When the Social Development Commission stopped running its anti-poverty programs and services in 2024, it left many employees and contractors unpaid for completed work. 

Nearly two years later, some have received a partial payment, while others are still waiting.   

Deja Allen, a former housing intake specialist for SDC, is owed $2,518.09 in gross wages, according to her wage claim. 

She said she was out of work for eight months and the unpaid wages affected her tremendously as she figured out how to pay her rent and bills. 

“I am thankful for my family being able to assist me while I looked for other employment,” Allen said. 

SDC stopped running its anti-poverty programs and laid off staff in April 2024. Since then, the agency has dealt with board turnover, lawsuits and the loss of access to community action funding.

What’s happening with the wage claims lawsuit?

The Wisconsin Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state’s Department of Workforce Development that claims SDC owed nearly $360,000 in back wages and benefits to former employees.

Sarah Woods, former youth and family services staff, was laid off when the agency paused services in April 2024. She filed a wage claim with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, which informed her that she is owed $4,756. 

Woods said she last received an update from the state in May 2025, when a representative said SDC would not have more information until the legal process is completed. 

Department of Justice attorney Michael D. Morris said at a status conference last month that William Sulton, SDC’s former legal counsel, is still working behind the scenes with him on reaching a resolution and requested additional time. The next status conference is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on March 26. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Workforce Development said the department isn’t able to provide additional details on the lawsuit’s status or outcomes while litigation continues. 

Jorge Franco, interim CEO of SDC and chair of the SDC board, said that paying employees and contractors what they’re owed remains a major priority for SDC. He advised former employees to follow the legal process closely. 

“It’ll be upon the attorneys for the claimant to determine what and how they proceed through next steps,” he said.

Contractors still owed

In his more than 40 years providing weatherization services in the Milwaukee area, Jaime Hurtado said SDC had one of the best and most robust weatherization divisions. 

Hurtado is the owner and president of Insulation Technologies Inc., or Intec, and worked with SDC for more than 20 years.

SDC received funding for the work through Wisconsin’s Weatherization Assistance Program. The Wisconsin Department of Administration suspended SDC’s participation in the program in March 2024 and began a forensic accounting after it reported a misallocation of funds. 

“They had built a professional, top-tier delivery service, a program to deliver these services in weatherization for people who need it the most,” Hurtado said. “It’s a heartbreak to see that go out of existence.”

Franco has said the department refused to reimburse SDC for nearly $490,000 in weatherization work and let it continue accumulating expenses before shutting down the program.

Intec and two other contractors, Affordable Heating and Air Conditioning Inc. and DMJ Services LLC, otherwise known as Action Heating & Cooling, sued SDC on claims that it failed to pay for weatherization work completed under contract in 2023 and 2024.

A judge granted the contractors a money judgment of $186,517.03 plus statutory costs and interest in October. About $112,500 of that would go to Intec, but it hasn’t been collected yet.

Jon Yakish, owner of Micro Analytical Inc., said his asbestos-testing laboratory has not been paid for 90% of the contracts it had with SDC before it closed. 

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” he said, estimating the remaining unpaid work cost around $2,300. “And I know there’s other people out there where it was a much bigger deal, so it’s hard for me to complain.”

Loss of work

More than the missing payments, Yakish and Hurtado’s businesses have felt the sustained impact of losing a loyal customer. 

Intec continues to perform work in the state’s weatherization program, Hurtado said, but at a reduced level. He said other providers have brought in a smaller volume of business than SDC. 

“We just move our attention to other parts of the market,” Hurtado said. 

Yakish said Micro Analytical also hasn’t received the same amount of business it had from SDC from the other organizations that have taken over the weatherization program services in Milwaukee.

“We don’t want to rely on the government, but it is a baseline of work that’s always going on, that kind of, in a way, helps us be recession-proof,” Yakish said. 

Moving on

Hurtado said the lawsuit was the only way to secure Intec’s rights to collect the money that it’s owed, though he acknowledged that SDC owes other lenders and suppliers.

“Who knows if they’ll have enough money to pay our balance, but at least we’ll be in the list,” he said. 

The $112,500 amount is about 25% of the total amount Intec was owed from SDC, Hurtado said. He said the state worked with other weatherization service agencies to pay Intec the other 75%, which helped the company. 

“Thank God we’re diversified enough, and we’re a strong company,” he said. 

Yakish said he submitted invoices and data on work performed at the state’s request in order to get paid, and a few contracts were paid. He became frustrated after the companies that had taken over SDC’s weatherization contracts kept asking for the same information.

“I kind of told them, ‘Look, I’m throwing my hands up.
This is the last time I’m doing this,’” he said. “So I don’t know if they took that as I was unwilling to work with them or whatever, but it just seemed really clear that nothing was actually going to happen.”

Meredith Melland is the neighborhoods reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Nearly two years after SDC shutdown, former workers and contractors still seek payment  is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Electric vehicles are turning into a proper migraine for the insurance industry. According to the latest report from collision management software provider Mitchell, repairable collision claims for EVs jumped 14% in the US and 24% in Canada during 2025.

What makes these numbers particularly jarring is the fact that EV sales growth slowed down in 2025 as government tax incentives expired and consumer interest shifted to hybrids. Cox Automotive estimates that new EV sales dropped approximately 2% in the US, with S&P Global Mobility reporting a 0.4% decline in new EV registrations.

More: Car Repair Costs Are Exploding And It’s Not Just About Tariffs

Even Tesla’s grip on the market loosened slightly, with its US market share slipping to 46.2% from 48.7% in 2024 as more competitors gained ground.

Rising Repair Complexity

Even so, the existing EV fleet is aging into more accidents, and the complexity of repairing them is becoming a logistical and financial hurdle for the repair industry.

Ryan Mandell, Mitchell’s vice president of strategy and market intelligence, explained: “Due to their dense electrical architectures, software-driven systems and interconnected, sensor-heavy designs, these vehicles require additional diagnostic and calibration operations when damaged that can add cost, complexity and cycle time to each repair.”

The “Plugged-In: EV Collision Insights” report also examined other electrified vehicles. Repairable claims for PHEVs increased 6% in the US and 26% in Canada in 2025. Mild-hybrid models (MHEV) recorded increases of 20% in the US and 29% in Canada. It is worth noting, however, that MHEV sales in the US surged 28% in 2025.

Also: Why Even The Smallest Accident Is Designed To Destroy Your Wallet

Across North America, British Columbia recorded the highest EV repair demand at 8.48%, followed by Quebec at 8.21% and California at 6.58%.

Which Models Top The Claims List?

Looking at individual models, Tesla continues to dominate claims volume. In the US, the Model Y accounts for 30.32% of repairable BEV claims, followed by the Model 3 at 27.01%, meaning the two together represent more than half of all such claims. The pattern is similar in Canada, although the positions are reversed, with the Model 3 at 26.03% slightly ahead of the Model Y at 25.91%.

The Economics Of Fixing An EV

There is at least one sliver of good news. On the repair side, the average cost to fix an EV fell 5% in the US, from US$ 6,707 to US$ 6,395, and declined 2% in Canada in 2025. ICE-powered vehicles and PHEVs remained largely flat in the US, while MHEVs saw their average claim cost rise 4%, from $4,865 to $5,054.

Nevertheless, the higher repair complexity of electrified vehicles is reflected in their “calibrations per estimate” rating, which tracks how often sensors and systems must be recalibrated after repairs. In 2025, the average number of revisions was 1.70 for EVs and 1.63 for hybrids, compared to 1.54 for ICE-powered vehicles.

Mitchell’s data also shows that 86% of EV parts dollars go toward OEM components, with only 13% of parts deemed repairable rather than replaceable. For ICE-powered vehicles, 62% of parts dollars go to OEMs, and 15% of components are considered repairable.

The Depreciation Trap

Mitchell also reported that total loss market values declined across most powertrain types in 2025, with EVs seeing the sharpest drops. In the US, EV values fell 6%, from US$ 30,126 in 2024 to US$ 28,185 in 2025. In Canada, they dropped 13%, from CA$ 41,775 to CA$ 36,504.

More: China’s EV Boom Is Cooling, And The Big Names Are Feeling It

By comparison, ICE vehicle values declined 2.55% in the US, from $14,241 to $13,887, and 6.12% in Canada, from $17,049 to $16,005. Hybrids presented a more mixed picture, with US values rising 4.18%, from $18,453 to $19,225, while Canadian values fell 4.40%, from $30,268 to $28,938.

Analysts attribute the steeper EV declines to accelerated depreciation, the arrival of more budget-friendly models, and shifts in consumer sentiment.

The backlog of unresolved felony-related matters in Milwaukee County has surpassed the pandemic-era peak, topping more than 10,000 as of Oct. 13, according to data obtained from the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office through an NNS open records request.

As cases linger, people throughout the criminal justice system feel the effects, including victims and their families, people accused of crimes and the broader community, said Kent Lovern, Milwaukee County district attorney.

“‘Justice delayed, justice denied’ applies to everybody,” Lovern said. 

One recent high-profile incident reaffirms how case backlogs could have tragic and life-altering consequences. 

On Feb. 5, a Milwaukee man, Mile Dukic, allegedly stabbed and killed 44-year-old Amanda Varisco on West National Avenue and S. 36th Street. At the time of the killing, Dukic had separate open felony cases in Milwaukee County Circuit Court – for bail jumping and stalking. He was charged with another felony, first-degree intentional homicide, on Feb. 9.

Dukic is currently in custody with bail set at $500,000.

Two backlogs

The district attorney’s office plays a pivotal role at both ends of the felony pipeline, said a spokesperson for the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office: referrals from police awaiting a charging decision, plus charged felony cases working their way through the courts.

The Milwaukee Police Department made 5,650 summary felony arrests in 2025, according to an MPD spokesperson. The department continues to work with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office to best address the felony backlog, the MPD spokesperson said.

District attorney records show 2,924 pending uncharged felony cases as of October 2025.

State office wants county to change approach, charge fewer felonies

The spokesperson for the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office said the district attorney’s office can and should do more to address the growing backlog by adjusting its approach. 

“We believe prosecutors should be exercising more discretion in which referrals they are charging,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson said the office regularly sees clients charged with relatively minor offenses lose jobs or housing as a result – consequences that can outweigh the underlying charge.

When the prosecutor’s office officially presses felony charges, these cases can get bogged down and stay in the courts. Resolution to the cases depends not only on prosecutors but also on defense attorneys, judges, court staff and other resources that are strained as well, Lovern said. 

Based on the district attorney’s internal case-tracking system, more than 7,000 felony cases were charged but not yet resolved as of Oct. 13. 

“The influx of felony charges coming out of the DA’s office isn’t benefiting the court system or public safety,” said State Public Defender Jennifer Bias. “It’s a waste of our scarce attorney resources.”

Increase in serious criminal activity

Lovern pushes back on the idea that prosecutors are charging too many cases.

“I want to make it very clear: I don’t have goals for what we ought to be charging,” he said. “I don’t have a directive of what the percentage of our charging rate should be.”

Prosecutors decline to move forward on many referrals, said Jeffrey Altenburg, Milwaukee’s chief deputy district attorney. 

On a basic public safety level, there are simply more serious felonies being committed, Lovern and Altenburg said.

“I think that that’s exactly what we’re seeing,” Altenburg said. “We’re seeing more referrals coming to this office that involve firearms, violence, sexual violence.” 

Milwaukee Police Department data show reports of the majority of the most serious offenses declined from 2024 to 2025, with the exception of homicides and human trafficking, which increased slightly.

Violent crime in Milwaukee has generally declined in the past few years – but from historic highs seen during the pandemic, according to data from the Council on Criminal Justice.

When to charge

Charging decisions begin with a decision about whether a case is provable beyond a reasonable doubt, Altenburg said.

“We adhere to that standard very scrupulously in this office,” he said.  

Once that is determined, the district attorney’s office moves to the question of whether prosecution is necessary or a different kind of intervention is more appropriate, Altenburg said.

Alternatives to traditional prosecution

In Milwaukee, there are two alternative interventions: diversion and deferred prosecution.

Diversion allows a person to complete requirements, such as treatment, restitution or community service, without a criminal charge. 

Deferred prosecution involves issuing charges with an agreement in which a conviction is withheld if the person meets various conditions.

Lovern said local prosecutors created an early-intervention approach designed to steer nonviolent cases driven by substance use or mental health challenges out of the criminal justice system when appropriate. 

In 2020, Milwaukee County intervened in roughly 600 cases, Altenburg said. Last year, the county intervened in roughly 1,600 cases.

Lovern said the nature of modern policing – and modern evidence – has fundamentally changed prosecutors’ workload.

The sheer volume of evidence that must be reviewed contributes to growing wait times before charging decisions can be made, Lovern said. 

More evidence is generated because of modern technologies and other tools used by police. A single incident can, for example, generate hours of body camera footage that prosecutors review before making charging decisions, Lovern said. 

In 2020, there were 84,000 pieces of evidence in Milwaukee’s database. In 2024, there were 1.7 million items. 

“I’m sure last year, it was even higher. That’s just where we’re headed,” Lovern said.

Staffing and system capacity

Something that adds to both backlogs – uncharged cases awaiting a decision and charged cases in the system – is insufficient staffing levels throughout the court system, a trend that has continued since the pandemic. 

The district attorney’s office has about 125 full-time prosecutors, Lovern said. 

“Now that is a lot. It’s the same number that we had when (Altenburg) and I started in this office 28 years ago, though.”

The State Public Defender’s Office also faces staffing challenges, according to its spokesperson. 

“Broadly speaking, our agency needs more staff statewide,” the spokesperson said. “This wouldn’t address delays caused by prosecutors, but it would help to decrease the time it takes to appoint attorneys to indigent defendants and reduce the turnover in staff that office experiences due to burnout.”

There is also a need for support staff who help with administrative tasks, freeing up attorneys.

Lovern said unstable funding adds to staffing pressures.

About a third of legal staff in the county had been funded with federal grant money, which has been a little less predictable in the last couple of years, Lovern said.  

“We can use more positions,” Lovern said. “There’s no question about that.”

Justice delayed: More than 10,000 felony matters unresolved in Milwaukee County is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

North Division High School had always been a staple in Milwaukee’s Black community. 

But a Jan. 19, 1976, order by federal Judge John Reynolds for Milwaukee Public Schools to desegregate almost changed that. 

The ruling led MPS to propose changes three years later with the goal to integrate the 97% Black North Side high school. 

The solution? Close North Division as the neighborhood knew it and reopen it as a citywide magnet school for medical and science technology. Magnet schools offer special instruction and programs that are typically not available elsewhere.  

The district had utilized a similar strategy in the years prior to integrate Rufus King High School and Golda Meir School by changing them to magnet schools. 

The proposal for North Division would integrate the school by drawing more white students from other parts of the city but would also limit enrollment options for students in the surrounding neighborhoods. 

Residents quickly fought back, organizing the Coalition to Save North Division. 

Howard Fuller, who led the coalition, remembers the community’s reaction when the plan was first announced.  

“We ended up filling up the auditorium at the board meeting at Central Office,” said Fuller, who went on to become superintendent of MPS from 1991 to 1995. “That’s when I gave the speech and ended by saying ‘enough is enough.’ That then became the slogan for the Coalition to Save North.”

Fuller said the group organized marches and meetings, canvassed across the neighborhood and eventually took legal action and won.

Desegregation at MPS

Lawyer and politician Lloyd Barbee, among others, filed a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Public School Board of Directors in 1965 to desegregate MPS, Milwaukee historian and author James Nelsen said.  

The suit alleged that the district’s policy of assigning students to their neighborhood school maintained school segregation because of the widespread residential segregation across the city. 

The case ran until 1976, when Reynolds ruled that Milwaukee Public Schools needed to take action to desegregate the district. 

Reynolds then established a monitoring board to enforce and oversee districtwide desegregation plans.

Nelsen said shortly before the ruling, the Board of Directors welcomed new Superintendent Lee McMurrin, who had implemented magnet schools in Toledo, Ohio.

Once he came to Milwaukee, McMurrin pushed to rebrand some neighborhood high schools as magnet schools, encouraging students from across the city to go to different schools.

When a new North Division building opened in 1978, the district tried attracting white students to the school but was unsuccessful. 

This, in combination with low performing grades at the school, led McMurrin to target North Division to become the city’s newest magnet school. The school would open a medical and science technology program for high schoolers across the city.

“We’re not satisfied with the results at North Division,” McMurrin said in a 1979 Milwaukee Sentinel article. “We will not have a change about unless we make it a brand new school.”

Community pushes back

Fuller, students and the neighborhood had major concerns about the new plan. 

“The thing that concerned me the most was that once they built the brand-new building, then the first thing they were going to do then was to put all of the neighborhood kids out,” Fuller said. “In part, it was also a pushback against the way that desegregation was being implemented in the city at that time.”

North Division’s student council organized a rally in which 400 students walked out of school and marched to the Central Office in protest, according to local news reports. 

The plan would close enrollment to freshmen and sophomores. Willie Washington, then a North Division junior, spoke out against the plan during the protest.  

“We feel that we should not be used as guinea pigs for integration,” Washington told the Milwaukee Journal.

Fuller said the coalition spent the summer going door to door in the neighborhood, held community meetings and built a parent group.

When the new school year started in September 1979, Fuller and over 200 students gathered for a mass meeting on North Division’s front lawn. Fuller told students to study hard and “demand that they be educated.”

After months of protesting, Fuller said, the coalition escalated to legal action through the monitoring board, established to observe desegregation efforts.

Success at a cost

Fuller said the Board of Directors eventually reached an out-of-court settlement and dropped the plan.

“It was the first battle where the board reversed its decision on closing a school in the Black community because all of the protests before had never gained any traction,” Fuller said. 

The school would remain a neighborhood school but also offer a career specialty program, according to the settlement. 

The agreement said the school should aim for about 2,000 students, 60% Black and 40% white. A set number of seats would be set aside for non-Black students, and Black students could not fill those spots.

As those changes were implemented, problems at North Division High School continued, Fuller said. 

Fuller said nobody knew he would eventually become a superintendent of MPS. When he took on the role in 1991, he gained access to documents and information nobody thought he would see. 

An assistant superintendent at the time told him that the board had taken actions to sabotage North Division after the coalition won.

“Some of the problems that exist at North today can be traced back to the conscious attempt to sabotage North once we won in court,” Fuller said. “There was such anger on the part of the administration that they had to do this.”

For example, Fuller said the coalition worked with North Division Principal Bob Jasna to set up a program and curriculum for the school, then replaced Jasna with a middle school principal who knew nothing about the work he and Fuller did.

“That sabotaged the entire effort that we had made,” Fuller said.

Today, North Division High School remains predominantly Black — 90.5%, according to the latest state report card. The school scored an overall 54.9 on the report card, meeting few expectations, according to the Wisconsin Department of Education.

“For me, this struggle around North Division has never ended,” Fuller said. “It’s been ongoing for 30, 40 years.”

Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

How Milwaukee residents rallied to save North Division High School from closure during 1970s integration fight is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

WASHINGTON — The second partial government shutdown in 2026 began at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, after lawmakers left the nation’s capital without reaching a deal on changes to immigration enforcement tactics at the Department of Homeland Security. 

The department’s shutdown is also likely to go on for some time. With Congress out next week for the Presidents Day recess, lawmakers are not expected back on Capitol Hill for votes until Feb. 23. 

A procedural vote to approve funding for the Homeland Security bill for fiscal year 2026 failed Thursday to gain support from Senate Democrats because constraints to immigration enforcement were not included, such as an end to agents wearing face coverings. 

Even with the president’s border czar Tom Homan announcing Thursday  the withdrawal of the thousands of federal immigration officers from Minneapolis, Democrats argued it’s not enough. 

“Without legislation, what Tom Homan says today could be reversed tomorrow on a whim from (President) Donald Trump,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor Thursday.

Asked by the press pool Friday about cutting a deal on the shutdown,  Trump said, “We’ll see what happens. We always have to protect our law enforcement.”

After the Senate vote failed 52-47, members of Congress emptied out of Washington for the recess. Some were off to Munich, Germany for a major security conference. 

ICE still has cash at hand

While the agency Trump tasked with carrying out his mass deportation campaign of immigrants will shut down, enforcement will continue because Congress allocated a separate stream of money, about $75 billion for U.S. Immigration and Enforcement Services. 

During last fall’s government shutdown, which lasted a record-breaking 43 days, immigration enforcement continued.

The other agencies within DHS that will be shut down but continue to operate because they include essential workers include the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, among others.

In general, any employees who focus on national security issues or the protection of life and property would continue to work through a shutdown, while federal workers who don’t are supposed to be furloughed. 

Neither category of employees will receive their paychecks during the funding lapse, though federal law requires they receive back pay once Congress approves some sort of spending bill. 

Democratic mayors call for GOP to accept proposals

Democrats have pushed for policy changes after federal immigration officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, where a deportation drive is set to wind down after the city faced more than two months of aggressive immigration enforcment. 

Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer on Jan. 7, which prompted a bipartisan agreement to enact some guardrails, such as $20 million in funding for immigration agents to wear body cameras. 

But a second killing by federal immigration officers, that of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, prompted the Senate to decouple the Homeland Security measure from a package of spending bills, as Democrats floated proposals meant to rein in enforcement tactics, and prompted a four-day partial shutdown. A two-week funding patch was set for negotiations and it expires at midnight Friday.

Democratic mayors hailing from the major cities of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans and Portland, Oregon, Friday issued a letter that called on the top Republicans in Congress, Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, to accept the proposals before DHS entered a shutdown. 

“When federal agents operate in our streets without identification, without warrants, and without accountability, that trust is shattered,” they wrote. “All of us agree that for so long as the agency exists, new funding for the Department of Homeland Security must be conditioned on the comprehensive 10-point framework released last week.”

Those policy suggestions include requiring immigration officers to not wear masks and identify themselves, which has drawn strong opposition from Republicans and the leaders of ICE and Customs and Border Protection who argue the face coverings prevent their agents from being doxxed. 

Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., sent the proposals over to the White House, but said the Trump administration’s response was “incomplete and insufficient in terms of addressing the concerns Americans have about ICE’s lawless conduct.” 

According to the contingency plan for DHS, the agency expects about 20,000 employees out of 271,000 to be furloughed in the event of a government shutdown.

Three cases of measles has been confirmed in Wisconsin in recent weeks, the latest involving an out-of-state traveler who traveled through Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport to Walworth County on Jan. 29. 

Milwaukee Health Commissioner Michael Totoraitis said during a news conference Tuesday that there were six individuals on the flight from the city of Milwaukee who may have been exposed as well as others.

“We have been in communication with those (six) individuals, and there’s also likely other contacts from the airplane that we do not have,” he said.

Measles is a serious disease that can cause high fevers and a spreading rash and lead to life-threatening complications such as pneumonia. 

Lindsey Page, director of immunizations and communicable disease with the Milwaukee Health Department, said measles is highly contagious and the risk of it hitting the city is real. 

Extremely contagious but can be prevented

According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, measles can spread from person to person through the air from coughs or sneezes. The department states that measles is so contagious that 90% of unvaccinated people who are around someone who is infected may also be infected.  

Page said the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine is highly effective at preventing the spread of measles. Still, vaccine rates in the city are below the recommended rate for herd immunity. Herd immunity for measles is reached when 95% of people in the community have the MMR vaccine. 

“It certainly poses a threat, which is why we’re obviously emphasizing the vaccination, which is key in preventing disease from spreading before it starts,” Page said. “The measles vaccine is one of the most effective and well-studied vaccines ever used.”

Three-fourths of 6-year-olds in Milwaukee have received both recommended MMR doses, according to the Milwaukee Health Department. Among 18-year-olds in Milwaukee, that number increases to 88%. 

The Milwaukee Health Department and Milwaukee Public Schools are working to get residents access to vaccinations to increase those rates and keep them safe. 

According to the International Vaccine Access Center, childhood vaccination rates in the U.S. have declined, and only 10 states had MMR rates above 95% during the 2024-25 school year.

Vaccination rates low in many Milwaukee schools

Of the 152 Milwaukee public, private and charter schools with available vaccine data, only 11% have reached herd immunity levels of 95% for the MMR vaccine, according to data from the Washington Post. 

Only two Milwaukee Public Schools for which data was available, Highland Community School and Cooper Elementary School, had an MMR vaccination rate of 95%.

Just 7% of Milwaukee schools have a 95% immunization rate for all required vaccinations.

Milwaukee Public Schools notifies families if immunization records are missing or incomplete, and students may be excluded from school if requirements are not met within a reasonable time, said Stephen Davis, MPS media relations manager. 

Students are allowed to attend school while families work to get their required vaccinations or submit a valid exemption as allowed by state law, Davis said. 

Wisconsin DHS allows vaccination exemptions for medical, religious or personal conviction reasons. Davis said exemption requests in the district have fluctuated from year to year.

Page said the Milwaukee Health Department runs vaccine clinics inside select MPS schools at the beginning of the school year. Students take home vaccine consent forms for parents to sign so those students can get their required immunizations in school. 

In the near future, the department will set up targeted clinics in schools with low MMR vaccination rates, Page said.

MPS prepares for potential measles cases

MPS is monitoring measles in the region and maintains regular communication with local and state public health partners, Davis said. 

Davis said the district has an infectious disease response plan, which the district reviews periodically and updates as public health guidance changes. The district last reviewed the plan in 2025. 

“While no increased risk has been identified within our schools at this time, we are remaining vigilant and prepared to respond if conditions change,” Davis said. 

If a case of measles is identified in the city, Davis said MPS would implement its response plan, including coordinating with key staff and reinforcing illness reporting procedures.

“Schools would follow established exclusion, cleaning and notification procedures in accordance with public health guidance,” Davis said.

Where can I get vaccinations?

The Milwaukee Health Department and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services offer several resources to check your vaccination status and access free vaccinations. 

Page said you can check your vaccination status with your pediatrician or doctor, look up your status on the Wisconsin Immunization Registry or contact the city Health Department at 414-286-6800.

Page said the Health Department offers free MMR vaccines to all residents at three immunization clinics regardless of age or insurance status.

These clinics also offer other vaccines, available for free for people without health insurance. Eligibility for certain vaccines depends on factors like age, and some vaccines are not always available.

Check vaccine availability by calling 414-286-8034.

Immunization clinic services in Milwaukee

Keenan Health Center, 3200 N. 36th St.

Open for vaccines on Thursdays from 1 to 4 p.m.

Northwest Health Center, 7630 W. Mill Road

Open for vaccines on Wednesdays from 3 to 6 p.m.

Southside Health Center, 1639 S. 23rd St.

Open for vaccines on Mondays from 3 to 6 p.m. and Tuesdays from 1 to 4 p.m. 

Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Measles is in Wisconsin. Are Milwaukee schools vulnerable? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

For many Milwaukee residents returning from incarceration, the difference between stability and setback can hinge on a single document: a valid driver’s license.

Without one, everyday responsibilities can become barriers that undermine a person’s successful return to the community, said Jay Tucker, administrator of community reintegration services at Wisconsin Community Services. 

Tucker helps oversee the organization’s long-running driver’s license recovery program, which helps people get back their licenses after suspensions or revocations. 

Although the program serves a broad range of low-income Milwaukee residents, Tucker said the loss of a driver’s license is especially destabilizing for people returning from incarceration, particularly as they look for work.  

“There’s already a stigma there,” Tucker said. “If I’m already checking a box on an application just to get the job, and now I may not have this valid work credential, it amplifies that stigma.”

Black and poor residents overrepresented

Suspended and revoked driver’s licenses disproportionately affect the city’s Black and low-income residents, said Clarence Johnson, president and CEO of Wisconsin Community Services. 

In Wisconsin, most license suspensions and revocations are not tied to dangerous driving but to unpaid fines and forfeitures. 

According to Wisconsin Department of Transportation data from 2024, failure to pay forfeitures accounted for more than 44% of revocations and suspensions statewide – far more than operating while intoxicated or point-based violations.

For many, that process starts with a single ticket, said Taffie Foster-Toney, lead case manager for the license recovery program.

“You get one citation, you’re not able to pay it and then it snowballs,” Foster-Toney said. 

Breaking a cycle

Shakia Thompson, 33, a Milwaukee resident, mother and student, said the cycle was hard to break.  

“My license was suspended because I had a lot of operating-after-suspension tickets,” Thompson said. “I would get on a payment plan, get my license back and then get another ticket.”

With work and family responsibilities, she said, staying on top of court appearances became difficult.

“With me working a lot, I wasn’t always able to attend court,” Thompson said. “So it just kept keeping me behind, and I kept owing and owing.”

How the program works

The driver’s license recovery program at Wisconsin Community Services began in 2010. 

It serves Milwaukee residents who meet federal poverty guidelines, have a suspended or revoked Wisconsin driver’s license and meet other eligibility guidelines.

Foster-Toney said the process begins with intake and a detailed review of a participant’s driving record.

Individuals are then paired with attorneys through Legal Action of Wisconsin and work case by case to resolve issues across multiple courts and counties. 

Options may include payment plans or community service. 

Thompson said the payment plan option helped her considerably. 

“There were times that I wasn’t able to pay a fine, and then I would get backed up on other bills. So it really helped in the long run,” she said. 

Participants can also attend a financial literacy workshop. In return, the program pays up to $60 in Wisconsin Division of Motor Vehicles fees once an individual is eligible for reinstatement.

Public safety benefits

Johnson said helping people regain licenses benefits the broader community.

“People who have valid driver’s licenses tend to be safer drivers,” he said. “When you have assets in your life, you’re much more inclined to make good judgment decisions. The driver’s license program offers hope. It’s a lifeline.”

Thompson said she shares information about the program widely, especially with people balancing many responsibilities, such as family and work.

“I tell a lot of people about it,” she said. “A lot of ladies in school that don’t have their license.”

After getting her license back last summer, Thompson said she’s focused on keeping it. 

“I’m doing great with my payment plans, and I have my license,” she said. “I’m moving forward.”

How to connect

Wisconsin Community Services receives referrals from courts, parole agents, nonprofit organizations, city agencies, police officers, Milwaukee Area Technical College and the mayor’s office. 

The program is housed at Milwaukee Area Technical College’s downtown campus and accepts walk-ins.

Eligibility requirements are: 

• A suspended or revoked Class D driver’s license
• City of Milwaukee residency
• Income that meets federal poverty guidelines 
• No valid license within the past eight years and completion of the DMV written test within the past 12 months
• No operating-while-intoxicated charges, suspensions or revocations related to operating while intoxicated   

People can contact Wisconsin Community Services at 414-297-6407 for more information.

‘I’m moving forward’: Driver’s license recovery program helps Milwaukee residents regain stability is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wearing orange high-visibility vests as they mount TVs, conduct basic car care, assemble furniture and complete other tasks, participants of Handyman Academy are busy at work on Milwaukee’s North Side. 

Program founders Daniel McHenry and AJ Batchelor say learning these skills helps provide structure and mentorship for students with limited support at home. 

Handyman Academy, launched in July 2025, is a youth program that equips students with handyman skills to help them build confidence and independence. 

“Everything that I’m teaching them are things that I know,” McHenry said. “I wanted to create more resources for single mothers so they could keep their children out of trouble and focused.”

Inspiration for the program

McHenry is a self-taught handyman and owner of the moving company Lift N Go Express. He said after a decade of hands-on work, he wanted to shift from physical labor and pass his skills to inner-city teens, especially those in single-parent households.

“So many mothers poured their heart out to me about the struggles in helping their boys,” he said. 

Nearly half of Milwaukee County children are estimated to live in single-parent households as of 2023, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data. 

McHenry was a troubled teen who grew up in Chicago and the North Side of Milwaukee with a single mother. Although she taught him basic skills like how to change a tire, he learned other things on his own after losing his biological father. His stepfather was incarcerated. 

“The skills I teach in this program are skills that a lot of women can’t really teach their boys,” he said. 

McHenry later partnered with Batchelor, owner of AJB Handyman Construction Service LLC and a resident of the Garfield neighborhood. Batchelor was already teaching youths and others handyman skills.

“I typically find people off the street who are in need of money and instead of me giving them money, I show them how they can make it through my business,” Batchelor said. 

Becoming a handyman

Handyman Academy offers winter and summer sessions, with students meeting two to three hours weekly. 

During summer sessions, participants learn outdoor skills like how to change oil or tires on a car. Winter sessions focus on learning how to use different tools, reading instructions to assemble different items and safety. 

To ensure each student is familiar with the tools, McHenry designs worksheets and quizzes for them after each lesson.

“To teach someone how to fix and build something, they need to know what proper tools to use first,” McHenry said. 

Once they complete the program, students are celebrated with a graduation and handed a personal toolkit.

Recent graduates of the program include 15-year-old Naiem Bell and 13-year-old Leiyah McHenry, the daughter of Daniel McHenry.

Bell said he appreciated all the skills he learned, but valued teamwork the most. 

“A lot of the stuff I’ve been taught, I can’t do all of this alone,” Bell said.

Leiyah McHenry enjoyed the practical activities of the program like learning how to change a tire, an experience she never had before. 

“I do think that when I’m older and have my own car, I’ll be able to change my own tire now,” she said. 

Her biggest challenge was learning how to mount a TV. 

“It was hard to mount the TV at first because I’m so short, but my dad was there to help me,” she said. 

After completing the program, Bell assembled a 55-inch TV he received on Christmas. 

“I have more ambition to do things now,” Bell said. 

Apart from building skills, McHenry and Batchelor also mentor the children by engaging in conversations about entertainment, business, leadership and other topics. 

“I had a good mentor at the Boys & Girls Club when I was little and now my mentor has passed,” Batchelor said. 

“Our community needs more Black men like us who will step up,” McHenry said. 

Helping the kids stay on track

Early in the program, Batchelor and McHenry encountered challenges with the participants.

McHenry said some students were initially rebellious and felt forced to attend, but after creating a comfortable environment, many of them opened up more. 

“There was a child who was used to playing video games all day and now he’s active and helps around the house,” McHenry said. 

Batchelor said some mothers rely on him to help keep their children on track. 

During his free time, he offers paid handyman opportunities to students who need additional support. 

“I want these kids to do better because Milwaukee can be a terrible place at times,” Batchelor said. 

McHenry said he spent approximately $5,000 out-of-pocket for each course, but he hopes to turn the program into a nonprofit so that parents won’t have to pay $150 for registration.

Plans to expand

McHenry and Batchelor are looking for a permanent space to hold sessions and expand the program. Previous sessions were held at the Midtown Shopping Center and at 8201 W. Brown Deer Road. 

“We’ve been through two different locations already, but we’re looking for a place to really call home and somewhere to call our own,” McHenry said. “A place that’s convenient for our students, parents and doesn’t have restrictions.” 

McHenry also hopes to collaborate with entrepreneurs, cosmetologists, painters and others to host a workshop highlighting different industries and skills that children can be involved in.  

“Everybody isn’t going to be a handyman, so I have to expose them to different areas,” McHenry said. “I think we all have something to offer to the community that can help the youth out.” 

Leiyah McHenry and Bell appreciate how the program has guided them in a positive direction.

“I think this program is important in Milwaukee because it keeps kids out of the streets and shows them how to be successful,” Leiyah McHenry said. 

“This is really good for people who don’t have father figures around,” Bell said. 

For more information

Youths ages 11 to 17 interested in joining the Handyman Academy can register in April and May for spring and summer sessions by emailing Dmchenry1989@gmail.com or messaging the program on Facebook or Instagram.

‘I want our kids to do better’: Milwaukee handymen teach children life skills while supporting single parents is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

As children continue to enter foster care across Milwaukee, agencies working the front lines say the greatest need isn’t funding or policy promises, it’s people willing to open their homes. Especially to teenagers.

We spoke with Jakob Eisen, director of social services, and Karen Steinbach, treatment foster care supervisor, with La Causa’s Treatment Foster Care program, to understand what becoming and supporting foster parents can look like. 

Shortage of foster families

Children placed in foster care range from newborns to young adults, sometimes remaining in care until age 21 or older if they are still in school. 

Steinbach said what youths share is trauma because being removed from home, even for safety reasons, is itself traumatic.

“These kids come to us during the worst moments of their lives,” she said. “They need adults who are patient, empathetic and willing to stay even when things get hard.”

Data shows a desperate shortage in Milwaukee of people willing to take in adolescents. 

In 2024, there was an average of 515 children aged 12 years or older in out-of-home care. Of these older children, 275 (53%) were placed in a family-like setting, 146 (28%) were placed in congregate care, and 94 (18%) were in other care.

Ninety percent of children aged 12 and under were placed in family-like care. 

Steinbach said teenagers often cycle through dozens of placements, a history that can fuel mistrust, anger and difficult behaviors.

“There’s a myth that teens are harder or more dangerous,” she said. “But if you’ve been in 30 or 40 homes and every one of them asked you to leave, why would you believe the next one will be different?”

She said behaviors like running away, breaking property, withdrawing emotionally or acting out are often trauma responses, not defiance. And younger children show it, too. 

Foster parents are asked to look past those behaviors. 

“That’s the hardest part of the job,” Steinbach said. “And also the most important.”

What does it take to become a foster parent?

Becoming a foster parent is a serious commitment, and the licensing process reflects that. 

Prospective families must pass background checks, provide references, complete home safety inspections, participate in interviews that explore everything from parenting experience to mental health history, and meet other state requirements.

“It’s personal,” Steinbach said. “We ask hard questions because we’re asking you to care for children who have experienced significant trauma.”

There are different levels of foster care. Treatment foster parents, who care for children with higher behavioral or emotional needs, receive additional training and support. 

Eisen said most foster parents work full-time jobs. What helps them succeed as a foster parent is preparation and support from employers, family, friends and agencies themselves.

“We ask people upfront: Who’s your village?” Steinbach said. “Because no one does this alone.”

Removing stigmas of fostering

Some community members hesitate to engage with foster care because they believe the system “takes” children from families. Eisen said that perception misses critical context.

“No child is removed without legal authority,” he said. “Every case goes before a judge. There are statutory thresholds, multiple layers of review and ongoing court oversight.”

In most cases, he said, parents retain legal rights and decision-making authority. Foster care is intended to be temporary, with reunification as the primary goal whenever it can be done safely.

“We don’t want to keep kids,” Steinbach said.  “The best outcome is getting them home.”

Their goal is to help foster parents work alongside birth families to support them as they complete court-ordered steps.

“When foster parents and birth parents can work together, kids do better,” she said. “And reunification happens faster.”

How you can help, without becoming a foster parent

Not everyone can foster, but Steinbach and Eisen stress that everyone can help.

Support can be as simple as providing respite care or babysitting, helping with school pickups or transportation, bringing meals or offering child care so foster parents can attend training. 

“These small things are huge,” Steinbach said. “Sometimes a foster parent just needs an hour to grocery shop or take a shower.”

Community members can also help by challenging stigmas when they hear them, sharing accurate information and encouraging others to consider fostering.

“Even planting the seed matters. Most people think about fostering for years before they ever make the call,” Eisen said.

Prevention and support

While foster care agencies work daily to recruit and support families, leaders say long-term solutions lie in prevention. Investing in mental health care, addiction services, transportation, supervised visitation and family support can help keep children safely at home.

“If we could work ourselves out of a job, we would,” Eisen said. “But until then, we need people, not perfect people, just people willing to show up.”

For children in foster care, that willingness to “show up” can mean the difference between another disrupted placement and the first adult who truly stays in their lives.
For more information on becoming a foster parent, you can look here and here.

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

‘No one does this alone’: Milwaukee seeks more foster parents and supporters is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The limited availability of Black male mentors in Milwaukee is causing youth organizations to rethink their efforts and reveals a deeper challenge within families and communities. 

The lack of mentors forced Andre Lee Ellis to postpone his annual “500 Black Tuxedos” event. 

500 Black Tuxedos typically consists of 250 men stepping up to mentor 250 young men ages 12 to 17 throughout the day with workshops that bring attention to violence, anger management, artificial intelligence, men’s health, incarceration and other topics. 

So far, Ellis has 200 boys but only 78 male mentors registered. 

“It’s always been challenging to get the men to participate, and one of the things we lack in our community is the inclusion of Black men and fathers in the lives of our children,” Ellis said.

Committing to mentorship

Rather than calling it a “shortage of male mentors,” LaNelle Ramey, executive director of Mentor Greater Milwaukee, said it’s about capacity. He said many men are already mentors in informal ways like coaching or helping at a church. 

“We aren’t getting people to sign up for mentoring the way that we want to, but we’re seeing different ways people are trying to tap in and be supportive,” Ramey said. 

The challenge of finding male mentors has also been a challenge for other organizations, including 100 Black Men of Milwaukee Inc., which partners with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Milwaukee to do monthly group mentoring sessions with youths.

According to Christopher Smitherman ll, vice president of 100 Black Men of Milwaukee Inc., the organization recruits male mentors but can only accept a limited number of boys to maintain mentor-to-youth ratios and consistent presence. 

Smitherman and Ramey said that men are backing down from mentoring because of their misconception of it being a huge time commitment. 

“You have to change that narrative on how long it takes to make a difference,” Smitherman said. 

Ramey said Mentor Greater Milwaukee reminds individuals that spending an hour and a half with a young person for six months still impacts a mentee’s life. 

Inactive fathers affecting the recruitment process

Ellis said he believes recruiting men is harder due to a lack of active fathers to serve as mentors. 

“Certain systems make it hard for men to be involved in the lives of children,” Ellis said. “But when you really want to be a dad, nothing can stop you.” 

According to the Wisconsin Family Council, 85% of babies born in Milwaukee are raised by single mothers. 

While men’s experiences with their own fathers can shape how they show up as dads or mentors, Ellis believes that youths can benefit from adults who use their lived experiences to guide them. 

“Some of the men don’t want to be the dad they never had, but they want to be better,” Ellis said. “Our children need to see us fighting for them.”

Retaining male mentors

Ellis, Ramey and Smitherman agreed that better outreach and information about mentoring can help prevent men from overthinking and feel more confident about stepping into the role. 

“We have to make sure that men and fathers have the resources they need,” Ellis said.

Smitherman said other ways to retain male mentors include offering consistent formal training. 

At Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Milwaukee, mentors learn how to lead with empathy, being accessible for mentees, understanding a mentee’s situation and other topics, he said.

Feeling hopeful about mentorship

As organizations across Milwaukee continue to actively recruit mentors, the advocates hope that men can give as much as they can toward the youths. 

“Mentorship is about experience, knowledge and what you have that can help elevate someone,” Smitherman said. “It also doesn’t have to be a huge age gap either.”

For men interested in serving as a mentor for the 500 Black Tuxedos event, it’s rescheduled to Saturday, Feb. 21, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 100 Gems Plaza, 6737 N. Teutonia Ave. A registration fee of $125 will cover the tuxedo for the young man you’ll mentor. Click here to register and for more information.

Click here or here to learn more about mentorship opportunities for men in Milwaukee.

‘Our children need to see us fighting for them’: More Black male mentors in Milwaukee sought is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

After they’ve tried church, therapy, self-help and meditation, and never quite found what they were looking for, people in Milwaukee come to see Angela Smith.

Smith is the owner and operator of The Zen Dragonfly. She uses African traditional methods to assist people in their physical, mental and spiritual healing. 

“I’m the person nobody knows they came to see,” she said. “People get to a point where nothing is working. And then they walk in here.”

Spiritual and life coaching

Smith, 63, is a hoodoo practitioner and rootworker, though most Milwaukeeans first meet her through “acceptable” titles like Reiki master, yoga instructor or life coach, she said. 

Smith’s healing work spans Reiki, tarot, bone readings, spiritual baths, shamanic journeying and herbal medicine.

Only later do many discover the deeper tradition behind her work.

Her healing practice, rooted in Black Southern folk traditions and ancestral veneration, welcomes anyone in need of help. 

Smith doesn’t promise miracles. And she doesn’t advertise cures.

“My job is to help people do their own healing,” she said. “I can break something open. I can clear a path. But you have to walk it.”

Still, people continue to arrive at her door, quietly and urgently, after prayer, therapy and everything in between.

“When you’ve tried all you can,” Smith said, “I’m usually where you come next.”

Tanisha Williams, a friend and healing guest of Smith’s, said Smith is talented in many ways but especially at helping people find what type of healing can help them. 

“She just knows how to appropriately assess someone and guide them with appropriate divination,” Williams said.

A lifestyle

For Smith, healing is more than work, it’s how she lives her life. 

Smith’s day begins with tending to her ancestors. She rings a bell, pours water, lights candles and reads Psalms. Then she welcomes healing guests.

“Never clients,” she said. 

Her home and workspace reflect her practice: altars in every room, artwork celebrating Black history and spirituality, herbs and botanicals curated with care. Friends and students have encouraged her to turn it into a visual book. 

She’s considering it.

She laughs when asked about the aesthetics: “I want you to walk into my house and know an African lives here.”

Matthew Nervig, a friend of Smith’s, said she guides others to be the same way so that they aren’t dependent on her. 

“She encourages everyone to pursue their own education and personal practice,” he said. “As opposed to keeping people dependent on her so that she can make money, she urges people to learn on their own and be really helpful and genuine. 

Serving Milwaukee

Smith said she did not intend to become Milwaukee’s spiritual triage center. 

For years, she hid her hoodoo practice, posting only glimpses of altars or crystals. But in 2018, she said she heard her grandmother’s voice say: “You can’t hide no more.”

Her public announcement cost her followers, but brought the people who needed her most.

“Word of mouth built this,” she said. “I don’t advertise. People come because someone told them, ‘When nothing else works, go see Miss Angela.’”

Nervig said Smith thrives at making people feel welcome once they find her. 

“She has a real desire for everyone interested in learning more to have the knowledge,” he said. 

Over the years, Smith has seen the city’s quiet desperation up close.

“There’s a lot of fear in Milwaukee,” she said. “A lot of being stuck. A lot of repeating cycles. And people don’t know where to go when the usual systems don’t fix it.”

Her School of Good JuJu launched during the pandemic and filled immediately. Smith said nearly all the students had the same story. They left church. They tried therapy. They tried being “fine.” And they were still searching.

Williams, who attended the School of Good JuJu, said it felt like a “meant to be” moment. 

“We all need a guide,” Williams said. “It’s like how they say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

Smith believes the surge of seekers reflects a deeper shift.

“People are exhausted,” she said. “They’re tired of judgment. They’re tired of being told what to believe. They just want to heal.”

Her space offers something Milwaukee’s more formal institutions often can’t: privacy, acceptance, cultural understanding and spiritual agency.

“There’s magic here every day,” she said simply. “People feel that.”

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

How ‘Miss Angela’ became Milwaukee’s spiritual triage center is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Electric vehicles come with some obvious perks, from impressive acceleration and near-silent driving to charging costs that are typically, though not always, lower than fueling up with gas. But there’s a flipside when things go wrong. Battery replacement isn’t just expensive, it can easily eclipse the value of the car itself.

Just ask the owner of this 2013 Tesla Model S, for example, now staring down a quote that’s far from reasonable.

Watch: Tesla Model S Cruises Past 430,000 Miles On Original Battery

This particular owner recently visited a Tesla service center in Madison, Wisconsin, to get estimates on a battery replacement. According to a post they shared on Reddit, they inquired about swapping out the existing 60 kWh pack for either the same model or a larger 90 kWh version. Both options came back with steep price tags that likely outstrip the resale value of the vehicle.

Battery Pricing Hits Hard

A replacement 60 kWh pack would cost $13,830. That includes $580.50 for labor, based on a 2.58-hour installation time. The rest, a hefty $13,250, covers just the battery itself. Not exactly light on the wallet for what is now Tesla’s smallest available battery on offer.

The price jumps significantly for the larger 90 kWh pack. The pack alone costs $18,000, with an additional $4,500 required to unlock its full capacity. Factor in installation and necessary replacement parts, and the total comes to $23,262.

That’s well beyond what most used Model S vehicles from the same year are currently worth. We found they typically range from $10,000 to $15,000, depending on trim and condition. From a financial standpoint, the upgrade cost doesn’t pencil out.

Reddit u/sirromnek

Reddit user u/sirromnek shared the experience, sparking discussion among other Tesla owners. While many have logged hundreds of thousands of miles on their original packs without issue, battery degradation isn’t unheard of. For some, the only path forward is a costly replacement.

While going directly to Tesla is an option, new batteries can also be purchased from third-party suppliers, often at a much lower price than Tesla offers. However, given that decade-old Tesla Model S sedans are barely fetching over $12,000, buying a replacement pack probably isn’t worth it.

Time is quickly approaching for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to potentially launch a significant operation in Wisconsin, warns Darryl Morin, national president of Forward Latino. 

“Unless there is a significant change in priorities, there will be a large enforcement action in Wisconsin,” Morin said in an email to supporters Saturday night. 

Forward Latino is a national nonprofit advocacy organization based in Milwaukee that addresses community empowerment, democracy, civil rights and other issues such as hate crimes, gun violence and immigration. 

The organization is a host of the annual Emergency Gun Violence Summit in Milwaukee. 

Morin said there is general consensus at various levels of government that leads him to believe a wide-scale ICE operation is coming to the state. He’s urging residents and others to prepare for that possibility. 

“It is important that we do not cause panic, but encourage thoughtful planning and preparation,” he said. 

Morin shared a number of resources in his email, including family-planning “to-do lists”; constitutional rights cards; and information for employers if ICE comes to their workplace. The information is available in English and Spanish on the Forward Latino website. 

Protests in Minnesota

Morin’s warning comes as wide-scale protests continue in Minnesota over immigration enforcement operations there and the shooting death of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an ICE agent on Jan. 7. 

A surge of more than 2,000 federal officers in the Twin Cities has pitted city and state officials against the federal government, sparked daily clashes between activists and immigration officers and left Renee Good, a mother of three, dead.

President Donald Trump initially threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota in response to the protests, which would allow the deployment of active-duty military troops there. He backed off on that threat Friday.

Critics have accused Trump of abusing his power.

Residents prepare for ICE operations in Milwaukee

Drea Rodriguez, global program officer at WomenServe, which works for gender equity, said she’s received more requests than ever from residents to coordinate “know your rights” training in Milwaukee. 

“Trump has already proven he cares more about profit over people. We are an immigrant city,” Rodriguez said. “Soon we will be in his crosshairs again. No one is safe. Stay ready.” 

Rodriguez said that while the protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota and elsewhere are important, people should also limit business with companies that support Trump. 

South Side resident Juanita Lara said her intuition is to carry her birth certificate as a precaution in case she’s stopped by an ICE agent. 

Erika Wilson-Hale, who also lives on the South Side, said she believes parents should be careful about sending their undocumented children to school and that residents should take caution. 

“If ICE does come you better be prepared, you better be ready,” she said. “Be wary because your rights will be violated. We are in scary times.” 

Elected officials discuss possibility of ICE operations

State Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, wrote in a Facebook post Saturday, Jan. 17, that “it’s not a matter of if (ICE) comes, it’s when.”  

Clancy said Milwaukee doesn’t have a substantial plan to keep the community safe from ICE, but he and others do. 

“The plan is that the community keeps us safe, through Voces de la Frontera’s ICE hotline and Comité Sin Fronteras ‘community verifier‘ program, through legal observers, through legislation and through mass mobilization,” he said. 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said in a prior email to NNS that, although the county cannot legally impede or interfere with the actions of federal immigration agents, “we will do everything in our power to keep our communities safe, informed and prepared.”

Mayor Cavalier Johnson said during a news conference after the Good shooting that federal immigration enforcement poses a risk to public safety. 

“Occupying cities and targeting immigrant communities simply does not make our communities safer,” Johnson said.

Milwaukee Ald. Alex Brower is hosting a town hall on Feb. 2 to discuss ICE activities and operations in Milwaukee. That meeting will be held at The Vivarium, 1818 N. Farwell Ave., at 6:15 p.m. 

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, who is running for governor, said in a Jan. 12 statement that there had been credible reports of increased ICE activity in Wisconsin. She called on state and local officials to take immediate action to protect public safety and civil rights “by adopting strong protections and transparency standards governing federal immigration enforcement operating in Wisconsin.”

Resources for residents

Voces de la Frontera ICE Hotline: 1-800-427-0213

Forward Latino Toolkits in English and Spanish.

Previous Milwaukee NNS reporting on resources and answers to common questions concerning immigration enforcement and constitutional rights.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Immigrant advocates urge preparation for possible ICE surge in Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

In a small church off East Oklahoma Avenue, impassioned singing, steady drum beats and the smell of incense emanate from its front doors. 

Brothers Isiah and Avery Nahwahquaw co-founded RedNationBoyz, a powwow drum circle, in 2024. They host their practices at Lutheran Church of the Great Spirit, 3127 S. Howell Ave., during the Milwaukee Intertribal Circle’s crafting Wednesdays. All funding for the RedNationBoyz comes directly out of the Nahwahquaw brothers’ own pockets.

The Nahwahquaw brothers formed the group to connect Indigenous boys, ranging in age from 10 to 20, in Milwaukee to their roots.

The president of the Milwaukee Intertribal Circle, Deanna Porter, invited the Nahwahquaw brothers to join the group for Wednesday nights in their space at the church. The Milwaukee Intertribal Circle, or MIC, is a group dedicated to revitalizing the intertribal community of Milwaukee.

Porter, a member of the White Earth Nation Ojibwe Anishinaabe, remembers when the United Indians of Milwaukee was a central hub for the Native American community in Milwaukee. With the newly formed Milwaukee Intertribal Council, she hopes to emulate their impact. 

“We’re working to reproduce that, to be serving any Native person within the city of Milwaukee or surrounding area,” Porter said. “And it doesn’t matter your tribe, we will serve enrolled members and their descendants. We welcome anybody.”

The drum circle has expanded quickly from a few members to more than a dozen. The group is an intertribal drum circle, meaning anyone descended from any tribe can join. Members come from Ojibwe tribes, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and Oneida and Ho-Chunk nations. 

The RedNationBoyz have performed at several community events, including the Heart of Canal Street event at Potawatomi Casino Hotel.

The name “RedNationBoyz” comes from Avery and Isiah Nahwahquaw’s original drum group from their school days. When Isiah was 14, he was given a big drum from his mentor, and the brothers decided to form a drum circle with their friends. After finishing school, though, life got busy and the group stopped performing together.

Several years later, Isiah was offered a job at Indian Community School in Franklin where he worked as a youth drum instructor. Here, Isiah and his students connected. That relationship inspired him to bring back the name “RedNationBoyz” for this group.

“It was initially a job that turned to a bond and, you know, once you develop the bond, it’s hard to break,” he said. “And when I started being an instructor for these boys, I had to use the name again, because it was technically a family name to us, and we look at them as family.”

“So, that drum right there means a lot. That’s a spirit right there in that drum. It brings us all together, it brings a whole community together,” Avery Nahwahquaw says. 

By joining the drum circle, not only does a member get to learn about their Indigenous roots and play and sing traditional music, they also join a brotherhood. 

“I would describe the RedNationBoyz like family. These young men become like our nephews,” said Avery. “Not only is it singing, but it’s me finding out if you’re doing good in school, or if you got anything else you need help with in life outside of this drum circle.”

The Milwaukee Intertribal Circle hosts a crafting event on Wednesdays when members from the Native American community can come and be immersed in their culture.

The Nahwahquaw brothers spoke of the importance of creating a space where Indigenous boys could come together to be with people of their culture. 

“Our practices are one night a week where they can escape from wherever they’re from, whatever they’re going through, and they can find their culture in this urban area,” said Avery.

Ask the boys why they keep showing up each Wednesday, and the answers point to the deeper pull of the drum.

Jared Dashner notes that even his Native name, “Little Singing Boy,” ties him to the circle.

“I love singing. I love all these Wednesday nights with everybody, and getting these teachings from our mentor, Isiah.  I ain’t gonna never stop coming,” Ethan Shomin said. 

Their commitment underscores the role RedNationBoyz plays for Indigenous youth seeking connection and community.

“We don’t want it to end. We don’t want like five years from now, they’re like, ‘Hey, remember that one guy we used to sing with on Wednesday nights?’ No, we want this to be for life,” said Avery.

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

RedNationBoyz: Powwow drum circle inspires Indigenous youths in Milwaukee is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Youth motorsport riders of the Sliders Flat Track Racing Program have spent countless hours in recent months learning how to ride dirt and electric bikes and build motorcycles while gaining personal development. 

The Milwaukee youths are preparing for Flat Out Friday, an international motorcycle race that will take place at Fiserv Forum on Feb. 21. The race features over 300 riders of all skill levels.

The Sliders Flat Track Racing Program gives underrepresented youths in Milwaukee free access to electric and dirt bikes, and eventually motorcycles, while introducing them to science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, components. 

“Motorsports is not something that people of color typically participate in and sometimes we’re the only people of color there when we race,” said Venisha Simpson, founder of the Sliders Flat Track Racing Program.  

Lately, Simpson and co-founder Tiger Mabato have been coaching the riders inside the Boys & Girls Club and on a dirt road in Sheboygan County for Flat Out Friday.

“I love this sport because it’s intergenerational and you’ll find people between 4 to 84 racing on the same track,” Simpson said. “The respect level is low between the young and old in the Black community, so with this event and program we’re absorbing from each other.” 

A young engineer on the track

One of the riders in the program is Tiger Mabato’s 11-year-old son Noah. 

His interest in motorbikes started when he was 6 and he complained about the condition of a junkyard dirt bike his dad gifted him. 

By 7, his dad gave him the opportunity to take the dirt bike apart and rebuild it on his own. 

“Engineering and building things is fun to me, but I have to learn to do this on my own without any help,” Noah said. 

After rebuilding the dirt bike, he crashed into a tree, leaving him hesitant about the sport and even joining the program. 

Noah regained interest after seeing another kid from the program race on a dirt bike.

“I crash often when practicing and racing, but now I know what to do,” Noah said. 

Currently, Noah is building a Suzuki RM 85cc dirt bike for his third Flat Out Friday competition.

“This will become my official bike because my last bike was causing me to lose pretty badly,” he said. 

He placed ninth last year in the open youth class after falling and crashing his bike, but this year wants to come back stronger.

“It took me a while to get back up last year, but I’m more excited about trying it again,” he said.  

According to Tiger Mabato and Simpson, Noah Mabato and Donald Amartey are the only Black youth racers who ride vintage Harley-Davidson bikes in Milwaukee. 

“Noah and Donald are making history right now,” Tiger Mabato said.

Adjusting quickly

Justice Osei, 9, is a second-year rider in the Sliders Flat Track Racing Program. 

He started without knowing how to ride a regular bike but caught on quickly. 

“They taught him that day in just a couple hours how to ride one,” his mom, Malaika Osei, said. 

Justice wasn’t drawn into traditional sports or video gaming, but with motorsports found a connection to the people and skills he learned. 

“When I’m racing and sometimes make a mistake, I try to lock in and stay focused after it,” he said. 

Tiger Mabato is amazed to see kids like Justice latch onto the sport.

“These kids go through so many ups, downs and tears, it’s crazy how quickly they adapted to everything,” Mabato said. “This is a different level of excitement.”

Prioritizing safety

Before getting on a motorbike, every rider and parent is made aware of how dangerous the sport can be. 

“The hardest thing is seeing your kid crash and tumble at times, but we prepare them for that, and our biggest thing is safety,” Mabato said. 

To ensure safety, the program provides students with motorbikes, helmets, gloves, padding and vests. Parents are responsible for purchasing jeans, long-sleeve shirts and racing boots.

“It’s dangerous, but it’s fun,” Justice said.

Justice broke three toes during a practice from not wearing the proper racing boots. 

His mom saw him take a tumble that day on the dirt road.

“I took off running once I saw him crying and grabbing his foot,” Malaika Osei said. 

Justice didn’t even realize at first that his toes were broken. 

“I didn’t even know until a week later,” he said. 

After purchasing a new pair of boots, Justice was ready to ride again.

Building other skills

Motorsports is more than just racing and maintenance.

Flat Out Friday co-founder Jeremy Prach wants riders to know the sport is about developing skills that keep you improving. 

“I think the thing that hurts the most is your pride when you fall because many think they’re going to do awesome in a race,” Prach said. “But without a skill base, it’ll be hard to do awesome.”

At the Sliders Flat Track Racing Program, Simpson and Tiger Mabato teach the riders confidence, self-regulation, quick problem solving and self-respect. 

“These kids are tough and it takes a different type of mentality to race with these bikes,” Mabato said. 

Simpson and Mabato also teach the youth riders how to network and maintain relationships with people like Cameron Smith, one of the few professional Black racers in the country.

It takes a community

To ensure the program has everything it needs, places like Cream City Moto, STACYC, Southeast Sales, Proplate and other local organizations pitch in to donate equipment, design graphics, cover fees for events and more. 

The program also received grants from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and Comoto Cares. 

“The race community is very supportive and I love that,” Simpson said. 

Tiger Mabato encourages parents to get their children involved in things that spark their interest even if it’s scary and wants them to know that the race part of the program is optional.

“There’s no better feeling than seeing your kid go around the track,” he said. 

For more information

If you are interested in becoming a part of the program, click here to register and join the waitlist for spring.

To watch, support and cheer the youth riders on at Flat Out Friday, tickets start at $28. 

‘It’s dangerous, but it’s fun’: Program connects Milwaukee youth with motorsports and engineering is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

When teacher Amanda Glunz started a robotics team at Audubon Technology and Communication High School four years ago, there were just five members. 

Now, the program has grown to 32 students and two teams, including the newly formed all-girls team Av414nche. The newest team was designed to give girls an opportunity to break into science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM. 

“We went with Av414nche at first, because you know how avalanches fall down? It’s like breaking down the barriers,” Audubon junior Lily Sanders said. 

The team consists of builders, programmers and a marketing team.

The teams give students an outlet to build confidence and skills in STEM, receive mentorship and improve social skills, Glunz said.

Building the robot

Several steps go into turning a concept from paper into a moving and functioning robot, said Jorja, an eighth grader at Audubon and member of Av414nche. 

It all starts with a sketch. 

“Then we started to actively use Legos,” she said. “Eventually we switched from Legos to Onshape (a computer-aided design (CAD) software program), and then once we had the Onshape model down, we just decided to go from there.” 

After building the robot, the team uses trial and error to get it to function as best as possible. 

For the team’s upcoming qualifier competitions, robots need to shoot balls into a goal. Audubon students compete against other schools across the state in several robotics competitions.

Sanders is part of the team that helps to build the robot. For their most recent competition, she tested out different wheels for their robot to see which ones launched the balls best. 

“Really just figuring out what will work and what will not work,” Sanders said. “It’s really just a lot of trial and error.”

The robot is named Ava, which is short for Av414nche.

Jorja, a programmer on the team, works to make the robots move. 

“The robot does not know anything until we tell it,” she said. “It wouldn’t just do it by itself.” 

She said programmers first worked on the code that operates the wheels to make the robot move, then they code the wheel that makes the ball shoot.

Mentorship and higher education

When they aren’t working on the team’s social media, the marketing team looks for mentors who can introduce students to the fields of technology and engineering.

Most mentors are students from local universities including Milwaukee School of Engineering and Marquette University. The marketing team also has its own mentor who works in graphic design. 

Some students like Davin Dacio, an Audubon junior who takes a dual enrollment course at Milwaukee Area Technical College, get college-level programming experience that is used on Audubon’s co-ed robotics team, DreaMKEepers. 

Starting at a young age

Jaida Campbell, a junior on the marketing team, said they are trying to recruit younger students to the team. 

Middle and high school students at Audubon share a campus. Middle schoolers begin robotics at the school by participating in the FIRST LEGO League. League members work with coaches and teammates to build Lego-based robots for engineering competitions. 

Though Jorja is only in eighth grade, this is her first year on the high school robotics team. 

She started as a fifth grader in the FIRST LEGO League, and by the seventh grade, she and Glunz worked on a coding project in the Fiserv Future Techies program, where they made it to nationals. 

“It really inspired me, the fifth grade LEGO League,” Jorja said. “I love Legos and I was good with technology so I was like, OK, why not join my favorite things?”

Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Milwaukee high school’s robotics teams help students break down barriers and build skills — and confidence is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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

No.

The U.S. Postal Service adopted a rule effective Dec. 24 clarifying that some mail is not postmarked when it is first received – at a post office, for example – but rather on a later date, during processing.

The rule doesn’t change practices, but instead is “intended to improve public understanding of postmarks and their relationship to the date of mailing.”

Postmarking can affect whether local officials accept election ballots.

Fourteen states, including Illinois, accept a mailed ballot if it is received after Election Day, as long as it is postmarked on or before Election Day.

Thirty-six states, including Wisconsin, require absentee ballots, including those cast by mail, to be received by the local election office by Election Day. They aren’t affected by the rule change.

Manual postmarks can be requested at post offices.

The postal service has been reducing operations, increasing postmarking delays, the Brookings think tank reported.

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

Sources

• Federal Register: Postmarks and Postal Possession
• National Conference of State Legislatures: Receipt and Postmark Deadlines for Absentee/Mail Ballots
• Brookings: When a postmark no longer tracks mailing
• Wisconsin Elections Commission: Vote Absentee By Mail
• Washington Post: Thousands of mail-in ballots could be discounted under new post office policy
• San Francisco Chronicle: USPS quietly changes how postmarks work — and it could affect mail-in ballots

Does the US Postal Service always postmark an election ballot on the day it is mailed? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Local experts say – and national data supports – that winter brings a broad set of safety risks, including risks that disproportionately affect older adults and young children.

Dangers include hypothermia and frostbite, falls inside and outside the home and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Here are more details about those dangers and how to prevent or minimize them.

Slips and falls

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reports that falls are one of the most common reasons for emergency medical service responses statewide.

In 2024, emergency medical personnel in Wisconsin responded to more than 140,000 fall-related calls, accounting for about 21% of all 911-related ambulance runs statewide, according to DHS data.

Older adults are disproportionately affected.

According to the National Institute on Aging, older adults face a higher risk of falling due to chronic medical conditions that can limit circulation, balance or mobility, including arthritis, Parkinson’s disease and diabetes. 

Children also face a higher risk of falls, which are the leading cause of nonfatal injuries for all children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The Milwaukee Health Department urges residents to prepare for icy conditions as temperatures fall and to clear snow and ice from walkways to help prevent falls. 

The National Institute on Aging recommends using ice melt products or sand on walkways, using railings on stairs and walkways, avoiding shoveling snow yourself when possible and wearing rubber-soled, low-heeled footwear.

Christine Westrich, emergency response planning director for the Milwaukee Health Department, said social isolation adds another layer of risk for older adults.

“Either their friends or relatives have passed away, and they have over time socially isolated themselves,” Westrich said. 

The onset of hearing loss and dementia are risk factors for increased isolation, she added. 

Hypothermia and frostbite

Age can affect how the body handles cold exposure.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , older adults with inadequate clothing, heating or food and babies in cold conditions are among the groups at highest risk of hypothermia. 

This winter, there have already been roughly 10 fatalities where cold temperatures may have played a factor, said Michael Simley, a medicolegal death investigator manager for the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Extreme temperatures can also worsen existing medical emergencies, Simley added.  

A heart attack, for example, is serious under any circumstances, he said. But, he added, it becomes even more dangerous when it happens in a hostile environment like when it is very cold. 

Carbon monoxide poisoning

With colder temperatures comes increased use of furnaces and other heating systems – and with that, a higher risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Increased use of appliances and other items that burn fuels and other chemicals, such as furnaces, portable generators, stoves and chimneys, helps account for the higher risk, according to the CDC.

Carbon monoxide is odorless and invisible, and symptoms such as headache, dizziness and nausea may be overlooked or mistaken for other illnesses. 

“We’ve recently had two outbreaks with families of four (members) or greater,” Westrich said. “In one case, they didn’t have working heat and brought a charcoal grill inside. … In another, it was a malfunctioning furnace.”

In both situations, she said, there were no working carbon monoxide detectors.

DHS says carbon monoxide detectors should be installed on every level of the home. 

Renters should be especially vigilant, Westrich said.

“Oftentimes, what might get overlooked in the lease, it’ll say the renter is responsible for the battery replacement in those devices,” she said. “Sometimes tenants aren’t aware of that, or it’s hanging high in the ceiling – you forget it’s even there.”

Resources

The Milwaukee Health Department maintains cold weather guidance with general information and tips. 

For non-emergencies that are not crimes, the Milwaukee Police Department says residents have a number of options, a spokesperson for the department said in an email. 

Residents can request a welfare check by calling 414-933-4444. 

People seeking shelter, warming centers or other basic needs can call 211. 

Those experiencing emotional distress or mental health struggles can call or text 988, the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. 

Westrich and Simley both emphasized the same core message about being mindful of the people in your community.

“Check on your neighbors,” Westrich said. 

As temperatures drop, here is where you can find shelter from the cold and free winter gear

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Winter can be dangerous for older adults and children. Here’s how to stay safe is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Social Development Commission spent 2025 trying to restore services and funding in the face of legal challenges, board friction and government audits and reviews.

Commonly known as the SDC, the organization has a long history of providing services for low-income residents in Milwaukee County, including tax help, job training and rental assistance.   

Since it stopped running its programs in April 2024, SDC has been trying to create a path to resume its anti-poverty work. 

Here are some of this year’s major stories on the SDC. 

March/April

State holds public hearing   

In March, the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families scheduled a public hearing on SDC’s status as a community action agency. 

The community action agency designation allows SDC to receive a federal block grant to support its anti-poverty work. 

Jorge Franco, interim CEO and chair of the SDC board, said at the board’s next meeting he felt the department had not been transparent with SDC about its concerns on SDC’s ability to restart services and meet other requirements while they had been meeting and providing documents over past months. 

In early April, the Department of Children and Families held a hearing in Milwaukee on SDC’s community action status to get public comments from members of the community, who spoke in favor of SDC. 

May/June

State files wage claims lawsuit 

The Wisconsin Department of Justice, on behalf of the Department of Workforce Development, filed a lawsuit in May that alleges the SDC failed to pay $360,000 in wages and benefits owed to former employees, according to court records. 

William Sulton, SDC’s attorney at the time, acknowledged SDC owes workers wages, but said the lawsuit would not be the most effective way to get them paid. 

Franco has said SDC is committed to repaying employees for wages and benefits. 

State’s community action decision held for review

After reviewing materials from the public hearing, Secretary Jeff Pertl of the Department of Children and Families decided in May that it would remove SDC’s community action status in July.

However, SDC leaders said they had concerns that the state did not follow the proper decision process, so they requested a review from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in June. 

The department agreed to take up the review, which suspended the state’s decision. 

September 

Weatherization vendors win lawsuit 

Three vendors filed a money judgment lawsuit against SDC in an effort to collect reimbursements for weatherization work completed for the agency. In September, a judge granted a total judgment of $186,500 plus statutory costs and accrued interest. 

October 

Credit facility proposed

The SDC board received a letter of intent from Wings Credit Union indicating it is interested in providing the SDC with a credit facility, or a type of loan, of up to $15 million. In SDC’s case, the credit facility would be used to cover upfront expenses for government-funded programs that are paid through reimbursements. 

Foreclosure decision 

In March, Forward Community Investments Inc. filed a foreclosure lawsuit against SD Properties Inc., which owns SDC’s buildings, alleging it defaulted on mortgage payments for the main office and warehouse buildings on North Avenue. 

At an October hearing, a judge ordered a judgment of foreclosure against the North Avenue buildings and ruled that Forward Community Investments was entitled to a money judgment of approximately $3.1 million. 

SDC moved out of the buildings and started a three-month redemption period.

Sulton resigns

Sulton, SDC’s attorney and legal counsel since late 2022, resigned from his volunteer position in mid-October. 

Sulton represented SDC in lawsuits, served as a spokesperson and advised the board.

November 

Board members make failed attempt to remove Franco  

Some members of the board attempted to call an emergency meeting to vote on removing Franco as the board chair and interim CEO, but they ultimately did not vote on anything because of a disagreement on meeting procedure. Franco opposed the meeting and called it “out of order.” 

State releases community action decision

The Department of Children and Families notified SDC on Nov. 21 that it believes the federal review period ended as of Nov. 18 and would be moving forward with removing SDC’s community action status. It selected UMOS to be an interim provider of block grant-funded services. 

SDC commissioners raised questions about the timeline of the federal review at a board planning session in November. 

December 

Federal office releases letter

The director of a division in the federal Office of Community Services found that the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families’ process of removing SDC’s community action status was compliant with federal law, according to a letter it sent to the department on Dec. 5. 

SDC is seeking further clarity from senior leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services, Franco said in a statement.  

What happens next  

Building sale or foreclosure auction  

The three-month redemption period for the North Avenue buildings expires on Jan. 6, according to SDC, although they technically can be redeemed up until there is a hearing to confirm the sale of the properties at auction. 

Ongoing legal cases

Lawsuits filed against SDC from TriShulla, an information technology company, and the Department of Workforce Development are still ongoing. 

Meredith Melland is the neighborhoods reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

A year of challenges for Milwaukee’s Social Development Commission is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.