ approach that directly led to this result lacked any basis in this Court’s precedents, the Wisconsin Constitution, or past Wisconsin redistricting practice,” the lawsuit states. “Yet the congressional map adopted under the “least change” approach is now in effect and will remain in effect for the remainder of the decade absent this Court’s action.”
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