The Covering Wisconsin webpage. The nonprofit, housed at the University of Wisconsin Extension, is a navigator agency to help people understand their options when buying health insurance through the HealthCare.gov marketplace. (Screenshot)
About 4,000 fewer people in Wisconsin signed up at the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace in November for a health plan for next year than did in November 2024 for coverage this year, recently released numbers from the federal government show.
It’s too soon to tell for sure whether that will forecast a significant drop in health coverage through the marketplace, according to William Parke-Sutherland of the Wisconsin family policy research and advocacy group Kids Forward.
Parke-Sutherland and others who pay close attention to health care access in Wisconsin are watching those numbers closely, however.
Monday, Dec. 15, marks a critical deadline — the last day that people who purchase a health plan through the marketplace can sign up for coverage that starts Jan. 1, 2026.
The Healthcare.gov marketplace was created as part of the Affordable Care Act. Enacted in 2010 to drive down the ranks of Americans without access to health care, the ACA established the marketplace to make it easier and cheaper for people without coverage from an employer or through government programs such as Medicaid to buy health insurance.
Enhanced tax credit subsidies first enacted in 2021 on health plans sold through the marketplace have helped boost enrollment to new records over the last four years nationally and in Wisconsin. More than 300,000 state residents received their health coverage for 2025 through the marketplace.
Those enhanced subsidies expire at the end of this year, however, leading to forecasts that enrollment will decline in 2026 as the cost of insurance climbs.
“Many Wisconsinites will see their premiums double, and some will see staggering increases of over $30,000 a year,” Gov. Tony Evers said Wednesday during a press call with the ACA advocacy groups Protect Our Care and Main Street Alliance. “That’s ridiculous and unattainable for many.”
The event was held both to alert people about Monday’s open enrollment deadline and to urge voters to lobby Congress to extend the subsidies.
“Each year, the Affordable Care Act and open enrollment has ensured hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites having life-saving health care coverage,” Evers said. “These tax credits are not luxuries — they are lifelines that make the difference between kids and families and communities getting care or going without it.”
This year, 88% of Wisconsin residents who enrolled at HealthCare.gov qualified for the enhanced subsidies and saved $644 a month on average, Evers said.
Thad Schumacher, a Fitchburg pharmacist who also joined the call, said losing coverage would lead people to forgo “their primary care visits, their medications, for chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, and preventative care that keeps people healthy.”
Early numbers send mixed signals
The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid reported that from Nov. 1 to 29 this year, 84,398 Wisconsinites enrolled in coverage through the marketplace. From Nov. 1 to Nov. 30, 2024, Dairy State enrollment totaled 88,189, according to CMS.
Nationally numbers are up, however — 5.76 million in November this year, compared with 5.36 million in November last year, according to CMS.
While Wisconsin’s decrease of less than 4,000 people signing up may look small, “It’s just hard to know what this means,” Parke-Sutherland told the Wisconsin Examiner.
In the years going back to 2022, the first month of open enrollment saw anywhere from 29% to 42% of that year’s total HealthCare.gov sign-ups, he said.
At Covering Wisconsin — a federally licensed navigator that helps guide people through the process of enrolling in HealthCare.gov plans — the volume of November calls and contacts through the navigator’s web-based chat portal have been about even with the same month last year, said Allison Espeseth, the Covering Wisconsin director.
In 2024, however, there was “a pretty big spike” in contacts in the first two weeks of December leading up to the Dec. 15 deadline for coverage to start Jan. 1.
“This year, we are definitely continuing to have people call us, but we haven’t seen that spike,” Espeseth said.
She offered several possible reasons for that. Some people may have seen higher premiums for their plans and decided to go without. Others may think that there won’t be any subsidies, despite the fact that smaller subsidies that were part of HealthCare.gov plans from the beginning remain in place.
And some have wondered whether they should hold off on signing up in case Congress does reach a deal and extend the subsidies, Espeseth noted.
“We’ve been encouraging people to please sign up regardless,” Espeseth said. “Don’t wait.”
Over the past year, RENEW has expanded its capacity to identify and respond to local barriers to distributed renewable energy (rooftop solar as an example), with a particular focus on identifying and addressing county and town drafting of restrictive local ordinances. RENEW has developed a framework for tracking county and town activity and coordinating with installers and developers on submitting comments to local board meetings. RENEW continues to communicate with county and town boards, when necessary, to advise on policy and legal implications of overly restrictive local regulations on distributed energy resources.
As part of implementing this strategy, RENEW communicated directly with Jefferson County regarding their 2025 Solar Energy Systems Ordinance Draft, providing a detailed legal analysis of how key provisions conflicted with state law and Court of Appeals precedent. RENEW’s analysis resulted in the redrafting of the proposed ordinance. When the ordinance was presented to the County Board of Supervisors, RENEW called for comments from RENEW members and impacted installers and developers. The strategy resulted in the Jefferson County Board returning the proposed ordinance to the zoning committee for further review, to reduce restrictions on solar energy systems.
The experience has helped RENEW identify potential litigation and policy strategies to empower our advocacy for balanced local rules that do not unduly restrict renewable energy production. RENEW is communicating and coordinating with other stakeholders to lay the groundwork for future model ordinance work and to support potential litigation that can clarify local authority on regulating renewable energy siting and production.
In parallel, RENEW has supported homeowners facing Home Owner Association (HOA) barriers to rooftop solar. RENEW worked with two homeowners and prepared a legal advisory letter to the Theofila Estates HOA explaining the limited authority of HOAs under state law, demonstrating how the HOA’s rejection of south-facing solar installations based on aesthetic rules would significantly increase costs, reduce system efficiency, and disqualify projects from Wisconsin’s Focus on Energy rebate, and therefore constitute an unlawful restriction on solar.
Together, this local and HOA focused work is helping RENEW build a practical toolkit that RENEW can deploy statewide to defend solar rights and promote uniform, lawful treatment of distributed renewable energy.
A new vision for passenger rail is on track in southeastern Wisconsin. The MARK Rail project — short for Milwaukee Area-Racine-Kenosha Passenger Rail — has officially launched, replacing the long-discussed KRM commuter rail proposal with a faster, more focused intercity rail plan connecting Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha and Chicago.
The MARK Passenger Rail Commission held its inaugural meeting on Dec. 5, 2025, at Racine City Hall, where members adopted bylaws, elected officers and approved the next step in seeking federal funding. This marks a fairly significant milestone in a decades-long effort to restore passenger rail to the Lake Michigan shoreline.
“We believe this is a really transformative option for this region,” one project consultant said during the meeting. “It connects Racine, Kenosha and Milwaukee to a world-class economic region and cultural center to jobs, education, redevelopment and attracting new businesses.”
New name, new approach
This is not just a rebranding of the KRM proposal. Instead, MARK Rail is a strategic shift from a commuter model to intercity passenger rail, in line with new federal funding opportunities.
Unlike KRM, which envisioned multiple local stops, MARK Rail will prioritize speed and direct service between urban hubs. This change not only improves travel time but also positions the project for funding through the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program, which supports intercity rail.
Federal funding pathway chosen
After reviewing options, the commission chose to pursue funding through the FRA’s Corridor ID program, rather than the Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts program, which had been used in past KRM planning. The Corridor ID program offers a higher federal match, more technical support and a phased development structure.
“The Corridor ID program has a lower local match and allows us to build capacity over time,” said Wendy Messenger of DB Engineering & Consulting. “It’s a better fit for this project and gives us more flexibility with service design and coordination.”
According to documents shared at the meeting, the federal share under the FRA program can reach 90% during early phases, compared to 60% under FTA’s New Starts.
The newly formed MARK Passenger Rail Commission replaces earlier planning bodies such as the Southeastern Regional Transit Authority and the KRM Steering Committee. Its structure and purpose are outlined in the proposed bylaws, which were adopted at the Dec. 5 meeting.
“The purpose of the Commission is to advance the public interest by pursuing the development, implementation, and provision of passenger rail service,” the bylaws state.
The commission is governed by representatives from the cities of Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha, with Racine Mayor Cory Mason as chair, former Revenue Secretary Peter Barca as vice chair, and Milwaukee Ald. Bob Bauman as secretary/treasurer. Each seat will be elected annually.
The bylaws allow for both regular and special meetings and permit in-person, virtual or hybrid formats to improve public access.
Partnership with Metra moves forward
Since the proposed rail line would share the Union Pacific corridor currently used by Metra’s UP-North line, coordination with Metra is essential. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the MARK Commission and Metra was introduced at the meeting, laying the groundwork for collaboration on scheduling, fares, equipment and infrastructure planning.
“Metra and the MARK Commission will work together to develop the Operations Plan that is mutually agreeable,” the MOU states. It also specifies that Metra’s support beyond standard duties may require a reimbursement agreement.
The MOU confirms that Metra will not be the operator, but will be a key stakeholder because of its current presence along the corridor and its expertise in rail operations.
Next steps and timeline
The commission voted to authorize preparation of an application for the next Corridor ID grant cycle, expected in early 2026. If selected, the project would then move into the Service Development Plan phase, followed by preliminary engineering, environmental review and, eventually, construction.
“We’re already doing a lot of the work now,” said Clayton Johanson of DB. “There will need to be refinements, but we’re in a really great position to continue to advance.”
The full timeline could stretch over several years, with local match funding becoming necessary starting in Step 2 of the Corridor ID process. Officials have discussed using remaining funds from Racine’s federal planning grant to help meet those needs.
A regional vision focused on cities
One strategic decision behind the project’s current direction is its urban focus. By centering the effort in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha, the commission is avoiding the jurisdictional and political complications that kept KRM from becoming a reality.
This includes sidestepping debates over governance authority — particularly since regional transit authorities are no longer permitted under Wisconsin law. The MARK Commission, on the other hand, is legal under state statutes and modeled after similar rail commissions elsewhere in Wisconsin.
This story was originally published by Racine County Eye and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
State funding of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has been reduced by more than $100 million per biennium in the past 30 years.
A key factor: smaller debt payments.
DNR received $334.3 million in state general purpose revenue in the 1995-97 state budget and $226.2 million in 2025-27.
That’s a reduction of $108.1 million, or 32%.
Between the two periods, debt service dropped from $234.7 million to $103.4 million.
A Wisconsin Reddit user posted Nov. 22 about the cuts.
A 2023 report on DNR by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum said those savings have been used to fund Medicaid, K-12 schools, prisons and tax cuts. Republicans have controlled all or part of the state budget process for all but one cycle since 1995.
The DNR is charged with protecting and enhancing air, land, water, forests, wildlife, fish and plants and provides outdoor recreational activities.
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Christine Neumann Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, speaks at a press conference on the Wisconsin Supreme Court case challenging the legality of Wisconsin law enforcement agencies' cooperation agreements with ICE | Photo via Voces de la Frontera Facebook video
In Wisconsin we have been watching in horror as President Donald Trump’s lawless immigration crackdown terrorizes communities in our neighboring states of Minnesota and Illinois.
Here at home, so far, things are mostly quiet. Farmers in western Wisconsin report no ICE raids on the dairies where 60% to 90% of workers are immigrants without legal status. There have been a few high-profile arrests and deportations in Milwaukee, Madison and Manitowoc, but nothing like the scenes of chaos in the streets of Chicago and Minneapolis, where masked federal agents are aiming guns at civilians, smashing out car windows and dragging parents from their children, hustling them off to detention centers to be fast-tracked out of the country without due process.
One of the most disturbing things about this campaign of terror is that it seems to be directed by the president’s whim. In a Thanksgiving post full of invective and schoolyard insults directed at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, Trump denounced the Somali community he claimed was “completely taking over the great State of Minnesota.” One week later, CBS News confirmed that ICE operations were underway targeting Somali immigrants in the Twin Cities.
Since we can’t count on the federal government to stay inside the bounds of reason or the law, it is critical that local and state leaders stand up to the racist, unconstitutional and unAmerican assault on immigrants.
It was good news when, on Wednesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court accepted a case filed by the state chapter of the ACLU on behalf of the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, contending that Wisconsin law enforcement agencies do not have the authority to make arrests or keep people in jail on detainers based solely on ICE’s administrative warrants.
Tim Muth, the ACLU of Wisconsin’s senior staff attorney, said hundreds of people throughout the state are being illegally held for days.
“It is extremely important for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to determine whether any law enforcement in Wisconsin has the legal authority to put or keep people in jail when they have not committed a crime and when no judge has issued an arrest warrant,” Wisconsin immigration attorney Grant Sovern wrote in an email to the Examiner. “Anyone in Wisconsin would want dangerous people to be kept from the public. But ICE is currently making no determinations about dangerousness or the likelihood to show up for a hearing if a summons is issued. A summons is a perfectly rational and legal way to address a civil legal question like someone’s immigration status. Jailing people before any independent adjudicator determines someone to be dangerous is against the Constitution and not the Wisconsin way.”
At a press conference Wednesday, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces, told the story of a landscaper in Green Bay who was picked up for driving without a license (immigrants without legal status are barred by a 2007 state law from obtaining driver’s licenses). He was sent to county jail and then handed over to ICE. “He was a grandfather, very active in his church,” Neumann-Ortiz said, describing him as “someone who does not represent any kind of threat to society at all” and who, on the contrary, is a pillar of his community and beloved by his family.
Voces helped fight the deportation in a case that is still working its way through the courts. “At least he’s out and together with his family,” Neumann-Ortiz said. “But that’s an example of how people can be impacted by this.”
As it scrambles to meet arbitrary deportation quotas, ICE sends detainers even for people who have never been convicted of a crime and have only minor charges pending in Wisconsin courts.
Voces has been fighting at the local level since the first Trump administration for local law enforcement to refuse to collaborate with ICE unless there is a judicial warrant for someone, meaning that person is being sought in connection with a serious crime. As a result of Voces’ efforts, that is now the standard in Milwaukee County. The state Supreme Court case is an effort to establish the same standard statewide.
Neumann-Ortiz said she’s grateful the Supreme Court justices recognized the urgency of the issue in agreeing to take the case on an expedited basis, “given the current level of abuse that we’re seeing happen, and which will only escalate.”
And, she added, “We certainly very much anticipate Milwaukee being one of the cities that will be targeted for militarized occupation with these aggressive sweeps.”
Whether or not Wisconsin communities can protect people from the kind of violence we’ve been seeing in other states depends on the courageous actions of state and local officials, advocates and informed community members. It begins with recognizing that the Trump administration’s actions are wrong and then standing up.
At the press conference, a reporter asked about ICE’s assertion that the agency doesn’t have room for everyone in its detention facilities and therefore needs space in county jails. Muth responded: “Detain fewer people.”
Neumann-Ortiz added some clarifying context. “They are profiling people, they are just grabbing people without any probable cause. So it’s a very racist program that is using violence against people and is trying to hijack, through bribery and through threats, local law enforcement to be part of this mass deportation machinery,” she said.
“We’re seeing, at the local level, community come together,” she added, “to reject these efforts to undermine local law enforcement — which is supposed to play a public safety role — into just this arm of deportation driven by xenophobia and racism. And which is making a lot of money for the for-profit prison industry.”
This year, communities across the state have pushed back on 287g partnership agreements between local law enforcement and ICE that turn sheriff’s departments into an arm of the federal immigration agency. Palmyra, Ozaukee and Kenosha counties rejected ICE’s offers of money to transform their sheriffs into agents of federal immigration enforcement.
The Kenosha sheriff’s office made its decision not to participate after the ACLU and Voces had already named it in the Supreme Court lawsuit, along with Walworth, Brown, Sauk and Marathon counties. Palmyra also reversed a decision to accept a large payment from ICE to participate, responding to public outrage.
“Resistance is happening, it’s successful, it’s building community,” Neumann-Ortiz said. “But we do need state protections to uphold our rights.”
The state of Wisconsin generally cannot consider U.S. citizenship or national origin in hiring for state jobs.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany of northern Wisconsin, who is running for governor in 2026, said Nov. 17 he would ensure state jobs “go to Americans.”
His congressional and campaign offices did not respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that statescannot restrict public employment to citizens.
Both public and private employers are generally barred by federal law from treating people differently based on national origin or ethnicity.
Wisconsinlaws prohibit discrimination by public or private employers based on national origin or ancestry.
The state’s hiring handbook says the state can hire only people legally in the U.S., but “shall not refuse to hire aliens based on their foreign appearance, accent, language, name, national origin, citizenship, or intended U.S. citizenship.”
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Rick Springfield is joined by Wang Chung and John Waite in a concert featuring some of the biggest hits of the 1980s; some songs include “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” “Missing […]
The shore of Lake Superior near Ashland. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
A rule to protect Wisconsin’s cleanest waterways from being harmed was finalized last week over the objections of Republican legislators and allied lobbying groups.
The rule highlights the ongoing dispute between the Legislature and the administration of Gov. Tony Evers over the level of oversight legislators are allowed to have over the administrative rulemaking process. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court issued a ruling that curtailed the ability of the Legislature to kill administrative rules.
The new rule, which was published in the state’s administrative register Nov. 24 and is set to go into effect July 1, is the result of a decade of wrangling.
In 2015, the U.S. EPA updated the Clean Water Act’s antidegradation regulations — which guide how states are required to protect high quality lakes and rivers from pollution.
Dozens of creeks, rivers and lakes are classified as outstanding resource waters and exceptional resource waters under Wisconsin’s administrative code and will be protected as “high quality waters” under the new rule. Additionally, a body of water can be considered a high quality water if it has contaminant levels that are better than an established statewide standard.
“This means that a waterbody can be high quality for one or more parameters, even if it is impaired for a different parameter,” Laura Dietrich, manager of the Department of Natural Resources’ water evaluation section, said in an email. “For example, a waterbody may be impaired for phosphorus, but chloride levels are better than the chloride water quality criterion. The waterbody would be considered high quality for the purposes of considering new or increased discharges of chloride, but would not be high quality for phosphorus.”
Under the new rule, the DNR will be required to conduct a review before regulated entities are allowed to discharge new or increased levels of contaminants into the water body. Discharges may be allowed if found to be necessary through a “social or economic analysis.”
The rule’s finalization is the end of a process that began in 2023 and has included multiple public hearings and the input of several legislative committees.
Last month, the Assembly committee on the environment voted 4-2 to request modifications to the rule, but the DNR and the Evers administration moved forward with finalizing the rule anyway.
That action has angered Republicans who want more say in the process.
“Representative government has been taken away and we now have rule by king,” Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) said in a statement. “We don’t want a king and the current path forward is dangerous.”
Lobbying groups have also complained about the rule’s finalization.
Scott Manley, a lobbyist for Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business group, told Wisconsin Public Radio that the rule going into effect is “terrible from a representative government standpoint.”
Erik Kanter, government relations director with Clean Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner that he thinks the rule represents the DNR finding a solid compromise between environmental and business concerns and that WMC was involved in the entire process through an advisory committee.
“DNR engaged the stakeholder group regularly over the 30-month process it took to put the rule together at the DNR, and so WMC, along the way, had all the opportunity, and certainly took the opportunity, to make their thoughts [known] on how to put this rule together,” Kanter said. “It almost feels like it was never going to be enough for WMC.”
Kanter also said that because the rule aligns the state with the EPA regulations, the state doesn’t have a choice if it wants to retain regulatory authority over its own water.
“Wisconsin has to do this. We have to update our own rules to comply with federal changes to the Clean Water Act,” he said. “There’s no two ways about it if we want to maintain our delegation authority and have state regulators in charge of administering the Clean Water Act. It’s something we have to do.”
The alternative would be for the federal EPA to administer the act in Wisconsin, he said.
“I think a lot of folks in the business community wouldn’t want EPA and the federal government breathing down their neck,” Kanter said. “And so this delegated authority situation is, I think, better for everybody.”
On a dry, rocky patch of his family’s farm in Door County, Wisconsin, Dave Klevesahl grows wildflowers. But he has a vision for how to squeeze more value out of the plot: lease it to a company that wants to build a community solar array.
Unfortunately for Klevesahl, that is unlikely to happen under current state law. In Wisconsin, only utilities are allowed to develop such shared solar installations, which let households and businesses that can’t put panels on their own property access renewable energy via subscriptions.
Farmers, solar advocates and legislators from both parties are trying to remove these restrictions through Senate Bill 559, which would allow the limited development of community solar by entities other than utilities.
Wisconsin lawmakers considered similar proposals in the 2021-22 and 2023-24 legislative sessions, with support from trade groups representing real estate agents, farmers, grocers, and retailers. But those bipartisan efforts failed in the face of opposition from the state’s powerful utilities and labor unions.
Community solar supporters are hoping for a different outcome this legislative session, which ends in March. But while the new bill, introduced Oct. 24, includes changes meant to placate utilities, the companies still firmly oppose it.
“I don’t really understand why anybody wouldn’t want community solar,” said Klevesahl, whose wife’s family has been farming their land for generations. In addition to leasing his land for an installation, he would like to subscribe to community solar, which typically saves participants money on their energy bills.
Some Wisconsin utilities do offer their own community solar programs. But they are too small to meet the demand for community solar, advocates say.
Utilities push back on shared solar
Around 20 states and Washington, D.C., have community solar programs that allow non-utility ownership of arrays. The majority of those states, including Wisconsin’s neighbor Illinois, have deregulated energy markets, in which the utilities that distribute electricity do not generate it.
In states with “vertically integrated” energy markets, like Wisconsin, utilities serve as regulated monopolies, both generating and distributing power. That means legislation is necessary to specify that other companies are also allowed to generate and sell power from community solar. Some vertically integrated states, including Minnesota, have passed such laws.
The Wisconsin utilities We Energies and Madison Gas and Electric, according to their spokespeople, are concerned that customers who don’t subscribe to community solar will end up subsidizing costs for those who do. The utilities argue that because community solar subscribers have lower energy bills, they contribute less money for grid maintenance and construction, meaning that other customers must pay more to make up the difference. Clean-energy advocates, for their part, say this “cost shift” argument ignores research showing that the systemwide benefits of distributed energy like community solar can outweigh the expense.
The Wisconsin bill would also require utilities to buy power from community solar arrays that don’t have enough subscribers.
“This bill is being marketed as a ‘fair’ solution to advance renewables. It’s the opposite,” said We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway. “It would force our customers to pay higher electricity costs by having them subsidize developers who want profit from a no-risk solar project. Under this bill, the developers avoid any risk. The costs of their projects will shift to and be paid for by all of our ‘non-subscribing’ customers.”
The power generated by community solar ultimately goes onto the utility’s grid, reducing the amount of electricity the utility needs to provide. But Conway said it’s not the most efficient way to meet overall demand.
“These projects would not be something we would plan for or need, so our customers would be paying for unneeded energy that benefits a very few,” he said. “Also, these credits are guaranteed by our other customers even if solar costs drop or grid needs change.”
Advocates in Wisconsin hope they can address such concerns and convince utilities to support community solar owned by third parties.
Beata Wierzba, government affairs director of the clean-power advocacy organization Renew Wisconsin, said her group and others “had an opportunity to talk with the utilities over the course of several months, trying to negotiate some language they could live with.”
“There were some exchanges where utilities gave us a dozen things that were problematic for them, and the coalition addressed them by making changes to the draft” of the bill, Wierzba said.
The spokespeople for We Energies and Madison Gas and Electric did not respond to questions about such conversations.
A small-scale start
To assuage utilities’ concerns, the bill allows third-party companies to build community solar only for the next decade. The legislation also sets a statewide cap for community solar of 1.75 gigawatts, with limits for each of the five major investor-owned utilities’ territories proportionate to each utility’s total number of customers.
Community solar arrays would be limited to 5 megawatts, with exceptions for rooftops, brownfields and other industrial sites, where 20 megawatts can be built.
No subscriber would be allowed to buy more than 40% of the output from a single community solar array, and 60% of the subscriptions must be for 40 kilowatts of capacity or less, the bill says. This is meant to prevent one large customer — like a big-box store or factory — from buying the majority of the power and excluding others from taking advantage of the limited community solar capacity.
Customers who subscribe to community solar would still have to pay at least $20 a month to their utility for service. The bill also contains what Wierzba called an “off-ramp”: After four years, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin would study how the program is working and submit a report to the Legislature, which could pass a new law to address any problems.
“The bill is almost like a small pilot project — it’s not like you’re opening the door and letting everyone come in,” said Wierzba. “You have a limit on how it can function, how many people can sign up.”
Broad support for community solar
In Wisconsin, as in other states, developers hoping to build utility-scale solar farms on agricultural land face serious pushback. The Trump administration canceled federal incentives for solar arrays on farms this summer, with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announcing, “USDA will no longer fund taxpayer dollars for solar panels on productive farmland.”
But Wisconsin farmers have argued that community solar can actually help keep agricultural land in production by providing an extra source of revenue. The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation has yet to weigh in on this year’s bill, but it supported previously proposed community solar legislation.
The bill calls for state regulators to come up with rules for community solar developers that would likely require dual use — meaning that crops or pollinator habitats are planted under and around the panels or that animals graze on the land. These increasingly common practices are known as agrivoltaics.
The bill would let local zoning bodies — rather than the state’s Public Service Commission — decide whether to permit a community solar installation.
Utility-scale solar farms, by contrast, are permitted at the state level, which can leave “locals feeling like they are not in control of their future,” said Matt Hargarten, vice president of government and public affairs for the Coalition for Community Solar Access. “This offers an alternative that is really welcome. If a town doesn’t want this to be there, it won’t be there.”
A 5-megawatt array typically covers 20 to 30 acres of land, whereas utility-scale solar farms are often hundreds of megawatts and span thousands of acres.
“You don’t need to upgrade the transmission systems with these small solar farms because a 30-acre solar farm can backfeed into a substation that’s already there,” noted Klevesahl, a retired electrical engineer. “And then you’re using the power locally, and it’s clean power. Bottom line is, I just think it’s the right thing to do.”
A version of this article was first published by Canary Media.
State regulators approved rate hikes for three of Wisconsin’s largest electric utilities in 2026 and 2027, with two of the companies reaching settlements with advocacy groups to moderate the increases.
The Waukesha County Sheriff Department. An audit of the department's use of data from the Flock surveillance camera system shows inconsistent reporting the reasons on the reasons investigators access the information, a problem common among police agencies. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Like other Wisconsin law enforcement agencies, the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department (WCSD) uses Flock cameras for many reasons, though department personnel don’t always clearly document what those reasons are. Audit data reveals that staff most frequently entered “investigation” in order to access Flock’s network, while other documented uses are raising concerns among privacy advocates.
Flock cameras perpetually photograph and, using AI-powered license plate reader technology, identify vehicles traversing roadways. Flock’s system can be used to view a vehicle’s journey, even weeks after capturing an image, or flag specific vehicles for law enforcement which have been placed on “Be On The Lookout” (BOLO) lists.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
As of March 2025, the company Flock Safety was valued at $7.5 billion, with over 5,000 law enforcement agencies using its cameras nationwide. At least 221 of those agencies are in Wisconsin, including the city of Waukesha’s police department as well as the county sheriff . The Wisconsin Examiner obtained Flock audit data from the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department through open records requests, covering Flock searches from January 2024 to July 2025, and used computer programming to analyze the data.
Over that period of time, more than 6,700 Flock searches were conducted by WCSD using only “investigation”, as well as abbreviations or misspellings of the word. The searches, as they appeared in the audit data, offered no other context to suggest why specifically Flock’s network had been searched. Lt. Nicholas Wenzel, a sheriff’s department spokesperson, wrote in an email statement that “investigation” has a broad usage when Flock is involved.
“A deputy/detective using Flock for an investigation is using it for a wide range of public safety situations,” Wenzel explained. “Flock assists in locating missing persons during Amber or Silver Alert by identifying their vehicles and has proven effective in recovering stolen cars. Investigators use Flock to track suspect vehicles in serious crimes such as homicides, assaults, robberies, and shootings, as well as in property crimes like burglaries, catalytic converter thefts, and package thefts. The system also supports traffic-related investigations, including hit-and-run cases, and enables agencies to share information across jurisdictions to track offenders who travel between communities.”
Widespread use of vague search terms
Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that terms like “investigation” are too vague to determine whether or not Flock was used appropriately. At least some responsibility falls on Flock Safety itself, Maass argues. “They’re setting up a system where it’s impossible for somebody to audit it,” he told the Wisconsin Examiner. “And I think that’s the big problem, is that there’s no baseline requirement that you have to have a case related to this…They say you have to have a law enforcement purpose. But if you just put the word ‘investigation’ there, how do you know? Like, how do you know that this is not somebody stalking their ex-partner? How do you know whether this is somebody looking up information about celebrities? How do you know whether it’s racist or not? And you just don’t, because nobody is checking any of these things.”
The audit also stored other vague search terms used by WCSD such as “f”, “cooch”, “freddy”, “ts”, “nathan”, and “hunt” which Lt. Wenzel would not define.“The search terms are associated with investigations, some of which remain active,” he wrote in an email statement. “To preserve the integrity of these ongoing investigations, no further description or clarification of the terms can be provided at this time.”
A Flock camera on the Lac Courte Orielles Reservation in Saywer County. | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner
In August, Wisconsin Examiner published a similar Flock analysis that also found agencies statewide entering only the word “investigation,” with no other descriptor, in order to access Flock. At nearly 20,000 searches (not including misspellings and abbreviations), the term “investigation” was in fact the most often used term in that analysis, which relied on audit data obtained from the Wauwatosa Police Department.
While data from the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department appeared in that first Flock story, that analysis focused on broad trends which appeared among at least 221 unique agencies using Flock in Wisconsin. This more recent analysis focuses specifically on the Waukesha County Sheriff Department’s use of the camera network.
The August report found that the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department appeared among the top 10 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies that used Flock the most. The report also found that some agencies also only entered “.” — a period — in the Flock system field to indicate the reason for using the system. The West Allis Police Department led Wisconsin in this particular search term, followed by the Waukesha Police Department and the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office.
In response to an inquiry from the Wisconsin Examiner, a Waukesha Police Department spokesperson said that an officer who’d conducted nearly 400 Flock searches using only “.” as the reason had been provided extra training, and that the officer’s behavior had been corrected after the Wisconsin Examiner reached out. The West Allis Police Department, on the other hand, did not suggest that its officers were using the Flock network improperly.
Use of vague search terms is chronic across Flock’s network, Maass has found. He recalled one nationwide audit that covered 11.4 million Flock searches over a six-month period. Of those some 22,743 “just dots” appeared as reasons for Flock searches. Searches using only the word “investigation” made up about 14.5% of all searches, he said.
“So yeah, that’s a problem,” Maass told the Wisconsin Examiner. Reviewing a copy of Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department audit data, Maass saw the same vague search terms that have been reported by the Examiner. Although some terms can be reasonably guessed — such as “repo” perhaps meaning repossession, or ICAC, which usually stands for Internet Crimes Against Children — others aren’t so easy.
Surveillance cameras monitor traffic on a clear day | Getty Images Creative
“‘Hunt’ can mean anything,” said Maass, referring to a term which appeared 24 times within the Waukesha Sheriff’s data. Maass points to the search term “f”, which the Wisconsin Examiner’s analysis found WCSD used to search Flock 806 times.
Maass highlights that each search touches hundreds or even thousands of individual Flock networks nationwide. “If I’m one of these agencies that gets hit by this system, how am I to know if this is a legitimate search or not?” Maass said. “Now, maybe somebody at Waukesha is going through their own system, and like questioning every officer about every case. Maybe they’re doing that. Probably not.”
Wenzel of the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department said that although some searches appear vague, deputies and detectives are required by department policy to document their use of Flock in reports. Although a case number category does appear in the audit data, this column was rendered blank, making it impossible for Wisconsin Examiner to determine how often Flock searches had case numbers, or whether those case numbers corresponded with specific investigations the sheriff’s department had on file.
“The Sheriff’s Office understands the concerns surrounding emerging technology and takes very seriously its responsibility to protect the privacy and civil rights of the community,” Wenzel said in a statement. “The use of Flock license plate recognition technology is guided by clear safeguards to ensure it is only used for legitimate law enforcement purposes.”
The department’s policy, Wenzel explained, “prohibits any use outside of legitimate criminal investigations.” He said that deputies undergo initial and ongoing training to use the camera network. “All system activity is logged and subject to review,” said Wenzel.
Maass says the department can’t back-check the searches conducted by other agencies using the Waukesha Flock network, however. “Because when we’re talking about millions of searches coming through their system, you know, every few months…like hundreds of thousands at least every month…how are they actually quality controlling any of these?” Maass told the Wisconsin Examiner. “They’re just not.”
An eviction notice posted on a door as the lock is changed. (Stephen Zenner | Getty Images)
Wenzel said that “the technology is not used for general surveillance, traffic enforcement, or monitoring individuals not connected to an investigation.” The Wisconsin Examiner’s analysis, however, detected 43 searches logged as “surveillance” and 30 searches logged as “traffic offense.” The audit data also contained at least 357 searches logged as “suspicious” or variations of the word, as well as another 14 logged as “suspicious driving behavior,” 52 searches for “road rage” and 36 logged as “identify driver”.
There were also 62 searches related to evictions, which privacy advocates contend go beyond the public safety roles that the cameras were originally pitched to serve.
“Evictions can be unpredictable and potentially dangerous situations,” said Wenzel. “The removal of individuals from a residence often creates heightened emotions, uncertainty, and sometimes resistance. For this reason, safety is the top priority for both the residents being evicted and the deputies carrying out the court order. Flock is utilized to determine if the former tenants have left the area or could possibly be in the area when the court order is being carried out.”
Jon McCray Jones, policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, said in a statement that the Waukesha Sheriff’s use of Flock has extended “far beyond the public safety justifications for which these tools were originally sold.” McCray Jones told the Wisconsin Examiner, “These systems were introduced to the public as a means to reduce violent crime and aid in solving serious investigations. However, when they are used for non-criminal purposes, such as evictions, they cross a dangerous line.”
Waukesha’s uses for evictions were particularly concerning for McCray Jones. “What’s happening here is surveillance technology, operated by taxpayer-funded public servants, being weaponized at the behest of private landlords and corporations,” he said. “That is exactly the kind of mission creep communities are most worried about when it comes to police surveillance. If Flock cameras can be repurposed to target tenants today, what stops law enforcement tomorrow from using facial recognition to track people who fall behind on rent, or phone location data to monitor whether workers are ‘really sick’ when they call off? We’ve seen documented cases where law enforcement misused surveillance systems to track down romantic interests. Once the floodgate is opened, the slide into abuse is fast and quiet.”
Wenzel said that access to the Flock network is limited to personnel who are properly trained and authorized to use the software, and the department’s policy is regularly reviewed by those personnel.
“Searches are limited to legitimate law enforcement purposes per department policy,” he wrote in an email statement. The department has conducted its own Flock audits, Wenzel explained, and no sheriff department staff have ever been disciplined or re-trained due to Flock-related issues. Although the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department is part of the federal 287(g) program, in which local law enforcement agencies participate in federal immigration enforcement, Wenzel said that Flock is not used as part of the program, and the Wisconsin Examiner didn’t find any clear examples of immigration-related uses by the sheriff’s department.
McCray Jones considers the Waukesha Sheriff’s use of Flock to be an example of why “surveillance technology in the hands of law enforcement must be tightly limited, narrowly defined, and rigorously transparent.” He stressed that every use “must be clearly logged and justified — not with vague categories like ‘investigation’ or ‘repo’, but with meaningful explanations the public can actually understand and evaluate. Without strict guardrails, audits like this reveal how quickly tools justified in the name of ‘safety’ turn into instruments of convenience or even private gain.”
With the growth of surveillance technologies and the civil liberties implications they raise, McCray Jones said that the public “deserves clear proof that it is being used only to reduce crime — particularly violent crime — and not to serve the interests of landlords or corporations. Accountability and transparency aren’t optional add-ons; they are the bare minimum to prevent abuse.”
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