The reopening of the Social Development Commission, after months of disruption, has sparked mixed reactions from elected officials.
While some welcome its return, others anticipate challenges ahead, with Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson calling for greater transparency from the agency.
The Social Development Commission, or SDC, reopened its main office at 1730 W. North Ave. earlier this month. It’s now focusing on resuming its Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, career services, child care and housing programs.
The agency provided programs and services that helped Milwaukee County residents living in poverty before it stopped services and laid off employees in late April because of its inability to meet payroll and other financial concerns.
Mayor calls for more transparency
At the SDC board’s meeting where leadership announced plans to reopen, Jackie Q. Carter, the board’s commissioner appointed by the mayor, voted against executive board nominations and asked for more community involvement, a formalized process and public transparency in the board’s decisions.
“The vote accurately reflected the mayor’s concerns about the lack of transparency in the latest moves,” said Jeff Fleming, a spokesperson for Johnson.
The mayor would like SDC to follow requirements of Wisconsin open meetings law, which includes publicly posting notice of its board meetings and providing agendas with information regarding the matters of discussion, Fleming said.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson would like to see more transparency from the Social Development Commission’s board. (Sue Vliet / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service file photo)
Since SDC suspended operations, the board has only been meeting part of the law’s notice requirements. SDC has notified individuals and members of the press of upcoming meetings, but it has not been posting meeting notices in public places or online.
“The mayor is hopeful SDC will, once again, be a leading provider of help to low-income residents of the region,” Fleming said. “It is essential that SDC regain trust before it can resume the important work it previously undertook. The services are needed, and well-run organizations are key to serving those who deserve assistance.”
Other officials weigh in
Before the reopening announcement in November, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said in an interview that the county wants to continue working with the Social Development Commission.
He said many of the services SDC provided have been picked up by other agencies, and his office has not received any constituent calls related to service issues.
“But we also know that as a CAP (community action program) agency, there are dollars that are probably on the table at the state and federal level that we haven’t been able to take advantage of because they aren’t open,” Crowley said.
Following the reopening announcement, Jonathan Fera, the communications director for the county executive’s office, said the state and the federal Office of Community Services are working with SDC to determine how to move forward, and Crowley is ready to collaborate with them when needed.
“It’s encouraging that people are back at the table working on a solution to the challenges that have impacted public services provided by SDC,” Fera said.
Another official interested in SDC restarting services is U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore.
When SDC abruptly shuttered in April, Moore wrote letters to SDC’s board and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, calling for a federal investigation.
“The Social Development Commission’s closure was a loss that was deeply felt in the community,” Moore said. “While I am grateful that the Social Development Commission is resuming some of its services, I know it still faces many challenges ahead.”
County Supervisor Priscilla E. Coggs-Jones, who represents the 13th District on Milwaukee’s Near North Side and is the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors’ second vice chair, called the reopening a “critical step toward restoring vital services for Milwaukee County residents.”
“The SDC has been a cornerstone of community support for years, and its relaunch reaffirms our commitment to uplifting people in need,” she said.
State Sen. LaTonya Johnson, who represents the 6th Senate District, said the reopening is great news for Milwaukee County.
“The commission’s ability to provide housing assistance and child care food services has been a lifeline for families who need a little support,” Johnson said. “I’m glad to have them back in our community, and I encourage those who need help to take advantage of their services.”
Devin Blake, PrincessSafiya Byers and Edgar Mendez contributed reporting to this story.
However, William Sulton, SDC’s attorney, said that staff doing new work is precisely how former employees are going to get paid.
“I would say … the way that those folks are going to get paid is by the organization reopening and submitting the required reporting documentation to get paid on grants,” Sulton said.
Who does SDC owe?
As of last week, 45 people have unresolved claims concerning pay from SDC, according to a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, the state agency that handles employment and labor-related disputes.
Sulton also said that among these 45 employees are highly paid employees like George Hinton, SDC’s former CEO who resigned at the request of SDC’s Board of Commissioners.
The Department of Workforce Development did not provide a clear timeline for when it will make a decision about people’s claims, but the investigator assigned to these claims is actively working on them, the department’s spokesperson said.
Sulton said he believes there is a path for how former employees will be paid: new, or rehired, employees providing services.
If SDC hadn’t brought in employees to do new work, grant money couldn’t be accessed to resolve Department of Workforce Development claims, Sulton said.
The quasi-governmental community action agency provides a variety of programs and services to meet the needs of low-income residents in Milwaukee County.
Case-by-case basis
But making a claim with the Department of Workforce Development does not guarantee that person will get the full amount they say they’re owed.
Each claim is being evaluated individually, and there are some disputes, Sulton said.
“For example, there’s one employee whose time we’re unable to confirm. There’s one employee who claims that she had a conversation with their supervisor and the former supervisor promised her an increase in pay,” Sulton said.
A common theme among claims is about getting paid out for unused paid time off, Sulton said.
Department of Workforce Development staff are assisting former employees with supplying the right documentation, which can include pay stubs, records they kept or other communications, according to the spokesperson.
Woods thought ahead in this regard.
“On the last day, I just was taking screenshots and printing whatever I needed and emailing to myself,” she said.
Some progress
Since the April layoffs, SDC has paid $51,000 toward what it owes people, Sulton said.
Gun violence homicides dropped by nearly 17% in Wisconsin over the first eight months of 2024 compared to the same time period in 2023, according to a report by the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan policy institute.
The report, released in September, also found that gun violence victimizations, defined as all firearm-related injuries and deaths, dropped in Milwaukee nearly 20% over that same time period.
“I think this decrease is happening for a number of reasons, but one is due to community violence intervention measures that are working,” said Nicholas Matuszewski, executive director of Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, a statewide grassroots organization.
Local violence intervention efforts include 414 Life, a violence interruption program; and Project Ujima, which provides services to families and children who’ve been impacted by violence.
In addition, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley announced in late October the launch of the national gun violence program “Advance Peace.”
“Advance Peace is an investment in solutions to decreasing gun violence that will help ensure Milwaukee County is a safe and healthy community where families and children can thrive,” Crowley said in a news release announcing the program.
The Wisconsin Community Safety Fund grants provided 10 organizations, including the Alma Center in Milwaukee, with $10.4 million in funding to reduce violence stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“After the pandemic, we had a huge increase in gun ownership and gun purchases which naturally led to more gun violence,” Matuszewski said. “Those numbers are dropping now.”
While many cities cited in the report have seen gun violence return or drop to pre-pandemic levels, Milwaukee is still on pace to experience more shootings this year than in 2019, the year before the pandemic.
According to data from the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission dashboard, there were 442 nonfatal shootings in 2019. Those numbers rose to more than 750 each year from 2020 to 2023. So far this year, the city has experienced 471 shootings, according to information on the dashboard.
‘Too many shootings’
Travis Hope, a community activist who conducts street outreach on Milwaukee’s South Side, said gun violence still occurs at an alarming rate in the city.
“Too many shootings are still happening and impacting families, communities and especially young people,” Hope said.
According to data from the Milwaukee Police Department, there have been 119 homicides in the city so far this year, compared to 153 during the same time period in 2023 and 192 in 2022.
The number of nonfatal shootings in Milwaukee also is down significantly, with 471 so far this year, compared to 769 at this time in 2023 and 788 in 2022.
Officials address drop in gun violence in Milwaukee
During a news conference discussing the reduction in shootings, among other crimes in the city, Mayor Cavalier Johnson cited the work of the Milwaukee Police Department as one reason for the drop in shootings and other crime this year.
“The work that they do is a big factor, a huge factor, in making Milwaukee safer,” he said.
Johnson said that in addition to law enforcement, intervention efforts have also been key in reducing crime.
“When we prevent a crime through intervention, that makes each and every one of us safer,” he said.
Ashanti Hamilton, director of the Office of Community Safety and Wellness, said that while the decrease in homicides and nonfatal shootings is promising, more work needs to be done.
“Reducing violence is an ongoing process,” he said. “Sustainable change requires addressing the root causes of crime, and this means looking beyond the immediate crime reduction strategies and focusing on broader social, economic and systemic changes that contribute to violence.”
The Milwaukee Police Department has a hiring problem.
It can’t find enough recruits to offset retirements and the departure of others.
Ald. Lamont Westmoreland, who represents the 5th District on the city’s Northwest Side, said residents are feeling the impact.
“Lack of police presence, long wait times on calls, all tied back to the lack of sworn officers that MPD has,” Westmoreland said.
Leon Todd, executive director of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, which has primary responsibility in the city for recruiting, testing and hiring new officers, agrees.
“Having more officers and growing the size of MPD will do a host of things to improve public safety,” he said. “Shorter response times, higher clearance rates, more proactive time for officers to do follow-up or investigative work and have greater visibility and engagement opportunities in the community all drive down crime in various ways.”
In 2023, the Milwaukee Fire and Police Academy graduated 101 new police officers, while the Milwaukee Police Department lost 112 officers to retirement, resignation or termination, Westmoreland said.
The pace of recruitment is slow again this year, with departures of officers once again outpacing new police cadets.
The city also risks missing mandates that require beefing up the number of police officers in the city as part of the Act 12 Wisconsin funding law or face millions in fines. Act 12 created avenues to implement local sales taxes as a way to pump more money into the budget and offset spiraling costs.
“I have no issue with the mandate because I do think that we need more officers on the streets,” Westmoreland said. “At the same time, you can’t force people to apply for the job.”
Recruitment challenges and efforts
Westmoreland said Milwaukee is among a number of urban cities that are facing similar hiring challenges, including competition from better-paying suburban police departments with less dangerous work environments.
“We can’t use that as a crutch,” Westmoreland said. “We’ve got to be creative with the approach of recruitment.”
Todd said the Fire and Police Commission has made several adjustments over the past few years to find new police, including hiring two staff members dedicated to recruitment, participating in more community events and job fairs and ramping up marketing efforts to city residents.
“One of the things we’ve tried to do is highlight the stories of officers to let residents know that they are people that care about the community and want to help make it safer,” Todd said.
The commission also now accepts applications year-round instead of shorter windows of a few months. It also changed the testing process to allow for online entrance exams, eliminating additional barriers for applicants.
Changes since pandemic and civil unrest
Kristine Rodriguez, a deputy for the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office who also supports recruitment efforts, said her organization faces similar challenges as MPD, especially since COVID and the George Floyd protests.
“Some of the things that happened during that time still resonate with people,” she said.
She said pay is also an issue, with suburban departments offering hiring bonuses and higher starting pays. They also work fewer hours sometimes, she said, as staffing shortages can result in mandatory overtime and fewer days off.
The current starting salary for recruits at MPD is $47,673.69 and increases to $63,564.75 upon graduation from the academy. Police officers can earn up to $84,743.87 while supervisors and other specialists can earn more.
‘Under a microscope’
Another possible deterrent, Rodriguez said, is the scrutiny officers face nowadays.
“You’re under a microscope 24/7 and that might scare some candidates away,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said that her department places a heavy emphasis on community engagement, cultural competency and mental health training and that its relationship with the community has improved. She said the job itself is extremely fulfilling.
“We know that our heart is in the right place, and that’s what makes the job the most rewarding is doing good for the community,” she said.
Others weigh in
Gregory Barachy, who’s worked for the Milwaukee Fire Department for 29 years, said he thinks that being a police officer is probably less desirable now because of the danger and the lack of accountability for those who commit crimes.
“Crime is insane here, car theft is an epidemic along with the driving that goes with it,” Barachy said. “And then if you happen to arrest someone, they are released without penalty to do it again. Why would someone want to risk their lives for that?”
Barachy, who recently began a position with the Milwaukee Overdose Response Initiative, said the fire department has also experienced a huge reduction in applicants.
“We only had a list of 250 this time, while 20 years ago the list was 10,000,” he said.
Carla Jones, whose partner was mistaken as a suspect and arrested by Brookfield police in November 2023, said she believes fewer people want to become police officers because of a lack of support they receive.
“Some of the main reasons people are joining law enforcement less and less is the lack of morale or real support officers are given,” Jones said. “They’re not doing that because they’re working on a reactive mentality.”
A call to disinvest
Devin Anderson is membership and campaign director for the African American Roundtable, which launched the Liberate MKE campaign in 2019 to push for divestment in law enforcement and more investment in community programming.
“In order to build a more just Milwaukee, we have to be moving money away from police and policing,” Anderson said. “We’d rather see fully funded libraries.”
Anderson said that residents want more safety and that some view policing as the only way to achieve that. But, he said, creating a safer city requires addressing root causes of crime, which the police department doesn’t do.
“They respond after something happens,” Anderson said. “What people actually want is more investments in their neighborhood.”
Testing a challenge
Two years ago, Eddie Juarez-Perez saw an ad seeking new cadets for the Milwaukee Police Department.
“I decided to answer the call for service,” he said.
Juarez-Perez applied and passed the background check and written and physical exam. But he failed a psychological exam taken by all potential recruits.
“They said I was deemed not suitable for the position,” Juarez-Perez said.
He isn’t giving up.
“I look at being a police officer as being a public servant,” Juarez-Perez said. “I love my city and want to help people have a good quality of life here.”
Rodriguez said she’s been working to recruit more women involved in law enforcement. But some she said are unable to meet the physical requirements needed to join.
“I think that definitely is a barrier for a lot of women who don’t have upper body strength or have time to train,” she said.
MPD hosts fit camps and other support to help potential cadets meet physical and testing requirements to become an officer.
“We’re trying to give people the best opportunity to prepare and succeed,” Todd said.
In Milwaukee’s Lindsay Heights, community gardens with fresh fruit and vegetables coexist with dumped hazardous waste, public art and historical landmarks.
These are among the images captured by nine Lindsay Heights community members in a unique research project.
From June 2023 into mid-2024, the residents worked with researcher Dulmini Jayawardana on a photovoice research project documenting the neighborhood’s environment.
Photovoice is a qualitative research method where participants take photographs around a topic and then discuss them as a group.
The project culminated in an exhibit called “See What We See: Stories of Environmental Stewardship in Lindsay Heights.” It showcased photographs residents took of efforts to take care of the neighborhood’s environment or of things that were hurting it, such as illegal dumping, litter and lead pipes.
“We feel it and we want better for our community, and being part of photovoice gave us that chance to open up everyone else’s eyes,” said Maria Beltran, a longtime Lindsay Heights resident.
Beltran participates in weekly street cleanups as a North Avenue community ambassador and is also a leader with the health-focused South Side walking group Lideres por la Salud.
The photovoice participants consisted of Beltran, Ramona Curry, Marie Gordon, Cheryl Ferrill, Christal West, Jarvis West, Teresa Thomas Boyd, Geneva Jones and Ammar Nsoroma, many of whom are neighborhood residents and meet regularly at Walnut Way Conservation Corp.
Researching Lindsay Heights
Jayawardana, a doctoral student in the geography program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, wanted to try community-based research in Lindsay Heights.
The Near North Side neighborhood faces challenges, such as poverty, vacant lots and aging housing stock.
“When coming into the Lindsay Heights neighborhood, what we wanted people to notice and appreciate was the move to make it more environmentally friendly,” said Christal West, a community activist who participated in the photovoice project.
A sign welcomes people to “See What We See: Stories of Environmental Stewardship in Lindsay Heights,” a neighborhood-led exhibit on display at Milwaukee’s Central Public Library, earlier this year. (Meredith Melland / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
Photovoice brings underrepresented groups to the table
Jayawardana offered training and facilitated sessions on photovoice, which brings people traditionally underrepresented in research and policy into the process by sharing their voices, emotions and experiences.
The participants regularly met until March to discuss their photos and findings, with Jayawardana taking notes on the discussion of the photos for use as captions.
She compensated the researchers for the initial research sessions, but they continued to collaborate beyond the planned timeline.
“I think the process was long and it was grueling at times. However, it was worth it,” said Curry, a community organizer and independent consultant who participated in the project.
WaterMarks, an initiative that helps people learn about Milwaukee’s water systems, is a community partner in Jayawardana’s research.
‘This was part of the Underground Railroad’
The group curated the photos for the exhibition by developing themes, such as neighborhood history, public art, toxic environments and healthy eating and living.
“I learned about the unique history, like this was part of the Underground Railroad,” said Yahyal Siddiqu, who visited the library exhibition.
He lives near Lindsay Heights and enjoyed learning more about the landmarks and churches he recognized as well as the neighborhood’s history.
A sign marking a stop on the Underground Railroad in Lindsay Heights is included on a poster in the “See What We See: Stories of Environmental Stewardship in Lindsay Heights” exhibit at Milwaukee’s Central Public Library, 814 W. Wisconsin Ave. The sign is on North 17th Street, south of the intersection with West Fond du Lac Avenue. (Meredith Melland / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
One of Curry’s favorite photos is an image of a neighbor’s hands picking yellow flowers of St. John’s wort, a type of plant that the neighbor had been growing for over 50 years and uses to treat chronic body pain.
“I thought that was really inspirational and worthy of presenting and showing more people what we have in our own backyards,” Curry said.
Spotlighting problems to fix
The group hosted two exhibitions, one at City Hall, 200 E. Wells St., in April and another at Milwaukee Central Library, 814 W. Wisconsin Ave., in July.
“We were able to take these things to the policymakers, the decision-makers in the city, so that they are aware of what’s happening and what needs to be changed,” Jayawardana said.
Some people who attended the exhibition, including elected officials, reacted with shock and anger to Beltran’s photos and stories of discovering lead pipes and paint in her home and the ongoing process of making it safe again.
“They’re like, ‘That happened to you? That happened to your family?’” Beltran said.
Observers also enjoyed seeing positive developments in the neighborhood.
“I learned about the possible solutions to the problems that need to be fixed,” Siddiqu said.
After months of disruption, the Social Development Commission will restart some key programs on Dec. 2 in what is considered a major step toward restoring vital services to Milwaukee’s neediest residents.
The agency plans to focus on offering the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA, program; career services; child care; and housing programs at its main office at 1730 W. North Ave. and its location at 6850 N. Teutonia Ave., which operated SDC’s child and adult care food program.
SDC’s Board of Commissioners discussed the programs on Thursday during a meeting at SDC’s main office.
The closing of the quasi-governmental community action agency, which managed approximately 30 programs and employed 85 people, has left a major gap in services for many low-income Milwaukee residents.
“In my opinion, it must be opened immediately,” said Jorge Franco, an SDC commissioner and newly named interim CEO. “There’s things that can be done today that increase the likelihood of getting service back in, back to the people who are of lowest income in our community.”
Jorge Franco, who is the SDC’s newly appointed board chair and interim CEO, addresses the board at a meeting on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, at SDC’s main office, 1730 W. North Ave. in Milwaukee. (Meredith Melland / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
The Social Development Commission will use its existing funding to support the programs and hire staff and is also seeking private donations, according to William Sulton, SDC’s attorney.
“We know we have the ability to run these programs, and we are betting on ourselves that we will be able to secure state and federal funding in the future,” Sulton said.
A few of SDC’s former program managers were present at the meeting, including Diane Robinson, who was the manager of SDC’s VITA program and senior services.
In the months since SDC stopped its VITA services, Robinson said she has had numerous customers reach out to ask if SDC will reopen.
“They’re wanting to know when is SDC coming back online because they don’t trust anyone else outside of SDC to do their taxes and do them right,” she said.
Franco named board chair and interim CEO
The board voted to appoint Franco as chair and interim CEO, replacing Vincent Bobot, who was named interim CEO in September.
“The thing is I want to stay on as a commissioner, but I think everybody here is aware that I have a full-time law practice, and I have a couple other things going on,” said Bobot, an attorney who owns a general practice, Bobot Law Office.
Bobot is also on the board of SD Properties Inc., the tax-exempt corporation that owns SDC’s buildings. He will remain on the SDC’s board and was appointed to serve as its secretary.
Franco, who is also the CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin, will not be compensated as interim CEO, according to Sulton.
Jackie Q. Carter was nominated to serve as board treasurer. She was appointed to the board by Mayor Cavalier Johnson in June.
Carter did not accept the nomination to be treasurer and voted against the executive nominations of Bobot and Franco, urging the board to wait until it gets more members.
New board member appointed
The board voted 2-1 to appoint Lucero Ayala, a licensed practical nurse and vice chair of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin, to serve District 5 on the South Side. She has experience working with an assisted living facility and day care centers.
“I’ve been helping the community and I’ve seen the impact firsthand, being in child care, how a lot of the kids count on those meals that SDC was providing,” Ayala said.
Carter voted against Ayala’s appointment, saying that the board needs to go through a more thorough vetting process before voting.
“I think it’s important for the commissioners that are here to ensure that we are not doing things in a way that is same old business and doing the things that got us here in the first place,” Carter said.
“Nothing personal, but we’ve got to do the process in a way that makes sense, that’s transparent, that’s collaborative, and the community needs to be engaged,” she said.
In the meantime, Commissioner Matthew Boswell’s term expired on Nov. 18. Boswell was appointed by Milwaukee Public Schools.
A Milwaukee Public Schools representative said earlier this week that Boswell would remain on the board until the district finds a new appointment.
Sulton disagreed and said Boswell is no longer serving on the board.
“I will reach out to former Commissioner Boswell, but that’s not my understanding at all,” Sulton said.
Transfr, a New York company, seeks to put virtual reality technology in the hands of people who are incarcerated in Wisconsin, hoping they can overcome barriers to employment once released.
“It’s life-changing for an individual to be able to come out of incarceration with actual career pathways,” said Ruben Gaona, executive director of My Way Out, an organization that supports people who are leaving reincarceration and one of Transfr’s local collaborators.
“They’d be able to go out into the community and say, ‘OK, you know what: I’m not only here to get a job, I’m out here to get a career.’”
Avoiding reincarceration
Research has found that a criminal record leads to a 50% reduction in callbacks and job offers.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections, among others, reports that the more likely someone with a criminal record is employed, the less likely the person is to return to incarceration.
According to the department’s 2022 report, people who “completed vocational programming had lower rearrest, reconviction and reincarceration rates … compared to their peers who were identified as having a vocational programming need but who did not receive programming.”
“From a personal and professional standpoint, I can tell you that a good-paying, career-supporting job is very essential to someone staying out and keeping that recidivism rate down,” said Andre Brown, employment specialist with Project RETURN, a reentry nonprofit established nearly 50 years ago.
For all the talk about pipelines into prison, Brown and his colleagues are trying to create a pipeline out of prison.
“If one can support themselves, pay their bills, take care of their family and have some fulfillment, one has no time to think of crime,” Brown said.
Inside and outside
My Way Out provides six weeks of training and education to people inside Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center, a county-run correctional facility. This support is designed to help people with job searches, including résumé writing and interviewing skills.
With Transfr, Gaona and his team see an opportunity to expand their support by adding four weeks of virtual reality training for in-demand vocations, in fields such as construction, manufacturing, hospitality and health care.
My Way Out staff also want to bring these resources to state prisons overseen by the Department of Corrections.
“People will be able to come out (of incarceration) and take apprenticeship tests, so they’d start getting placement in apprenticeship programs and secure living-wage jobs,” said Gaona.
Funding obstacle
Funding is the main obstacle to getting this technology into the hands of people who are incarcerated.
The Department of Corrections does not have a budget for this type of technology but suggested that Transfr reach out to Wisconsin Workforce Development Boards, which partner with the department in reentry work, Beth Hardtke, director of communications for the Department of Corrections, said in an email.
Ryan Leonhardt, state workforce manager for Transfr, said the company has had conversations with these boards but, for the most part, has heard that funding is not currently available from them as well.
My Way Out applied for a grant that would help provide funding to work with Transfr, but its request was denied.
Opportunities
Transfr offers more than 350 trainings, all 12 to 20 minutes, which teach foundational skills within various fields, Leonhardt said.
“If somebody is learning how to use calipers, they pick up calipers in the virtual environment. They set the calipers using the controls. They actually do the measurements,” said Leonhardt, explaining how Transfr users learn about this measurement tool common in engineering, metalworking and woodworking. “And then the final thing is they get step-by-step instruction from a digital coach, who then turns around and gives them an assessment.”
Transfr also provides career explorations. Like the trainings, these are hands-on and guided by a coach but are five- to eight-minute experiences of a day in the life of a job “so people can get an idea of what it’s like,” Leonhardt said.
Better trained workers are beneficial not just for the people getting trained but for the wider economy as well because of nationwide workforce shortages, Leonhardt said.
“Right now, the labor markets are such a way that if someone can come in and they have foundational skills … they’re going to have better chances for employment because they’re going to be able to meet their (employers’) needs right away,” he said.
For Mariah Johnson, losing her brother to a speeding driver in 2021 is the hardest thing she’s ever endured in her life.
“The moment my brother died, I felt like my light turned out a little bit,” said Johnson, a 30-year-old mother of two girls. “But, I also think that I went through this so I can make a difference in my city, take my pain of the loss of my brother and turn it into something that helps other people.”
Johnson’s brother, Jerrold Wellinger, was driving back home with his friend, Davante Gaines, when both were killed by a driver who was racing another car down 60th Street and Hampton Avenue in Milwaukee.
A popular TikToker, who goes by the name MariahDaWeatherBookie, Johnson is sharing her brother’s story as part of an effort by the city of Milwaukee to prevent reckless driving.
“Speeding – We Can Live Without It” is a social media billboard and grassroots awareness campaign that aims to increase traffic safety and change driving habits in a city plagued by reckless driving.
“These are our streets,” Johnson said. “As a community we need to come together and stop (reckless driving). We can all slow down.”
Campaign resonates with residents
Slowing down, said Jessica Wineberg, director of the Vision Zero Initiative for the city of Milwaukee, is a surefire way to help prevent tragedies such as Johnson’s.
“You could be that person who hits someone and changes their life forever, or you can just slow down,” she said.
So far, according to Wineberg, the campaign is resonating with residents, with one video garnering more than 200,000 views on social media.
Billboards featuring the campaign have also been placed at city intersections that have experienced crash-related injuries.
Balloons hang at a memorial for Lashonda Jackson, 31, Bobbie Dyson, 28, and Ebony Johnson, 28, three friends who were killed by a driver who ran a red light in 2023 near West Florist Avenue and North Sherman Boulevard in Milwaukee. (Courtesy of Jessica Wineberg)
Community members share their stories
Milwaukee residents who have been impacted by speeding have been sharing their messages on a social wall created as part of the campaign.
One story was about Marcus Robinson, a father of four who was hit and killed by a speeding SUV in downtown Milwaukee on Aug. 11.
“Marcus never made it home to his family and the driver of that (sports utility vehicle) never stopped and still has not been arrested. Now his loved ones are forced to go on without him and without having justice,” read the post.
Another message was shared by Gloria Shaw, a woman who lost her only son, Xavier Davis, to a hit-and-run in 2022.
“He was an amazing young man with a very bright future ahead of him in TV video production,” Shaw wrote. “We are still looking for the truck and person who hit and killed my Sonshine.”
According to Wineberg, traffic deaths and injuries are down compared to last year.
“Where we have changed the built environment, we are seeing less crashes,” said Wineberg, referring to the wide-scale engineering changes that have been implemented as part of the Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic deaths in the city.
Jerrold’s story
Raised on Milwaukee’s North Side, Jerrold Wellinger was quite the character, said his sister. Sometimes, Johnson said, he was the next Tony Hawk and other times a wrestler.
“We grew up poor with a single mother, but we always rented ‘Wrestlemania,’” she said. “My brother would be flipping off the couch watching it.”
She described him as strong-willed and not afraid to speak his mind, but like her, he had a silly side.
“He was the one person in life that understood my personality because we both are goofy,” Johnson said.
Turning tragedy into action
Johnson said her brother’s death led her to community work, leading chats with kids about reckless driving and conducting other outreach on the issue. She currently works with teens as a program coordinator for the PEAK Initiative.
PEAK is a year-round program that promotes leadership development for kids from first grade through high school.
Through PEAK, Johnson has been able to help organize a block party and pop-ups, where she urges residents to think about how their driving can impact others.
“I tell them, it’s not just speeding, it’s driving while on your phone or even just driving 10 miles over the speed limit,” she said. “We all have to be honest with ourselves and realize that we are all part of the problem, but we’re also the solution.”
Reckless driving prevention information and resources
Marshall Jones and his wife, Jessica, have an expression they use when worries about the future threaten to overwhelm them.
“Here is holy,” they tell each other.
“We have to continue to be mindful of the steps that we have to take to build this life today,” Marshall Jones said.
As Marshall Jones, who grew up on Milwaukee’s North Side, serves two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, the way he and his wife build their today centers around faith in God and family.
‘A bond started to be built’
In 2019, Marshall was incarcerated at New Lisbon Correctional Institution in Dodge County, about 15 years into his sentence, when he met Jessica Christensen, the prison’s new recreational leader.
He was assigned to be one of her workers.
“Then, being a normal human being, I stuck my hand out to shake his hand … and he threw his hands up and said, ‘I can’t touch you,’” Jessica said.
Initially offended, she learned that he was looking out for her.
Had they touched, she would’ve been written up for inappropriate contact, which the Wisconsin Department of Corrections explicitly regulates.
“I just saw in that moment that a narrative can be painted about a simple handshake … ,” Marshall said. “From that point, a bond started to be built.”
From acquaintance to fellowship
At New Lisbon, Jessica oversaw recreation, including exercise programs and athletic tournaments.
“I did anything that was active to get them off their sedentary lifestyle,” Jessica said.
The effects on the men were not merely physical, she said.
“You’re in there and you’re constantly thinking, ‘What did I do? I’m worthless, and there’s nothing good about me,’” Jessica said. “But you know, these guys started to feel better about themselves. ”
Eventually, Marshall began working more directly within recreational programming.
“I noticed he was a leader,” Jessica said. “He was all about helping the men around him.”
The professional relationship had an extra element.
“We learned we were brother and sister in Christ. So, there was a different level of conversation that we would have,” Jessica said. “It wasn’t crossing boundaries, it was sharing what we were learning about our faith.”
After New Lisbon
After six months, Jessica was let go from New Lisbon for, she was told, not meeting probationary standards.
“I loved impacting the men that were incarcerated and humanizing them,” she said. “And I knew I couldn’t do that anymore.”
But something unexpected happened as she was leaving the prison.
“I remember walking away from the institution, and I audibly heard in my ear, ‘Write to him.’ And I believe with all my heart that it was the Holy Spirit telling me to write Marshall Jones,” Jessica said.
That same day, they began corresponding.
Jessica and Marshall Jones on their wedding day, Nov. 1, 2022. (Courtesy of Jessica Jones)
“And it just developed into this beautiful relationship,” Jessica said. “ It’s amazing because we’ve gotten to experience every level of relationship with each other – a professional relationship and then a friendship and then a relationship and, now, a marriage.”
Marshall said he was not expecting this transformation.
“I didn’t want to be in a relationship, to be honest with you,” he said. “I got crashed and burned so many times that I didn’t want no part of it.”
They cannot pinpoint a specific moment things changed because it all happened organically, said Jessica.
Marshall proposed three times – by letter, phone and, finally, in person.
Her family supports the marriage, she said, and her kids see Marshall as their stepfather.
“My mom has completely changed in this relationship,” said Falicia Jones, Jessica’s daughter.
“Marshall really knows how to just settle her down and bring a calmness over her life in a way that I’ve never seen,” she said.
‘The unseen of believing’
Marshall and Jessica married on Nov. 1, 2022, in commemoration of Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
“That truly is our marriage,” Jessica said. “You know, the unseen of believing that my husband is going to come home and that I’m going to share a life with him.”
“Based on his circumstances, his attitude and frame of mind are pretty amazing,” added Andrew Reavis, Jessica’s brother. “Just knowing that he may never get out, and just the positivity he has and the moving forward and the faith he has that he is going to get out despite what the state says.”
Marshall and Jessica still put their faith at the center of their thinking regarding a release date.
“God doesn’t make mistakes, and he doesn’t put people together for no reason whatsoever,” Marshall said.
“We’ve entrusted our faith to God that he’s going to absolutely free me from this. But no matter where we go, and what problems we address, we still deal with today,” he said.
Sebastian Florentino, 14, was shot and killed on Jan. 21, 2023.
Alijah S. Golden-Richmond, also 14, was shot and killed this year on Aug. 14.
The boys were the first and last of 40 homicide victims in Milwaukee County 17 years of age or younger since Jan. 1, 2023, according to data provided by Karen Domagalski, operations manager for the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Minors represent 13% of all homicide victims in Milwaukee County since 2023.
(Milwaukee County homicide data differs from city of Milwaukee homicide data. County data includes cases from Milwaukee suburbs such as West Allis and Cudahy and also homicides determined to be justified by the District Attorney’s Office, according to Domagalski.)
“It is a sad statistic to hear how many murders there are of the young people in our city, but it also isn’t surprising to me since Milwaukee doesn’t care about our youth,” said Kevin Sas-Perez, who has worked as a youth pastor and with youths through various organizations over the past 15 years.
“I believe the number one thing youth are looking for is to be loved and to belong, but we’re not doing a good job of meeting that or any other needs for our youth.”
Lennia Fields, a mother who lived and worked in Milwaukee but currently resides in Las Vegas, also believes youths need more support to prevent them from becoming victims of violence.
“Our youth need more positive role models and programs that can shield and protect them from their environment and themselves,” said Fields, who lost her mother to homicide in 2000. “Therapy for their traumas should be provided at the school or neighborhood centers.”
Keeping guns out of the hands of youths
Of the 40 youth homicide victims since 2023, all but three died from gun violence. Many were shot and killed by other teens.
Anneliese Dickman is a senior manager for Brady, an organization that advocates against and provides solutions to gun violence. She said the guns should never have gotten into a minor’s hands.
“Somewhere along the line there are adults who, mistakenly or purposely, allowed access to a gun, and that is 100% preventable,” Dickman said. “That’s where adults have failed.”
National trends in youth homicides
According to a 2023 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, homicide is the leading cause of death of children in the U.S.
The study, which examined national data on child homicides from 1999 to 2020, found that the age-adjusted homicide rate for children from 0 to 17 years old was 2.8 per 100,000 children in 2020 and that males were disproportionately impacted.
In Milwaukee County, the population was estimated at around 916,000, with between 19.5% and 26% being under the age of 18, according to the U.S. Census Bureau Data.
That would place Milwaukee County’s age-adjusted homicide rate for 2023 at between 10.8 and 14.6 victims per 100,000 children, much higher than the national average; 85% of youth homicide victims in Milwaukee County were males.
What can the community do?
Tracey Anderson, a Milwaukee father of seven, said the community should focus on the parents of the teens who are committing violent crimes.
“The community needs more accountability from the parents who made these wayward juveniles,” Anderson said.
Unfortunately, he said, too many parents lack the skills to raise children or even live responsibly themselves.
“Some parents are even worse than their kids, so obviously we know what direction they’re headed,” Anderson said.
Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman recently issued a “call to action” to parents and others to become more involved in helping reduce youth violence.
“We need you at the table. Our youth need you at the table. Be a part of the solution,” he said. “What are you doing to help?”
“We can do all we want, but there has to be consequences that mean something,” said South Side mother Jamie Berta Gilane.
Investing in our youths
Sas-Perez, who has been involved with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee, Milwaukee Recreation and other local programs that serve youths, said that for things to change in Milwaukee, there has to be much more investment in young people, both personally and financially.
“Spend more time talking to and listening to our youth, and when they are telling us what they want and need, we should take it seriously and then put our money into creatively meeting the wants and needs,” Sas-Perez said.
“Having more robust youth programming, increased investment in our schools and better pay for those working with youth is the start of helping decrease the number of youth murdered.”
What it does: Project Ujima is a community program that helps victims of violence and provides services at Children’s Wisconsin, your home and the community.
What it does: 414 Life is a violence interruption team based in Milwaukee. Its goals are to stop the spread of gun violence through de-escalation and mediation of conflicts and educating the public to change the norms around gun violence.
What it does: The goal of Credible Messenger’s transformative mentoring is to provide prevention and intervention with youth, keeping them from both entering the youth justice system and having deeper involvement with the youth justice system.
What it does: The organization helps abused and neglected children heal and thrive while also providing support to foster and kinship children to help prevent further child abuse.
Milwaukee attorney William Sulton’s mission is to represent those considered to be the least, the last or the left behind.
Although he has been in the news for his work with the troubled Social Development Commission and as one of the attorneys representing the family of D’Vontaye Mitchell, who died after a confrontation at the downtown Hyatt Regency, Sulton serves in various legal and board leadership roles in Milwaukee.
“I just try to do what I can do that’s the right thing and use the legal tools that I have available to me,” he said. “But they’re often difficult problems.”
Sulton estimates that he spends a third of his time running his law practice, The Sulton Law Firm, 2745 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, which specializes in civil rights and public interest cases.
He devotes another third of his time to volunteering, which includes serving as the board president of the ACLU of Wisconsin. He is the legal redress chairof the NAACP Milwaukee Branch and director of the Honorable Lloyd A. Barbee Foundation, which is named for the late activist lawyer and state legislator who fought for school desegregation.
Sulton is also on the board of Convergence Resource Center, 2323 N. Mayfair Road, an anti-human trafficking nonprofit in Milwaukee.
How it all started
During his childhood, Sulton lived in Maryland, Wisconsin, Colorado and New Jersey.
His mother is from Racine and worked as a civil rights lawyer, which Sulton said had a huge impact on him and his siblings.
“All three of us (siblings) had a really strong sense of social justice and wanting to help people, particularly racial justice issues,” said Sulton’s sister Patrice Sulton, who also is an attorney.
She now runs DC Justice Lab, an organization focused on criminal justice reform policy.
Sulton remembers one case in which his mom was defending Gil Webb, a Black teenager who was charged in the death of a police officer after a car crash in Denver in 1997. People called their home and left racist and threatening messages on the answering machine.
“I remember being a little kid and riding my bike home so I could erase these messages because I didn’t want my mom to hear them,” he said.
Sulton studied political science as an undergraduate student at Michigan State University, where he started representing students in plagiarism cases.
While attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, Sulton met his wife, Stephanie, and later moved to her hometown of Milwaukee.
Public interest law
After finishing law school, Sulton noticed that many people in the courtroom were unrepresented because they believed lawyers were beyond their reach.
Wisconsin ranks low in lawyers per capita and has an even smaller number of civil rights lawyers, Sulton said.
Public interest lawyers usually represent poor, marginalized or underrepresented individuals or organizations not served by private sector law firms, including civil rights and social justice cases.
“These cases are important,” he said. “They mean something. It’s not just about how much money can you make on a case, right? It’s about, can you really change government policy? Can you really make things better, right?”
Sulton has gained a reputation for taking cases he says that few attorneys will take and demonstrating that they can be profitable.
“If I had a magic wand and I could do one thing, I would shift the way that we talk about public interest work,” Sulton said. “I think the number one reason that people don’t do public interest work is they don’t think that it’s profitable.”
Sulton also makes time to speak to law students at UW-Madison.
One law student asked him about the traumatic weight of his cases and if it impacts him, which Sulton said he had not thought about before.
“I think I’m just callous because it doesn’t,” Sulton said.
The ultimate volunteer
Through his volunteer work with the NAACP, Sulton has taken on equal employment opportunity cases and helps clients understand legal problems if they are considering filing complaints, said Clarence Nicholas, president of the NAACP Milwaukee Branch.
“He has a friendly personality and he’s personable,” Nicholas said.
Sulton started representing the Social Development Commission, also known as the SDC, in late 2022 on a volunteer basis when longtime attorney James Hall Jr. was getting ready to retire and brought him on. Hall died in early 2024.
Attorney William Sulton talks about the photo of Lloyd Barbee pictured in the office he works in at the NAACP Milwaukee Branch. (Meredith Melland / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
SDC suspended operations in April, halting a variety of programs and laying off employees. Sulton is working with the SDC board to find paths forward for the agency.
“I don’t know anybody else that would do what he has done, the amount of work that we have put on him, especially in the last four months,” said Barbara Toles, chair of the SDC Board of Commissioners.
Patrice Sulton said she doesn’t know anyone else in the legal field or elsewhere who holds as many time-consuming positions at the same time.
“I think it’s probably too much to juggle, but I also see how those things work together,” she said.
One of Milwaukee’s unsung heroes
Sulton said he tries to work early in the morning or late at night to spend the final third of his time with his wife and four kids, ages 13, 10, 8 and 5.
He said he likes the life he has built, and his main goal is to try to help people.
Debbie Lassiter, executive director of Convergence Resource Center, thinks Sulton is one of Milwaukee’s unsung heroes for his work in the community.
“He never makes you feel like: ‘Listen, I’m too busy to talk to you,’ ”she said.
“You don’t hear a lot about him getting awards or people thanking him for what he’s done, but we will be forever grateful for what he did for us,” Lassiter added.
The Social Development Commission is selling its properties on Milwaukee’s North Avenue for about $3 million to help pay for expenses needed to move the now-closed agency forward, NNS has learned.
William Sulton, SDC’s attorney, confirmed on Tuesday that the buildings are for sale.
He said the board made the decision on Sept. 18 to sell the properties to limit ongoing expenditures, plan for future operations, pay some of SDC’s debts and avoid future debt.
“Obviously, the board has to scale down its operations,” he said. “And the North Avenue properties, it was unlikely that those properties would be fully utilized.”
Both locations are owned by SD Properties, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a separate board. It also owns SDC’s office on Teutonia Avenue, Sulton said.
SD Properties was established in 2002 to acquire properties for SDC, according to a 2022 tax document.
Former commissioner and SDC volunteer selling properties
Kimberly Njoroge is listed as the Ogden agent for the properties.
Njoroge served as an elected member for District 3 on the SDC’s Board of Commissioners. Sulton said her term expired in June.
She has continued to attend board meetings and be included on the board roll call, sometimes taking roll at meetings. Sulton said she has continued to volunteer with SDC.
“I think it’s fair to say that she received access that no other non-board member received,” Sulton said.
SD Properties entered into a standard broker contract with Ogden, which includes a commission, according to Sulton.
The SD Properties board now consists of commissioners Terese Caro and Vincent Bobot.
Sulton said SD Properties did not go through a bidding process.
When considering how to utilize its resources in SDC’s crisis, the board looked at the options of selling the North Avenue locations.
“Then the question was, who would do it and who would do it at a rate that was more favorable than the market, and Njoroge was the person,” Sulton said.
Njoroge did not respond to a request for comment.
Why sell?
With funds from the sales, SD Properties could pay off debt on the two defaulted mortgages of the properties as well as owed maintenance costs, Sulton said.
“I think that SD Properties would be able to pay off all of its debt and I think SD Properties would be in a position to be able to deliver a donation to the commission that the commission could use to whatever advantage the commission believed appropriate,” Sulton said.
As recently as January, SDC had planned to expand its properties, Sulton said.
The main office is 32,400 square feet, according to the property listing.
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Roughly five months have passed since the Social Development Commission abruptly shut down and laid off its entire staff.
The organization provided a range of services such as emergency furnace installation, tax support, career advancement, senior companionship and rent assistance for low-income Milwaukee residents.
Founded in the 1960s, SDC has faced scandals and controversies in every decade of its existence.
State, county and city governments awarded SDC major contracts even after the organization eliminated its internal auditing department and board auditing committee and failed to update financial procedures for more than 15 years.
SDC was created by governments but functions outside of them. Government officials said they largely focused on how SDC executes contracts with their individual offices — rather than broader operations issues.
Listen to Addie Costello’s story from WPR.
The Social Development Commission was reeling from a scandal in 2013.
The federal government had flagged numerous deficiencies in how the Milwaukee anti-poverty agency managed the city’s Head Start early childhood development services. Federal officials picked another vendor to run the program, costing SDC a $22 million contract that cut its budget by more than half, eliminated 154 jobs and prompted the CEO to resign.
SDC would survive that blow. State, federal and local agencies over the next decade entrusted it with millions of dollars for services such as emergency furnace installation, tax support, career advancement, senior companionship and rent assistance. Over time, SDC absorbed other poverty-fighting initiatives, going on to earn more revenue in 2022 than 46 Wisconsin counties.
About a decade later, another scandal leaves SDC’s future in doubt. The organization’s leaders this spring acknowledged having “misallocated” funds for its home weatherization program, costing SDC a $6.7 million state contract that created ripple effects across its wider budget. The details echoed those from 2013 and earlier in SDC’s tumultuous history.
What caused SDC’s unraveling? The results of a state audit launched just before its closing should fill in some details. Already clear, however, is that SDC’s past leaders significantly weakened internal financial controls with little outside scrutiny.
State, county and city governments awarded SDC major contracts even after the organization eliminated its internal auditing department and board auditing committee, WPR and Wisconsin Watch found.
These actions should have raised red flags to any independent monitors, experts say. But few were looking at SDC’s broader operations. Wisconsin Watch and WPR could not locate a comprehensive government audit of the organization’s finances conducted before 1996, when dial-up internet was still popular and Mike Holmgren still coached the Green Bay Packers.
The Social Development Commission’s main office in Milwaukee is shown on June 28, 2024. SDC leaders acknowledge having “misallocated” funds for its home weatherization program, costing SDC a state contract that created ripple effects across its budget — details that echoed those from its tumultuous history. (Julius Shieh / Wisconsin Watch)
SDC additionally failed to update financial procedures or internal controls for more than 15 years, even after eliminating the role of internal auditor.
SDC was created by governments but functions outside of them. State, county and city statutes define the organization as an intergovernmental commission, with each government appointing board representatives. No government claims broader oversight authority.
Government officials told WPR and Wisconsin Watch they largely focused on how SDC executes contracts with their individual offices — rather than broader operations issues.
A Milwaukee County spokesperson wrote in an email: “there appears to be no statute or ordinance that directly assigns responsibility for monitoring SDC generally (to any entity – including the county, state, and city).”
“Who’s responsible for fixing this agency that is too big to fail?” asked Wyman Winston, who spent 50 years in community development, eight of them directing the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority.
State and local governments should intervene, regardless of how statutes delegate responsibility, he said, with the constitutional responsibility to protect residents’ welfare taking precedence.
“Why would you let this entity that serves the largest number of people in the state with critical services wither away?”
SDC shutdown was no surprise
Toni Hamelin learned of SDC’s closing on April 26, a Friday. That left her little time to plan the next Monday’s breakfast, lunch and dinner for up to 40 children at the child care center where she works.
Like 30 other Milwaukee County child care centers that serve low-income families, Hamelin’s Bright Rainbow Academy counted on SDC to prepare and deliver meals through the federal Child and Adult Food Program.
SDC’s closing required her to arrive to work early to prepare meals including cabbage rolls, shepherd’s pie and chicken tacos — with nothing more than a crock pot, a roaster and a hot plate.
Hamelin said SDC’s shutdown wasn’t a surprise. The organization’s meal quality declined during her 30-plus years in child care, and SDC stopped sending infant formula over a year ago, she said.
“I’ve been questioning things for sure, six months, because things just didn’t seem the way they were,” Hamelin said in July.
But it took officials months longer to notice SDC again faced the type of trouble that clouded every decade in its history.
Decades of scandals at SDC
Controversy has surrounded SDC since the 1960s, when residents argued over whether it should supply birth control and discuss police brutality. Within a decade, the scrutiny focused less on politics and more on corruption and mismanagement.
Headlines in the 1970s described leaders using grant dollars for lavish trips, moving SDC money into private accounts and keeping abysmal records that prevented auditors from investigating the agency.
During the turmoil, SDC leadership in the 1980s eliminated an internal auditing position. The organization’s outdated financial procedures manual referenced the role for years after it no longer existed.
SDC cemented its scandal-plagued reputation in the 1990s.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported between 1993 and 1996 that SDC leadership tapped organization funds for resort stays for staff retreats, spent exponentially more on a board dinner for 285 people than a Thanksgiving dinner that served 295 seniors, hired an executive director who falsified items on her resume, lost key financial documents in a series of burglaries, spent $400,000 in grant dollars without approval on a suspended construction project and allowed 1 million pounds of food to rot in storage.
State and county auditors responded in 1996 by laying out three options for SDC: Close, become a part of an existing government office or make serious changes.
Clippings from the Associated Press and other newspaper wires describe controversies the Social Development Commission faced in past decades — echoing more recent problems that prompted its sudden closure in April 2024.
Following some recommendations, SDC cut its board from 24 to 18 seats, created a comprehensive budget and rehired an internal auditing staff.
Just a few years later, however, it couldn’t account for grant money to feed low-income children.
By 2011 complaints surfaced over SDC’s management of Milwaukee’s Wisconsin Works and Head Start programs. The organization within two years lost both contracts and roughly 70% of its budget.
That prompted SDC to fire its internal audit staff – eliminating the same positions state auditors previously recommended creating.
Just as in the 1980s, the organization failed to update financial procedures to reflect the change, state records show.
Questions about oversight
Weakened financial controls can make organizations more vulnerable to mismanagement or wrongdoing. Internal auditors serve a key governance role by offering objective views of an organization, said Mike Varney, the North American board chair of the Institute of Internal Auditors.
While external auditors typically review records from a prior year, internal auditors monitor financial controls and processes in real time, Varney said.
SDC’s internal audit team had caught serious issues, such as a lack of action around a $300,000 state weatherization grant in 2004. An internal audit just before the team was eliminated in 2013 revealed SDC was making inappropriate payments to employees.
Hearing that an organization removed internal auditing controls would “begin to raise red flags,” Varney said.
But SDC’s grantors didn’t seem overly concerned. Its government funding increased after the changes.
Even without internal auditing, the state still required SDC to contract an independent auditor to conduct an external audit, Tatyana Warrick, a Wisconsin Department of Administration spokesperson, wrote in a statement to WPR and Wisconsin Watch.
“The absence of an internal audit director should not be conflated to suggest there is a total absence of internal controls in that organization.”
Pandemic brings big contracts and big deficits
SDC faced a stress test in 2020 as time-limited federal pandemic dollars poured in, more than doubling its budget.
Its problems quickly snowballed. The organization’s balance in 2022 decreased by more than $600,000 — just under the combined worth of the 12 grants it was denied that year. In 2023, SDC lost out on 16 grants worth $16 million, board minutes show.
Attorney William Sulton, who voluntarily provides legal counsel to SDC, said the organization’s former CEO George Hinton and former Director of Finance Patrick Kirsenlohr failed to act. They should have known about the financial problems but never acknowledged the full scope of the problems to the board, he said. Neither Hinton nor Kirsenlohr responded to requests for comment.
Still, minutes from monthly board meetings in 2022 and 2023 show Kirsenlohr told the board that SDC would need to slice its administrative budget in half in 2024, that a food service program was operating at a $250,000 loss and that SDC sought a $1.5 million loan to help cover expenses. (The board did not approve the major loan application and lacked a procedure to do so, Sulton said.)
The board should have had better practices, Sulton said. But members likely lacked expertise to pick up on warning signs from SDC management, he added.
Around that time the board voted to eliminate its audit committee, typically a mechanism for members to learn about organizational finances and ask questions without management’s influence.
The board dissolved the committee because it never met, board chair Barbara Toles said, noting it happened before she joined.
Sulton questions how helpful the committee could have been had it met. No one on SDC’s all-volunteer board had accounting expertise, he said.
Barbara Toles, who chairs the Social Development Commission’s Board of Commissioners, presides over a board meeting at Port Milwaukee on Sept. 11, 2024. SDC’s latest trouble came from trying to continue programs it couldn’t afford after budget cuts, she says. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Government grantors miss problems
Government grantors are required to monitor and report on their contracts. But they didn’t catch SDC’s fundamental vulnerabilities either until noticing SDC missed payments to some of its contractors.
As a recipient of more than $750,000 in federal funding, SDC was required by the federal government to commission an annual external audit. CliftonLarsonAllen conducted the most recent audit, which examined 2022. SDC submitted it past a deadline. Auditors found no issues with SDC’s controls or financial reporting.
But year-in-review audits can’t stop financial missteps in real time.
And one report can’t always catch every issue simmering at lower levels of an organization as large and complex as SDC, said Brian Mayhew, executive director of the Center for Financial Reporting and Control at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Who should have monitored SDC?
No other organization like SDC exists in Wisconsin.
State, county and city officials established SDC as a public, anti-poverty commission for the state’s largest county. Later, SDC also gained the title of Community Action Agency and joined a nationwide network of social service organizations intended to fight President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty of the 1960s.
SDC’s dual titles make it hard to determine who oversees it.
A 1996 audit lists the city and county of Milwaukee as two of SDC’s founding entities. Meanwhile, state statutes give local governments authority to fund commissions like SDC.
Asked if the city of Milwaukee had monitoring authority over SDC, Jeff Fleming, a spokesperson for Mayor Cavalier Johnson, said no.
“SDC was intentionally structured so as not to be part of city, county or state government,” Fleming told Wisconsin Watch and WPR. “With that autonomy comes an independent obligation to manage funds and programs.”
The federal government designated an office to oversee community action agencies. But in 1981, President Ronald Reagan eliminated that office and designated states to pass federal dollars to community action agencies like SDC.
The decentralization of social welfare programs makes it harder to track taxpayer dollars, said Ryan LaRochelle, a senior lecturer at the University of Maine’s Institute for Leadership and Public Service.
“As you give more authority to the states, which are even sometimes less administratively capable than the federal government, it just gets really, really difficult.”
The Social Development Commission Board of Commissioners meets at Port Milwaukee on Sept. 11, 2024, in Milwaukee. SDC commissioners are continuing to meet about the anti-poverty agency’s future, which remains unclear after it abruptly shut down in April. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
The inclusion of government officials on the SDC board offers some opportunities for scrutinizing the organization, but having so many other organizations appointing board members complicates accountability efforts.
Auditors in 1996 recommended that SDC trim some of the 11 appointing organizations and the eight elected board seats at the time.
“It has been suggested that with so many appointing entities, none can be responsible for the performance of the agency as a whole, and public accountability is undermined,” auditors wrote.
That audit prompted the agency to cut six board seats, but by 2022 the number of appointed members rose to 12. Today, five of those appointing agencies have not filled their seats on the board, leaving the agency with 10 members to repair SDC.
Representatives of each government typically focused mostly on SDC’s contracts with their organization.
While the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families performed on-site reviews of SDC at least once every three years, other holistic reviews were less frequent. The Legislature and the county could have ordered comprehensive audits of SDC’s operations, but neither has exercised that power in more than two decades.
State Rep. Robert Wittke, R-Racine and a co-chair of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, said the committee has not received requests to investigate SDC since its closure and has “been busy with a number of other things.”
His fellow co-chair, Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Green Bay, wrote that accusations of fiscal mismanagement at SDC “raise major questions regarding this and similar quasi-governmental entities.”
Some SDC leaders seemed to view government oversight warily. The organization’s 2019-2024 strategic plan lists government oversight as one of three threats facing the organization, alongside state politics and SDC’s “sketchy brand.”
What happened this time?
SDC’s latest trouble came from trying to continue programs it couldn’t afford after budget cuts, said Toles, the SDC board chair. Rather than scaling back operations, executive leadership tried to move funds around — using grant dollars for one program to cover costs for another following accounting errors.
“And that’s a no-no,” Toles said. “Never do that.”
When that practice began is unclear, but by late 2023 the Wisconsin Department of Administration noticed SDC’s weatherization contractors weren’t getting paid on time. The agency terminated the weatherization contract in March and launched an audit into that SDC program.
“It really is an example of state administrators and the tools that state administrators use actually working as they’re designed to work,” said Cheryl Williams, executive director for the National Association of State Community Services Programs.
The cancellation eliminated more than one-fifth of SDC’s proposed 2024 budget and prompted layoffs of one-third of the agency’s staff. The final blow came when Hinton, before he resigned as CEO, told the SDC board that the agency couldn’t make payroll.
SDC wasn’t the first Wisconsin social service organization to lose a state weatherization contract due to mismanagement. Two others lost contracts in past years. SDC’s weatherization program grew in 2005 after another Milwaukee-based organization lost its contract.
The Social Development Commission’s main office in Milwaukee is shown on June 28, 2024. (Julius Shieh / Wisconsin Watch)
What’s next for SDC?
Hamelin, the child care director, learned about SDC’s closing on the same day the organization’s employees did.
Hamelin for three months struggled to afford the extra costs of buying three meals a day for Bright Rainbow Academy kids. She considered raising rates for parents, but another local organization stepped in to provide meals before that was necessary.
Bright Rainbow isn’t the only organization to move on since SDC’s closure.
Grantors at the state, county and city level told WPR and Wisconsin Watch they already reallocated funding previously pledged to SDC. At least three agencies plan to decide on next year’s grant before the end of the year.
Reopening will only become harder the longer SDC’s programs remain paused.
Back during the scandals of the 1990s, state auditors wrote that no one could anticipate the consequences of an SDC closure.
Winston, the former community development official, said Milwaukee residents still need the vital services SDC provided.
His recommendation: “Look at what occurred, fix it, make sure it gets reestablished and that there are protections to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Meredith Melland, a reporter with Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Report for America corps member, contributed reporting.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Roughly five months have passed since the Social Development Commission abruptly shut down and laid off its entire staff, creating gaps in essential services for low-income Milwaukee residents.
So what happened? The results of a state audit launched after its closing should fill in some details. Already clear, however, is that SDC’s past leaders significantly weakened internal financial controls with little outside scrutiny, an investigation by WPR and Wisconsin Watch found.
Here are some takeaways from our investigation.
What is SDC?
State, county and city officials established SDC as a public, anti-poverty commission for Milwaukee County.
The organization provided a range of services such as emergency furnace installation, tax support, career advancement, senior companionship and rent assistance.
Why did SDC pause its programs?
Pandemic relief grants more than doubled SDC’s budget in 2020.
But as those extra dollars dwindled, SDC’s executive leadership failed to scale back operations. Instead, the agency moved funds around — using grant dollars for one program to cover costs for another. That’s a “no-no,” Barbara Toles, SDC board chair, said.
By late 2023, the Wisconsin Department of Administration noticed SDC’s weatherization contractors weren’t getting paid on time. The agency terminated SDC’s $6.7 million weatherization contract in March and launched an audit.
That loss eliminated more than one-fifth of SDC’s proposed 2024 budget and prompted layoffs of one-third of the agency’s staff. The final blow — and further layoffs — came after former management told the SDC board that the agency couldn’t make payroll.
Does SDC have a history of issues?
Controversy has surrounded SDC since it opened in the 1960s.
Headlines from SDC’s first decades described leaders using grant dollars for lavish trips, moving SDC money into private accounts and keeping abysmal records that prevented auditors from investigating the agency.
SDC cemented its scandal-plagued reputation in the 1990s.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported at the time that SDC leadership lost key financial documents in a series of burglaries, spent $400,000 in grant dollars without approval on a suspended construction project and allowed 1 million pounds of food to rot in storage.
By 2011 complaints surfaced over SDC’s management of Milwaukee’s Wisconsin Works and Head Start programs. The organization within two years lost both contracts and nearly 70% of its budget.
Who’s in charge of SDC?
SDC was created by governments but functions outside of them. State, county and city statutes define the organization as an intergovernmental commission, with each government appointing board representatives. No government claims broader oversight authority.
Government officials told WPR and Wisconsin Watch they largely focused on how SDC executes contracts with their individual offices — rather than broader operations issues.
The inclusion of government representatives on the SDC board offered some opportunities for scrutinizing the organization, but the vast number of other organizations that appointed board members complicated accountability efforts.
Was SDC audited?
As a recipient of more than $750,000 in federal funding, SDC was required by the federal government to contract an independent auditor to conduct an external audit. The most recent audit examined 2022 and found no issues with SDC’s controls or financial reporting.
But year-in-review audits alone can’t guarantee an organization’s financial health, experts say.
Such audits can’t stop financial missteps in real time. Nor can one report catch every issue simmering at lower levels of an organization as large and complex as SDC, said Brian Mayhew, executive director of the Center for Financial Reporting and Control at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Wisconsin Legislature and the county had power to order comprehensive audits of SDC’s operations. Neither has exercised that power in more than two decades.
Were there signs of trouble?
SDC leadership’s elimination of the internal audit staff in 2013 and audit committee in 2022 should have raised red flags to any independent monitors, experts say.
The board dissolved the audit committee because it never met, Toles said.
Weakened financial controls can make organizations more vulnerable to mismanagement or wrongdoing. Internal auditors serve a key governance role by offering objective views of an organization, said Mike Varney, the North American board chair of the Institute of Internal Auditors.
SDC additionally failed to update financial procedures or internal controls for more than 15 years, even after eliminating the role of internal auditor.
SDC’s grantors didn’t seem overly concerned. Its government funding increased after the changes.
“The absence of an internal audit director should not be conflated to suggest there is a total absence of internal controls in that organization,” Tatyana Warrick, a Wisconsin Department of Administration spokesperson, wrote in a statement to WPR and Wisconsin Watch.
What’s happened since SDC halted services?
Former vendors and employees are still trying to collect payment for past work.
Meanwhile, grantors at the state, county and city level said they already reallocated funding previously pledged to SDC. At least three agencies plan to decide on next year’s grant before the end of the year.
Reopening will only become harder the longer SDC’s programs remain paused.
Meredith Melland, a reporter with Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Report for America corps member, contributed reporting.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
“We need you at the table. Our youth need you at the table. Be a part of the solution,” he said. “What are you doing to help?”
Some in the community are responding to Norman’s calls to action with their own.
Northwest Side resident Patricia Wilson said anyone who witnesses a crime, involving a youth or someone else, should step up.
But, she said, when you call the police, the department doesn’t do much. She wants more accountability.
“If a teacher has a majority of their students fail each year, the teacher is reprimanded and placed on a performance improvement plan, but the police department has hundreds of unsolved homicides every year, and their performance is never questioned,” Wilson said.
Kiomara Avila said parents are being blamed for issues that result from raising children in an unsafe environment. She said the solution lies with safer neighborhoods, better schools and more programming for youths.
“Stop washing your hands by saying it’s an ‘at home’ problem,” Avila said.
Catherine Lyons, a retired grandmother, believes that many of the issues that people are facing with youths begin at home.
“If there are no rules at home, what makes anyone think they’ll adhere to rules outside of the home?” Lyons asked.
Consequences for youths
Jamie Berta Gilane, who was carjacked and thrown from her car by a teenager in front of her daughter in 2022, said police and prosecutors don’t do enough to discourage young people from committing crimes.
The youth who stole her car eventually crashed her vehicle into a tree, she said. He was charged as a juvenile.
“We can do all we want, but there has to be consequences that mean something,” Gilane said.
Norman addressed the criminal justice system in his statement, saying that once an arrest is made and evidence is presented, the consequences are out of the police department’s hands.
“From our end, these consequences are not changing our youth’s behavior,” he said. “The kids we are arresting are reoffending. The community must intervene.”
Investing in young people
Amanda Avalos is co-executive director of Leaders Igniting Transformation, or LIT, which organizes young people behind issues that relate to social, racial and economic justice.
She said arresting and locking people up doesn’t make the community safer.
“Research shows that the safest communities are those where people have access to quality education, affordable housing and health care, economic opportunity, and shared public spaces,” Avalos said.
“In addition to asking what individuals can do to address these problems, Chief Norman should ask our elected officials to invest in what all young people in Milwaukee need to thrive in our society.”
‘Be present’
Michele Bria, chief executive officer for Journey House, a South Side organization that provides arts, academics, athletics and workforce development opportunities for youths and families, said she appreciated Norman’s call to action and openness to collaboration.
She wants residents and others to become more involved with local youths.
“Be present for our youth and listen to their aspirations and dreams. Help guide our young people to be all that they can be,” Bria said.
Bridget Whitaker, executive director of Safe & Sound, an organization that works with law enforcement, residents and others to increase safety, said she felt sincerity in Norman’s plea for help.
She wants the community to move away from an “it’s not my problem” mindset.
“I am a firm believer that the youth that end up in news headlines about a stolen vehicle or violent situation is a child that was left behind – a child that was not provided with the love and affection to believe that they mattered,” Whitaker said.
Whitaker said her organization is working to reduce youth violence using various strategies, including a six-week series that engages young people on issues such as gun, family and dating violence.
“MPD cannot end violence alone, and (Chief Norman’s statement) highlights the urgent need for more people to get involved and inquire about how we can best support,” she said.
James Lair, a Milwaukee father of four, agreed.
“Cops can’t do it all,” he said. “Teachers, families, parents, the whole neighborhood need to help raise these kids.”
He said when he grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, neighborhoods were safer because everyone looked out for young people.
“Now everyone feels like ‘it’s not my problem,’ until something happens to them or their family,” he said.
Milwaukeeans’ need for food resources continues to rise.
Food insecurity peaked in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic but declined with the help of financial support programs. Now that those programs are ending, service providers are seeing an increase in those in need.
“Someone pointed out to me recently that even the cost of McDonald’s is going up,” said Solana Patterson-Ramos, executive director of the Milwaukee Food Council, which works to ensure Milwaukee has a healthy, affordable and sustainable food system. “So, even those things that people relied on to get by are becoming more expensive.”
A June report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum shows FoodShare usage remains higher than pre-pandemic levels.
FoodShare is Wisconsin’s version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as “food stamps.”
“As of March 2024, data from the state Department of Health Services show Wisconsin’s FoodShare program totaled 702,700 recipients. That was well below the most recent peak of 793,300 participants in May 2021 but still 99,000 (16%) more than in March 2020, which was the last month with recipient levels not impacted by the pandemic,” the report said.
How many people are affected?
According to Bob Waite, the senior account manager with IMPACT 2-1-1, during IMPACT’s full year in 2022, there were 12,509 requests for food resources, which accounted for 9.5% of all calls to IMPACT 2-1-1 that year.
IMPACT 2-1-1 is a group that connects people in need to resources and services in their communities.
But Waite said, for the 12-month period from August 2023 to July, there were 21,436 requests for food resources. This accounted for 16% of all calls to IMPACT 2-1-1 during this period, representing a 45% increase in requests compared to all of 2022, according to Waite.
He said referrals for food pantries accounted for 95% of all food-related calls.
Jonathan Hansen, chief strategy officer for Hunger Task Force, said the organization has also seen an increase in people needing emergency food as well as in those seeking help from homeless shelters and meal programs.
Hunger Task Force is a food bank and advocacy organization based in West Milwaukee.
Hunger Task Force’s food bank delivers healthy emergency food to a local network of food pantries, soup kitchens and homeless shelters in Milwaukee County.
Hansen said there has been a 40% increase in the number of people and families utilizing those programs. The group is currently serving 27,000 people monthly.
Why is the need for food increasing?
A report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum on continued high FoodShare usage noted that “this may reflect a number of factors, from changes to eligibility requirements to reduced stigma and high food prices.”
Hansen said the biggest issue the Hunger Task Force is seeing is the higher costs of food and everything else.
“We hear so many stories about families who need to choose between paying their rent or buying groceries month to month,” he said. “During Wisconsin winters, families with little or no income for food often have to choose between keeping the heat on or keeping food on the table.”
Patterson-Ramos, of the Milwaukee Food Council, said because of inflation, people are losing their safety nets.
“Our reality is we need to do everything we can to improve the emergency food system we have now while working to ensure it can become obsolete in the future,” she said.
How you can help
You can volunteer: Hunger Task Force has 15,000 volunteers annually who support its various programs, including food sorting and emergency food box building at its food bank facility.
You can donate unused food to the Hunger Task Force, Feeding America, or local food banks.
Any financial donation helps, said Patterson-Ramos.
“Sometimes a pantry has food to distribute but no staff to work, so operational costs can be an issue,” she said.
You can also be a voice.
Both the Hunger Task Force and the Milwaukee Food Council offer opportunities for people to advocate for new policies or changes to existing ones.
Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service sat down with Monica Wendel, the new dean of the Zilber College of Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, to discuss the state of COVID-19 and the continuing health recommendations for the disease.
In this video, Wendel discusses why there has been a summer uptick in COVID-19 cases as well as how the community can keep safe as the trend continues.
What Gawaine Edwards would like to do with his remaining 12 years in prison and what he is able to do are worlds apart.
“I’m being forced to stay in a place that has absolutely nothing for me. It’s not teaching me anything,” Edwards said.
Edwards points to the elimination of parole, which took place in Wisconsin more than 20 years ago, as the central reason for his predicament.
As some legislators propose reforms, Edwards said, his time, and the time of many others, is being wasted.
He’s not being as productive as he wants, not learning what he wants and, in his opinion, not being effectively rehabilitated.
“I’m stuck here doing all this dead time,” Edwards said.
Edwards has served time in various prisons in the state and is currently at New Lisbon Correctional Institution, located in Juneau County, the central region of the state.
Edwards’ backstory
Gawaine Edwards poses with his wife at New Lisbon Correctional Institution. Edwards has been incarcerated for more than 20 years and wants more opportunities to
use his time productively. (Photo courtesy of Gawaine Edwards)
Edwards, who grew up on Milwaukee’s North Side, was charged with felony murder/armed robbery and first-degree reckless injury in November 2000.
He was found guilty on both charges and, at the age of 22, sentenced to a total of 35 years in prison and 15 years of extended supervision.
As it stands, Edwards will be released from prison in April 2036, at the age of 57.
But he believes that his debt to society has already been paid in full.
He wants to get out and help his wife more – she’s a small business owner who also has had health issues recently.
He also has adult children he would like to spend more time with.
“I never got a chance to be a dad because I got locked up,” Edwards said.
What is truth in sentencing?
Edwards cannot be released for another 12 years because he committed his crime after the enactment of 1997 Wisconsin Act 283, more commonly known as the truth-in-sentencing law.
This law changed prison sentences from indeterminate to determinate, which means that the amount of time a person must serve is determined by the judge at time of sentencing and cannot be reduced later with parole.
Wisconsin’s truth-in-sentencing law was part of a national trend of states adopting such laws – with the main goal of eliminating what was seen as the troubling gap between a person’s sentence and the amount of time they actually served.
“The politics were pretty similar surrounding all of these laws. They were adopted in the 1990s when ‘tough on crime’ politics were at their height,” said Michael O’Hear, law professor at Marquette University Law School and an expert on criminal punishment.
While there have been some adjustments to the original truth-in-sentencing law, “the basic architecture” remains the same, O’Hear said.
“The (Wisconsin) Parole Commission is completely out of the business of doing anything at all with respect to crimes that were committed on or after Dec. 31, 1999,” he said.
Because of the nature of his offenses, Edwards also is unlikely to benefit from other avenues of securing an earlier release.
Those convicted of a violent offense are generally ineligible for sentence adjustment provisions and earned release programs, said Jillian Slaight, managing legislative analyst at the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau.
Quantity vs. quality
However, Edwards still cares how he spends his time.
Much of his time currently is spent at his job inside New Lisbon. He earns about 17 cents an hour pushing people in their wheelchairs to health appointments.
Edwards said he wants to go to a different prison where he can “do something that’s beneficial to me, to where, if I did get out, I can make money.”
After more than 20 years of incarceration, he feels he deserves a shot at a work-release program, which allows incarcerated individuals to work outside the prison while still serving their sentences.
Work-release programs are designed to develop people’s future employability and simply help them earn more money. These programs are available within the Wisconsin Department of Corrections but to those at minimum-security prisons.
New Lisbon is a medium-security prison.
The Department of Corrections’ policy explicitly outlines how a person’s sentence length factors into a person’s custody classification, which, in turn, determines programming eligibility.
Rock and a hard place
Another factor to consider is that what is theoretically available in prisons is not what is always actually available.
Two of the vocational programs that have been offered in the past at New Lisbon – bakery and cabinetry – are currently shut down.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and the Department of Corrections have pointed to chronic staffing shortages as a reason why typical programming and resources are not always available.
With many of the educational and treatment programs, demand is higher than capacity, said Kevin Hoffman, deputy director of communications at the Department of Corrections.
“Gov. Evers and our leadership have consistently supported funding for new programming initiatives,” Hoffman said.
While there have been salary increases for security staff, these raises do not apply to teachers and health care professionals.
As the department looks to recruit staff to resume cabinetry and baking at New Lisbon, it does have a framing course and customer service training running, Hoffman said.
Current reform efforts
“Certainly those of us on the left know that it (truth-in-sentencing) has been a disaster,” said Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee.
Clancy, along with others, argues that truth-in-sentencing laws do not help people who are incarcerated nor do they contribute to public safety.
“I’ve heard from many current and former correctional officers and people who are or were incarcerated that truth-in-sentencing does not encourage rehabilitation because there is no incentive for good behavior,” said Rep. Darrin Madison, D-Milwaukee. “Instead, it can cause individuals to lose hope, knowing nothing will change their sentence and only ‘dead time’ awaits.”
Both Clancy and Madison are members of the state’s Assembly Committee on Corrections, which reviews and amends legislation relating to the correctional system.
The Department of Corrections provides a similar analysis as Clancy and Madison do.
The department also maintains that prisons are made more dangerous for both staff and those incarcerated without effective programming and rehabilitation, Hoffman said.
Encouraging better choices
Rep. Jerry O’Connor, R-Fond du Lac, also on the corrections committee, said in an email that he does not believe rehabilitation was the intent of truth-in-sentencing.
“Truth-in-sentencing was created to affect choices and behavior with the goal of discouraging individuals from crossing specific criminal lines,” he said. “In talking with many inmates over time, truth-in-sentencing is something they are aware of and attempt to avoid.”
“To this extent, there is a measure of benefit to the offenders by encouraging them to make better choices,” O’Connor added.
While O’Connor said that he would like incarcerated individuals to have earlier access to programming, he said it’s also important to “step back and address the balance of who has lost opportunities.”
“How does this victim of sex trafficking ever find normal,” he said. “The murder victim and their families have lost all opportunities for the future.”
Clancy, Madison and other Democratic colleagues proposed a package of 17 bills – called the “Conditions of Confinement” package – to, among other things, improve access to programming and other recreational activities for those who are incarcerated.
The package included 2023 Assembly Bill 771, which would guarantee at least three to five hours per day of programming per individual and lead to “a dramatic difference in the quality of life for individuals currently incarcerated,” Madison said.
This bill failed to pass in April.
“People need to take this issue seriously because there are some of us who actually want to do better and are trying to do better, but we’re stuck in a system where we can’t,” Edwards said.
As drug overdose deaths continue to scourge the community, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley has announced a series of new projects aimed at stemming the tide of death and destruction caused by opioid addiction.
“My administration is proposing upstream investments to help address racial and health disparities and ensure residents can access the resources and support they need – because lives depend on it,” Crowley said.
The projects, seven in total, are funded by $8.5 million from the $102 million in opioid settlement funds and will focus on opioid use disorder abatement, prevention and recovery programs for the next three years, Crowley said.
The settlement came after Wisconsin and other states filed a federal lawsuit against opioid manufacturers accused of fueling the epidemic.
The funds will be administered by Milwaukee County’s Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Emergency Management and the Department of Administrative Services.
Drug overdose deaths continue at slower pace
Although the projects announced by Crowley are focused on combating the opioid epidemic, local efforts to reduce drug overdose deaths appear to be working.
Through July 16, there were 204 confirmed drug overdose deaths in Milwaukee County, with 89 additional cases pending toxicology reports, according to data provided by Karen Domagalski, operations manager for the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office. Through the same time period in 2023, there were 354 drug overdose deaths in Milwaukee County.
Although the pace of drug overdose deaths has slowed in the county, disparities in deaths continue to be particularly acute among African Americans, data shows.
Forty-three percent of drug overdose victims in Milwaukee County this year have been African American. African Americans have the highest rate of drug overdose deaths based on their population in the county (27%). Forty-six percent of victims this year were white; 20% were Hispanic; and two victims were Native American. Sixty-three percent of victims were men and 37% were women.
Projects proposed by Crowley
One of the projects proposed by Crowley is the creation of a new public health campaign that targets the issue of opioid overdoses and the use of adulterants in Black and Brown communities.
Adulterants are substances often added to other drugs such as opioids and a contributing factor in many overdose deaths.
Another project proposed by Crowley is to create a pilot “overdose prediction model.”
The model would help individuals at risk for an overdose, help assess community needs and support integration of other data collected by the county.
Another plan is to integrate treatment access during and after incarceration. High-risk individuals would be identified and referred by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office, the Community Reintegration Center and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office.
Ken Ginlack, executive director and CEO of Serenity Inns, a drug treatment facility for men located at 2825 W. Brown St., said the proposed projects show a strong commitment to marginalized communities.
“By ensuring that treatment and resources are available to all individuals, regardless of their background or financial situation, Milwaukee County is taking a crucial step towards equity in health care,” Ginlack said. “These efforts will save lives and provide individuals with the tools they need to achieve long-term recovery and stability.”
The other projects include grief outreach and grief-informed care, expanded paramedic coverage, adding 20 harm-reduction beds to a county-run center that serves the homeless and an overall enhancement and alignment of treatment services.
Additional reaction to projects
Michelle Jaskulski, who serves on the advisory board for the Addiction Policy Forum and is an executive assistant for 4th Dimension Sobriety, a sober living facility, said she sees value in each of the projects.
However, she said, she would have liked to see an expansion of outreach services for families of individuals who are actively using drugs.
“This population has virtually no resources or support,” she said.
She also wonders whether funds used for the awareness campaign and data collection would be better used to increase treatment services.
“I recognize the necessity but it’s hard when people are in immediate need and aren’t able to access care while funds are used for these types of projects,” Jaskulski said.
Rafael Mercado, founder of Team HAVOC, a group that distributes Narcan and other resources in drug overdose hotspots, said he also would like to see more investment in treatment facilities.
“We need more inner city treatment centers that provide both detox services as well as in-patient living centers with 24/7 access,” he said.
The projects were adopted July 31 by the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors.
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