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The federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit rewards companies for hiring people who often struggle to get jobs.
Lawmakers are currently in the process of reauthorizing the $2 billion tax credit, which has been around since 1996.
Proponents of it argue that it helps people get jobs and get off government assistance.
However, a new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Southern California found that the credit fails to increase hiring or pay for workers.
Furthermore, large businesses disproportionately use it.
A new study of Wisconsin data finds what some researchers and policy wonks have long suspected: The $2 billion Work Opportunity Tax Credit doesn’t work.
Congress created the credit in 1996 as it overhauled the country’s welfare system. It rewards companies for hiring people who often struggle to get jobs, including some people who receive government aid, have disabilities or felony convictions or have been out of work for a long time. Employers can typically claim up to 40% of the wages paid to qualifying workers, with a maximum credit of $2,400.
The credit subsidizes around 4% of all new hires, according to 2022 federal data cited in the study. Overwhelmingly, they’re low-wage, short-term jobs at large employers, including major retailers and temporary staffing agencies, researchers have found.
Researchers have wondered for decades whether the credit pays off, but most states don’t offer the kind of records that would answer that question. Wisconsin does.
Thanks to an unusual collaboration between the state government and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researchers can track the earnings and employment status of participants in certain social safety net programs.
In a 2025 working paper, researchers from UW-Madison and the University of Southern California studied two decades of records of Wisconsinites who received food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the most common way an employee qualifies for the tax credit. Researchers compared SNAP recipients who were eligible for the credit with similar recipients who weren’t.
Their findings were unequivocal.
“We find that these subsidies do not increase hiring or earnings among eligible groups,” the authors wrote. In fact, they said, their findings rule out even so much as a 0.2 percentage point effect on hiring.
They estimate 97% of the hiring subsidized by the tax credit would have happened anyway, a phenomenon known as “windfall wastage.” It’s possible, they wrote, that every one of the subsidized jobs falls into that category.
The companies that take advantage of the credit are disproportionately large. In Wisconsin, they found, half of the subsidies go to just 48 businesses. Nationally, they estimate the credit costs more than $2 billion a year.
“Without reform, the program will continue as a costly transfer to firms with little benefit to the populations it is meant to support,” the researchers wrote.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers wants to increase the credit, which expired in December.
In November, legislators introduced a bill to extend the credit and expand eligibility to older SNAP recipients and spouses of military service members. The legislation would increase the amount companies can receive and automatically raise the credit amount with inflation.
In a statement, co-author Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., called the credit “a proven tool” that serves workers and employers. “WOTC is a bipartisan, commonsense approach that every Member of Congress should champion,” Smucker said.
Neither Smucker nor co-author Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., responded to a request for comment.
Troubleshooting the tax credit
So why doesn’t the Work Opportunity Tax Credit work? The authors think one important reason is that hiring managers often don’t know which job applicants qualify.
To receive the credit, employers must certify that they knew the applicant was eligible on or before the day they hired the person. Researchers surveyed 170 companies that use the credit. Less than 1 in 5 screened for eligibility on job applications. At companies that do collect this information, it might stay in the human resources office, never reaching the person who decides who to hire.
That may well be intentional, said UW-Madison economist Corina Mommaerts, one of the authors of the study. Federal and state law bars employers from considering certain factors in hiring decisions. That includes age and, in some cases, criminal record. There are ways to screen applicants without violating such laws, Mommaerts said, “but you can see why employers might still be very concerned.”
In addition, she said, some job applicants may hesitate to tell a prospective employer that they’re eligible. People with felony convictions, for example, may prefer not to draw attention to their criminal records. In the last two years, Wisconsin authorities certified the hires of just over 3,000 people with a felony conviction as qualifying for the credit.
“The concern is that there might be this stigmatizing effect,” Mommaerts said, explaining that some employers try to minimize that by asking applicants to review all the WOTC eligibility categories and indicate whether any apply to them.
Melissa Riccio, director of inclusive hiring at the national re-entry nonprofit Center for Employment Opportunities, is an expert on that stigma. It’s her job to convince employers that hiring a formerly incarcerated person may not be as risky as they imagine.
Asked about the tax credit, she said such policies won’t singlehandedly make the kind of change she’s looking for, in part because many employers may see them as more work than they’re worth.
“You would never hear any of us say that it would be a bad thing,” Riccio said. “But I don’t think that that alone is enough to move the needle in encouraging employers to make a change in their hiring practices.”
Some policy experts say the new study proves that the temporary tax credit shouldn’t come back.
Until now, there was little evidence on how well the Work Opportunity Tax Credit works, said Jen Doleac, executive vice president of criminal justice at the philanthropy Arnold Ventures, who researches strategies to reduce recidivism and help formerly incarcerated people get jobs. She and former colleague George Callas penned an October op-ed in Tax Notes calling the credit “completely ineffective.”
“The evidence is clear: The WOTC does not serve its stated purpose and is a waste of taxpayer dollars,” they wrote. “Encouraging the hiring of workers from disadvantaged groups is a worthy goal. We must devote scarce public resources to solutions that actually achieve it.”
Lobbyists hail a proven, bipartisan tool
Initially authorized for just one year, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit has stuck around far longer — in part because of a powerful lobby. Major backers include payroll processing companies, temp agencies and groups representing the hospitality and retail industries.
In 2022, a variety of industry groups seeking “solutions to the U.S. labor shortage” joined forces to form the Critical Labor Coalition. One of the coalition’s top priorities: lobbying for WOTC. The group spent $60,000 on lobbying last year, according to watchdog Open Secrets.
“Members of the Critical Labor Coalition — representing restaurants, retail, hotel and lodging, construction, food manufacturing, and other sectors — consistently affirm that strengthening and reauthorizing WOTC is essential both to their industries and to addressing the nation’s ongoing labor shortage,” Critical Labor Coalition Executive Director Misty Chally said in an email.
Asked about the new Wisconsin study, Chally questioned its “narrow” focus on SNAP recipients. She said her group places “greater confidence” in a 2025 study commissioned by multinational talent management company Allegis Group. The authors of that study estimate renewing WOTC would subsidize 131,000 jobs, but they note it’s not clear how many of those jobs would have existed regardless.
“The exact impact of WOTC on net new job creation is uncertain … While some studies find that WOTC leads to meaningful employment gains among eligible groups, a significant share of the cost may stem from subsidizing hires that would have occurred anyway,” Allegis Group wrote. For their analysis, they assume more than 85% of those jobs would have existed without the credit.
Why has WOTC stuck around?
Sarah Hamersma has been worried about WOTC for more than 20 years.
In the early 2000s, she was an economics graduate student at UW-Madison interested in programs designed to reduce poverty and help people work. She wanted to study the much larger Earned Income Tax Credit. Her adviser suggested she instead examine the smaller, newer and unstudied Work Opportunity Tax Credit.
At the time, the credit was just 4 years old and limited to people who received cash welfare assistance. She asked state officials for access to the data. What she found matched what Mommaerts and her colleagues found decades later. Unlike the Earned Income Tax Credit, which gives money directly to low-income workers — and which studies show increases employment and boosts incomes — this tax credit seemed to just boost employers’ bottom lines.
“They’re not passing it along to the workers in the form of higher wages. They’re just sort of being like, ‘Awesome, I got more money,’” Hamersma said.
She wanted to do similar analyses on other places, but she couldn’t find any other states willing to share their data. Now an economist at Syracuse University, she researches programs like Medicaid and SNAP.
“I started studying other programs that seem to make more of a difference … but I always come back to this,” Hamersma said.
From time to time, reporters contact her to ask about it. Lawmakers, not so much.
“I still wait for them to someday call me and say, ‘What should we do, Sarah? Should we reauthorize this?’ Congress has never called,” Hamersma said.
She’s sure legislators didn’t read her research. But she hopes they might read the new study, and that it might sway them.
“They’ve checked every angle you could possibly check, and the program is not working,” Hamersma said, calling it an “ironclad case.”
The new research was enough to convince Elena Spatoulas Patel, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, who saw the authors present their findings at a conference. “That really changed my mind about how we think about the credit,” said Patel, who co-authored a December op-ed calling for an end to WOTC.
But Congress has reauthorized the credit each time it lapsed before, and it will likely do so again this year, Patel said. It’s not just that there’s so much industry power behind the credit (“a classic case of lobbying versus good tax policy”), she said — it’s also that lawmakers like the idea of it.
“Unless and until something better is offered, it’s probably easier to renew the credit than to let it expire,” Patel said. “But again, it’s sort of ignoring the point, which is that we are spending taxpayer dollars on this by offering this credit, and it really isn’t helping employment.”
Exactly what the alternative might be is “the million-dollar question,” Patel said. Policy experts say options could include supporting evidence-backed job training programs or expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit.
“If you’re trying to reduce poverty, putting money in the hands of working people is a great way to do it, which is what the Earned Income Tax Credit does … Those low-income working families get more money to spend on the things they need, and we kind of cut out the middleman of the employer altogether,” Hamersma said.
Still, Hamersma doesn’t think Congress will follow her advice anytime soon.
“This is my cynical take: It’s kind of the perfect program because it benefits corporations, which Republicans historically like, and it seems like it’s supposed to be for poor people, which Democrats historically like,” Hamersma said.
“The facts are kind of irrelevant, the facts where nobody gets helped — it doesn’t quite make it to the top.”
Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Crisis pregnancy centers have been the beneficiary of at least a half-billion dollars since the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections in June 2022, a States Newsroom investigation found. The centers discourage women from seeking abortion and contraception, which medical experts say compromises public health. (Illustration by David Jack Browning for States Newsroom)
Editor’s note: This is the first report in an ongoing series.
The patient came in with a belly full of blood, Dr. Leilah Zahedi-Spung recalled. Her pregnancy was ectopic, no longer viable, and could have killed her if left untreated. But when she went to a mobile pregnancy help center offering free care in an RV in St. Louis, she was told the pregnancy could be saved.
By the time she saw Zahedi-Spung days later, her fallopian tube had ruptured.
In North Lauderdale, Florida, Ieshia Scott was pregnant and in the throes of postpartum depression. She thought she’d arrived at an abortion clinic. She told the staff she might hurt herself if she had another baby. They told her God would give her strength.
A woman and her partner in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, went to a pregnancy help center by mistake. When they made it to a Planned Parenthood clinic across the street, the pregnant patient handed Dr. Kristin Lyerly a copy of the sonogram. But the scan was not of her uterus. It was her bladder.
All three patients had gone to crisis pregnancy centers, organizations that advertise free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds but dissuade women from pursuing abortions and contraceptive options. Since the U.S. Supreme Court ended national abortion access in June 2022, the centers have seen an infusion of taxpayer dollars in many Republican-led states. But medical experts have urged lawmakers to reconsider the state support, as the centers can endanger public health by “causing delays in accessing legitimate health care,” according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
States Newsroom conducted a 50-state investigation examining state and federal budgets, as well as the tax records of these organizations, finding that while the magnitude of public funding for them is growing, oversight is not.
Twenty-one states funneled nearly a half-billion dollars, or $491 million, of taxpayer money to crisis pregnancy center organizations between fiscal years 2022 and 2025. That figure does not include millions some states diverted from federal programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and it does not include multimillion-dollar tax credit programs launched after federal protections for abortion rights were overturned.
Nearly $1.3 billion in local, state or federal government grants were awarded to 1,259 crisis pregnancy centers in total between 2019 and 2024, according to States Newsroom’s analysis of tax records. The actual figure may be higher, as digital records are not comprehensive or entirely up to date.
Yet that largesse hasn’t been matched by corresponding regulation. Oversight of taxpayer funding remains weak, either blocked by legislators or ignored by state agencies.
The centers are most often faith-based nonprofits that say they provide much-needed support for pregnant clients at no cost. An estimated 2,633 crisis pregnancy centers were operating in the United States as of March 31, 2024, according to research from the University of Georgia.
John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life, argues that pregnancy centers are important for people who really don’t want an abortion, and for anyone who regrets their abortion to find support.
“I am strongly of the opinion that most women that have abortions do it because they don’t feel like they have any other option,” Mize said.
But critics and researchers say the pregnancy centers mislead potential clients about their services or pose as medical clinics despite lacking proper licensure. They sometimes promote treatments like abortion pill reversal, which is unproven and potentially dangerous.
“Often, patients are lured in by this idea of getting free care,” said Dr. Rachel Jensen, Darney-Landy complex family planning fellow at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “It’s free, because it’s often subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Free health care sounds amazing. It should be available to all people. But the problem is, then, that the CPCs are unregulated — and they operate outside of ethical principles and best care practices.”
Indiana state Sen. Shelli Yoder, a Democrat, said access to maternal health care in her state continues to decrease while support for crisis pregnancy centers increases. Indiana boosted its budget for the centers from $250,000 in 2021 to $2 million, then doubled it to $4 million by 2024. The state’s maternal mortality rate is among the worst in the country.
“It’s not that these centers don’t serve a purpose. But they certainly are not a replacement for maternal health care, and they are not health care centers, and yet our state is using taxpayer money to fund them as if they are,” Yoder said. “And we are sending a message to moms, or to women, that they are health care centers, and they are not.”
Zahedi-Spung was working an emergency room shift in 2019 at a St. Louis hospital, not too far from the pregnancy center housed in an RV and frequently parked in front of a Planned Parenthood clinic. She said she was horrified to learn the patient with the ruptured ectopic pregnancy had been told at the mobile crisis pregnancy center a few days before that it could be saved. A tubal ectopic pregnancy is never viable.
Dr. Leilah Zahedi-Spung said she treated a patient with an ectopic pregnancy, which could have killed her if left untreated, while working in a St. Louis emergency room. She said the patient had gone to a mobile pregnancy help center offering free care. (Photo by Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline)
Today, Zahedi-Spung works in Colorado as a high-risk OB-GYN. But that experience in the ER still haunts her.
“They’re a private organization providing medical care without a medical license, so they are not liable for anything they tell anyone,” she said.
Andrea Trudden, spokesperson for Heartbeat International, one of the largest pregnancy center networks in the U.S., said that as of 2025, more than 75% of Heartbeat affiliates offer medical services and are different from pregnancy resource centers, which offer parenting classes and material aid but not medical services.
“Medical affiliates that provide limited obstetrical ultrasound or other services follow applicable state laws, professional standards, and clinical protocols,” Trudden said in a written statement.
According to a report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, 37% of 2,775 crisis pregnancy centers provided testing for sexually transmitted infections, and 29% provided STI treatment in 2024. The institute, which is the research arm of one of the largest anti-abortion policy groups, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, found that 81% of surveyed centers provided ultrasound services in 2024. The report notes that 28% of paid center staff have medical licenses, along with 12% of volunteers.
The only option for miles
In North Florida’s largely rural Wakulla County, there are no full-time practicing OB-GYNs. Wakulla Pregnancy Center is in Crawfordville, the county seat of about 4,800 people. Many women in the area lack transportation, said the center’s director, Pam Pilkinton. They have to travel about 20 miles north to Tallahassee for prenatal care.
Run by a local ministry, the center has a blue-and-white sign that advertises “Free Pregnancy Tests.” Inside, a cozy living room furnished with sofas leads to a counseling room and donation space, where moms peruse a range of free baby clothes and supplies. Most of the center’s clients have low incomes, and are on Medicaid or uninsured.
Crisis pregnancy centers offer clothing, diapers, strollers, toys and other items. Anti-abortion policymakers present the centers as a solution to help women through health and financial crises, although most do not offer birth control, cancer screenings, or sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment. (Photo by Nada Hassanein/Stateline)
When Florida passed a six-week abortion ban in 2023, legislators simultaneously increased state funding for crisis pregnancy centers by 455% — from $4.5 million to $25 million. The following legislative session, they added another $4.5 million.
The funds go to the Florida Pregnancy Care Network, which manages contracts with more than 100 crisis pregnancy centers across the state. The organization is required to report the amount and types of services provided and the expenditures to the governor and state legislature once a year. But it is not required to make any noncompliance findings public.
The public money for centers in Florida doesn’t end there. Wakulla Pregnancy Center received a separate allocation in the 2025 budget of $136,000. According to the funding request, $60,000 is allocated for a building asbestos issue, and $58,000 pays for the salary and benefits of the executive director and client coordinator. The rest is for pregnancy tests, educational materials, ultrasound referrals and other supplies.
But Pilkinton is clear about one point: The center does not provide medical care in this maternal health care desert.
Wakulla Pregnancy Center in Crawfordville, Florida, provides material support, education, information and peer counseling, not medical care, according to Director Pam Pilkinton. (Photo by Nada Hassanein/Stateline)
“We’re not a medical facility, and that is something that we let everyone know up front,” Pilkinton said. “We provide material support, education, information and peer counseling.”
That doesn’t include practices like referring a patient to an OB-GYN for prenatal care after a positive test, for example, “because we’re not a medical facility,” she said.
Wakulla County’s severe maternal hospitalization rates ranked among the worst in the state in 2023 and 2024.
Like in other states, maternal health care has continued to flounder in Florida — and shortages are likely to worsen. Nearly half of 1,500 OB-GYNs who responded to a state survey say they plan to stop delivering babies within the next two years.
The money Florida allocated for pregnancy centers might have covered more maternity care across the state, said Democratic state Rep. Anna V. Eskamani.
“We do need to strengthen our safety nets when it comes to supporting new moms,” Eskamani said. “Instead of addressing those gaps and investing in those areas, we continue to dole out millions of dollars to these unregulated and often religiously affiliated anti-abortion centers that are not addressing any of these disparities.”
Florida state Rep. Anna V. Eskamani. (Florida House of Representatives photo)
In previous legislative sessions, Eskamani filed bills to repeal state funding and introduce regulation of existing centers. The bills have yet to receive a hearing, but she and her colleagues have filed them again.
“These not-for-profit organizations run with very little federal or state oversight, and sometimes they don’t even have licensed medical staff on site,” she said. “At this point, it’s a blank check.”
Big checks, little oversight
Much of the state funding for pregnancy centers did not exist before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision ended federal protections for abortion rights in June 2022.
Conservative-led states — such as Texas — that already allocated tens of millions to pregnancy centers have doubled or tripled their budgets for pregnancy resource groups since 2022. In Missouri, lawmakers have budgeted nearly $50 million since fiscal year 2022 from the general fund and federal block grant dollars. Texas’ allocation ballooned from $140 million in fiscal years 2024 and 2025 to $180 million in 2026 and 2027.
Louisiana lawmakers directed $4 million from the state’s general fund to pregnancy centers for 2025, as part of its Pregnancy and Baby Care Initiative. But an audit found the state doled out the maximum amount per center allowed by state law — $100,800 — to most of the groups without requiring them to fully document how they spent it.
Auditors were concerned Louisiana paid the centers more than the cost of the actual services provided.
In Oklahoma, state auditors discovered in 2022 that an anti-abortion nonprofit called Oklahoma Pregnancy Care Network disbursed less than 7% of the $1.6 million it promised to nonprofits under the state’s Choosing Childbirth program. A month and a half before its contract was scheduled to end, the group had served 524 women, less than 6% of the 9,300 Oklahoma women it initially projected it would serve. An administrator with the nonprofit told The Oklahoman she was unaware there were problems.
Despite those findings, state lawmakers later directed nearly $18 million — a quarter of the state health department’s entire budget — toward Choosing Childbirth through November 2027. More than $4 million of it went to the Oklahoma Pregnancy Care Network. The network did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for comment.
Inner workings
Lyerly, the OB-GYN in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, said the couple with the mislabeled sonogram came into her Planned Parenthood clinic in the early months of 2022. It wasn’t uncommon for patients with appointments at Planned Parenthood to accidentally go to the crisis pregnancy center across the street. This couple sought an abortion, she said, but came in with the ultrasound image of the woman’s bladder rather than her uterus. On top of the mislabeled ultrasound, they felt misled, because they were told the pregnancy was just a few weeks along when it was much more advanced.
Dr. Kristin Lyerly had to tell a couple that an ultrasound image taken at a crisis pregnancy center was not of the woman’s uterus but her bladder. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Kristin Lyerly)
“This was a challenging situation for them, was emotional and frustrating and upsetting to them, and it was so unnecessary,” said Lyerly. She stopped providing abortions in Wisconsin later that year when a state law banning the procedure went back into effect after the Dobbs decision.
Many centers are affiliated with umbrella organizations, including Care Net, Heartbeat International (formerly Alternatives to Abortion International) and National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, but often do not disclose that connection on their website. The parent companies provide guidance for operations, including yearly conferences, along with training for limited ultrasounds and other services. Training and funding for many of these centers’ ultrasound programs also come from national religious groups like Focus on the Family and the Knights of Columbus.
Heartbeat International is the largest of the three, with more than 4,000 affiliated service providers across the U.S. and in more than 100 countries, according to Trudden.
Trudden said Heartbeat International offers professional training and practical resources for affiliates, who determine their own governance, leadership and location and must agree to a set of standards also shared by Care Net and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates. Those standards include practicing honesty and confidentiality with clients and complying with all legal and regulatory requirements.
Some pregnancy centers are staffed with licensed professionals trained in sonography. The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates says it has trained more than 6,000 health care professionals “in the medical and legal ‘how to’s’ of limited obstetrical ultrasound.” But at its national conference last year, leaders discouraged centers from performing ultrasounds on women who they suspect have ectopic pregnancies to avoid liability. The guidance came in the wake of a lawsuit against a Massachusetts center, in which the plaintiffs alleged that center staff failed to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured, prompting emergency surgery. The clinic reached a settlement with the patient.
Some centers offer more medical services, like prenatal support and testing and treatment for STIs, such as Idaho’s Stanton Healthcare, which is accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care and does not receive any public funding.
“We have caught ectopic pregnancies. … I can think of three in the last eight months off the top of my head,” said Angela Dwyer, Stanton’s director of client services.
Stanton Healthcare of Idaho says it operates “life-affirming women’s medical clinics” with centers in Oregon, California and Belfast, Northern Ireland. While it does not accept state and federal funding, CEO and founder Brandi Swindell said pregnancy centers like hers should be able to apply for public funding. (Photo by Otto Kitsinger for States Newsroom)
But advocacy groups such as Campaign for Accountability have raised alarms about how many clinics do not have to follow federal health privacy laws, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA.
Clinics that offer free services and do not bill insurance face no penalty for disclosing a client’s information.
In contrast, Jessica Scharfenberg, CEO of Healthfirst Network in central Wisconsin, said if any of her 10 reproductive health clinics violated HIPAA, they would face steep federal fines and possible jail time for staffers.
“If my entity broke HIPAA, we would have federal consequences, even though we also have an internal policy for it,” Scharfenberg said. “They have their internal policies. They break HIPAA, there’s no consequences for it.”
The websites of some centers give the appearance of being HIPAA compliant even though they aren’t, States Newsroom has reported.
The other two main umbrella organizations did not respond to multiple requests for comment by email and phone.
‘So much help’
In North Lauderdale, Ieshia Scott would stare at her 6-month-old, unable to hold the baby when she cried. Scott, who also had a 10-year-old, felt overwhelmed by a constant cloud of stress and sadness, all while trying to keep up with college classes.
When she found out she was pregnant again, Scott searched for an abortion clinic in the city, and a pregnancy resource center came up in the search results. That 2018 visit would last nearly three hours, during which she fielded dozens of questions about why she wanted an abortion. Scott had suicidal thoughts and was depressed but felt totally unheard.
Ieshia Scott. (Photo courtesy of Ieshia Scott)
“I really was disregarded,” said Scott, now 36. “I was actually saying to her, like — ‘I don’t know, I might hurt myself, I might hurt the baby.’”
The center didn’t refer her to a psychiatrist, therapist or OB-GYN. The staff member instead reminded her of the Ten Commandments.
“I’m literally telling her, I can’t — I can’t do it. And she was like, ‘You can, you can. And there’s so much help.’”
Scott eventually went to a clinic to get the care she needed. But she worries for women who can’t.
More than a dozen states passed abortion bans after Dobbs, and efforts continue nationwide to dismantle what access remains. Several states with abortion bans — including Missouri, South Carolina and Texas — have moved to cut Planned Parenthood out of state Medicaid programs as well, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that excluding the organization did not violate Medicaid’s provision requiring freedom of choice in providers. Florida legislators are also discussing cutting Planned Parenthood out of the state Medicaid program.
In 2025, at least 51 Planned Parenthood locations closed or limited medical services after losing state and federal support. Those communities lost access not only to abortion services but also to other reproductive and primary medical care. Independent clinics such as Maine Family Planning stopped offering primary care services for about 600 patients because of a funding loss of about $1.9 million, even though none of the Medicaid dollars were used for abortion.
‘Government handouts’
Lawmakers are not only opening public coffers to provide direct financial support to pregnancy centers, but they’re also creating tax breaks, drawing on federal sources and shifting funds meant to help low-income families to aid the anti-abortion organizations — with few regulations.
Some legislators have resisted stronger oversight.
In Missouri, state Rep. Warwick opposed a colleague’s suggestion to require the centers to report how they spend their donations in a tax credit program, saying he wanted to limit bureaucracy. He said in a February 2025 legislative hearing that the tax credit keeps the state from having to “verify what programs work.”
Missouri state Rep. Christopher Warwick. (Missouri House of Representatives photo)
“I don’t think they’re funded enough to be able to mishandle their money,” he told States Newsroom in December. “At least not the ones I’m familiar with.”
Warwick proposed raising the tax credit for pregnancy center donations from 70% to 100% in 2025, meaning someone donating to a pregnancy center could reduce their state tax bill by the exact amount donated.
The credits that Missourians redeemed shot up from about $2 million to an average of more than $7 million per year after lawmakers removed a cap on credits in 2021, according to a fiscal note attached to Warwick’s bill. State officials estimated a 100% tax credit just for pregnancy center donations would cost the state more than $10.7 million in the first year.
Missouri also funnels more than $2 million per year in state and federal dollars to pregnancy resource centers and similar organizations through its Alternatives to Abortion program. That’s in addition to what the centers receive from Missouri’s federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families fund — $10.3 million in this fiscal year.
Although Warwick’s 100% pregnancy center tax credit failed, he plans to try again in this year’s session. “I don’t think it (a 100% tax credit) would significantly hurt the state, especially when we’re talking about protecting life, protecting the birth of children,” he said.
Nebraska Sen. Joni Albrecht, a Republican who also sponsored a six-week abortion ban, said the centers were a valuable investment when she sought to create a $10 million tax credit program that was revised down to $1 million in 2024.
Of the 13 pregnancy centers approved for tax credits in Nebraska, four provided less than $150,000 in services, according to tax returns, and one had three consecutive state audit reports with findings of deficiencies in controlling and complying with federal grant funding requirements.
In Montana, a state without an abortion ban, Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte found another way to give taxpayer money to pregnancy centers by donating a portion of his annual salary. In 2020, he pledged to give his salary to nonprofit organizations and charities, and has for the past three years included pregnancy centers in that list for a total of more than $60,000.
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has donated more than $60,000 of his annual salary to pregnancy centers over the past three years. (Photo by Blair Miller for Daily Montanan)
Idaho state Sen. Ben Adams, a Republican who sponsored a bill to establish a grant fund of $1 million for crisis pregnancy centers in 2025, told States Newsroom he felt it was important to put resources into helping people choose to have a baby.
“We have, for a very long time, primarily through the federal government, essentially funded abortion through funding for Planned Parenthood and all these different organizations,” Adams said. “We say we’re going to restrict a woman’s access to abortion and that we’re pro-life. Well then, we actually have to be investing in those folks who are choosing life and show them that we mean it when we say we want them to choose life.”
For decades, the Hyde Amendment, a provision Congress has renewed annually, has prohibited the use of federal funding for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest and to save the mother’s life.
Idaho is one of a few states with an abortion ban that isn’t providing government support for crisis pregnancy centers. Adams’ bill failed by one vote in committee and faced opposition from many constituents, including a former board chairman of a crisis pregnancy center in Idaho who said subsidizing nonprofit entities with taxpayer dollars is not the proper role of government.
“Providing taxpayer funds on either side of this moral question is inappropriate,” said John Crowder in his testimony to the legislative committee, prefacing his comments by saying he is a Christian who believes life begins at conception. “Such decisions to lend financial support should be left to churches and individuals, not the government.”
Based on his knowledge of the finances of that center, Crowder said, it was clear they could meet the goals of their mission with the donations they received and “without government handouts.”
Stateline reporter Amanda Watford contributed to this report.
States Newsroom’s investigation is ongoing. If you have had an experience with a crisis pregnancy center, please get in touch at cpcproject@statesnewsroom.com.
METHODOLOGY: To identify government grant funding received by nonprofit crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), a team of States Newsroom reporters used multiple data sources. Reporters reviewed state and federal budgets and legislation to identify public funding allocated to CPCs between 2019 and 2025, with a particular focus on the period following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022, as well as in prior years, as applicable. The team did not include federal funding from sources such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in the nationwide analysis, and state tax credit programs were also excluded.
Data reporter Amanda Watford cleaned and analyzed a publicly available dataset of CPCs originally collected by the nonprofit advocacy group Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch. Organizations that appeared to be permanently closed or did not report enough revenue to file a full IRS Form 990 were removed from the States Newsroom analysis. Watford extracted filings from ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer for about 2,000 organizations, covering 2019 to 2025. Government grant totals were only available for 217 organizations for 2023 and 2024 due to data infrastructure limitations. A separate analysis using the GivingTuesday 990 database captured basic financial and government grant data for 1,243 organizations between 2019 and 2023. Watford combined the 2019-2023 GivingTuesday data and 2023-2024 ProPublica data. The total amount of government funding provided to CPCs was calculated for each year, yielding a grand total of nearly $1.3 billion across 1,259 CPCs between 2019 and 2024.
This analysis is not comprehensive. Some IRS Form 990 filings were unavailable digitally, and some organizations did not report any government grant funding, so grant funding reported outside the available electronic filings was not fully captured. Financial information available through IRS Form 990 filings is self-reported by organizations to the IRS and is not independently audited. Additionally, there is a lag between when organizations are expected to file returns and when filings are publicly available. Due to these factors, the States Newsroom findings likely undercount the total amount of public, government funding directed to CPCs. An estimated 2,633 CPCs were operating in the United States in 2024, according to research from the University of Georgia.
This story was originally produced by News From The States, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
The lawsuit details the state’s history of funding schools and the increasing reliance on property taxes through school referendums to try to keep up with costs. Education advocates call for state lawmakers to invest in schools at a Feb. 2025 rally organized by the Wisconsin Public Education Network. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.
A group of Wisconsin parents, students, teachers, school districts and education advocates are suing the Legislature over the current school funding formula, arguing that the system does not meet the state’s obligation to provide educational opportunities to all students as required by the state Constitution.
The suit was filed Monday evening in Eau Claire County Circuit Court by Madison-based nonprofit Law Forward and the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union.
The plaintiffs in the suit are led by the Wisconsin Parent Teacher Association and include five school districts, including Adams-Friendship Area School District, School District of Beloit, Eau Claire Area School District, Green Bay Area Public School District, Necedah Area School District, the teachers union of each respective district, eight Wisconsinites including teachers, parents, students and community members, as well as the Wisconsin Public Education Network.
The lawsuit names the state Legislature, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), and the Joint Finance Committee and its Republican and Democratic members.
Jeff Mandell, co-founder of Law Forward, told reporters during a press call Tuesday that schools have been doing their best to fully prepare students to be productive and active members of society but that the current funding system is making it almost impossible.
“These folks are not magicians. They are not Rumpelstiltskin. They cannot turn straw into gold, and we do not have what we need for our schools to thrive,” Mandell said.
Mandell noted that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has previously considered the way schools are funded in the 2000 case Vincent v. Voight.
The Supreme Court found in the Vincent v. Voight case, which was initiated by a group of Wisconsin students, parents, teachers, school districts, school board members, citizens and the WEAC president, that the state’s funding formula was constitutional.
The majority opinion indicated that the Legislature had articulated that an equal opportunity for a sound basic education is “the opportunity for students to be proficient in mathematics, science, reading and writing, geography and history, and for them to receive instruction in the arts and music, vocational training, social sciences, health, physical education and foreign language, in accordance with their age and aptitude.” The opinion also concluded that as long as “the Legislature is providing sufficient resources so that school districts offer students the equal opportunity for a sound basic education as required by the constitution, the state school finance system will pass constitutional muster.”
Mandell said that in the 25 years since the ruling “things have gotten considerably worse, and we are at a point where, for many districts … they are on the verge of crisis.”
The lawsuit lays out the difference between how Wisconsin schools were funded in the 1999-2000 school year versus the 2023-2024 school year. School funding 25 years ago was comprised of 53.7% state funds, 41.6% local funds and 4.7% federal funding; in 2023-24, the mix had changed to about 45% state, 43% local and 12% federal funding.
“The fault for this crisis lies not at the feet of students, parents, families, teachers, staff, administrators, school districts, or elected board members,” the lawsuit states. “The shortcomings of our public schools are directly traceable to the Legislature’s consistent failures to ensure adequate state funding of public schools and to legislate a rational school finance system that meets constitutional mandates.”
The lawsuit states that school districts across the state are “facing financial crisis” because of expiring federal funding and stagnating state dollars.
The suit also details the state’s history of funding schools and the increasing reliance on property taxes through school referendums to try to keep up with costs. It also details the ways that the state’s school choice program, which was launched in the 1990s and has grown exponentially over the years, has reduced funding for public schools.
Law Forward was at the helm of the 2024 lawsuit that ended with the Wisconsin Supreme Court declaring the state’s legislative maps an unconstitutional gerrymander and is in the process of challenging the state’s Congressional maps.
Mandell said the plaintiffs in the suit include a geographically diverse group to highlight how this is a statewide problem. He said it is possible that other districts will reach out about joining the case and they will “figure that out as we go.”
Joshua Miller, an Eau Claire Area School District parent, told reporters that “the dire need for adequate funding has been made clear to the lawmakers, but they have refused to hear our pleas”
“The situation is sad, absurd, and it’s infuriating,” he said. “Wisconsin’s current school finance system is broken and this lawsuit, which I am proud to join, would be a way for the courts to force legislators to make a new system that works and actually meets the needs of the students of Wisconsin.”
Tanya Kotlowski, a plaintiff in the case and superintendent for the Necedah Area School District, said her district is going to referendum for a third time this spring to help fund its operations. In April, the school district plans to ask voters to approve a four-year operational referendum that would provide a total of $5.8 million in order to maintain the district’s current level of educational programming as well as operate and maintain the district.
Kotolowski noted that she and other school leaders have spent a lot of time advocating on behalf of their schools to lawmakers for additional funding. During the recent state budget cycle, school funding was one of the top issues brought up by members of the public at listening sessions held by the budget committee.
“Despite all of those efforts, the funding system has not kept up with the needs of our children and the needs of our current realities,” she said. “Our local referendum, some would argue or could argue, has been 100% funding that mandated legal, constitutional obligation.”
According to the lawsuit, the Necedah Area School District has directed over $6.6 million — all of its operational referendum revenue — to its special education fund over the past eight years.
Kotlowski said her district has been underfunded by $13 million for special education costs over the last decade, and that if funding had kept pace with inflation, the district wouldn’t need to go to referendum this year.
Mandell said that referendum requests used to be fairly rare and used when a school district had large projects.
“What we’re seeing now is a system where school districts have no choice but to go to referendum regularly to try to fund basic operations to keep the lights on and to keep payroll flowing, and it’s really a tremendous problem,” Mandell said.
Referendum requests that allow schools to exceed state-imposed revenue caps through approval from voters became a part of Wisconsin’s school funding equation in the 1990s. Lawmakers implemented school revenue limit caps as part of an effort to control local property taxes.
The revenue limits used to be tied to inflation, but that was ended in the 2009-11 state budget, leaving increases up to the decisions of state lawmakers and the governor, who have not provided predictable increases budget to budget.
The recent state budget did not invest any additional state dollars into school general aid, in part because lawmakers were upset with Evers’ 400-year partial veto in the prior state budget. The partial veto extended a $325 per pupil school revenue limit increase from two years to four centuries, giving, schools the authority to bring in additional dollars from state funds or property tax hikes. Without the state providing additional funding, many schools have turned to raising property taxes using the school revenue authority to help support their operational costs.
“I understand there’s a big political debate about that veto, and about that mechanism, we don’t have a position on this. What we’re saying is that the school funding mechanism is not sufficient and is unconstitutional, even with that,” Mandell said.
The state budget did provide additional funding for special education reimbursement, but recent estimates show that the amount of funding will not be enough to provide reimbursement at the promised rates of 42% and 45%. Increasing special ed funding is part of ongoing negotiations between legislative leaders and Evers.
The lawsuit comes as the legislative session is coming to a close.
The state Assembly adjourned for the session last week and the Senate will wrap up next month, but the only bills with a chance of becoming law are those that have already passed the Assembly.
Even if a deal arises out of the current negotiations on property taxes and school funding, Mandell said the problem identified in the lawsuit will still exist. He noted that a proposal from Evers included $450 million towards school general aids — an amount that is $2 billion less than what schools would get if inflationary increases had continued in 2009. Mandell said Evers is not named in the suit because it is the Legislature that is chiefly responsible for appropriating funds.
“This is not a problem that arose overnight. It has developed over decades, and it’s not a problem that will be solved overnight,” Mandell said. “Any deal that the Legislature and the governor might reach… is not going to solve the problem.”
Mandell said that the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are not looking for the court to decide on a specific amount of money that the state should provide to schools, but instead want the court to “fully explain and delve into how the finance system works, what the needs are, and to make some of those decisions.”
The lawsuit asks the court for a judgement that declares the Legislature hasn’t fulfilled and cannot “shirk” its constitutional obligation to fund schools at a sufficiently high level to “ensure that every Wisconsin student has an equal opportunity to obtain a sound basic education that equips them for their roles as citizens and enables them to succeed economically and personally in a tuition free public school where the character of instruction is as uniform as practicable.” It calls for the current funding system to be ruled invalid.
The lawsuit calls for relief that will “establish a schedule that will enable the Court — in the absence of a superseding state law, adopted by the Legislature and signed by the governor in a timely fashion — to adopt and implement a new school finance system that meets all relevant state constitutional guarantees.”
Mandell said, however, that it likely won’t be up to the court to decide exactly how the state should fund schools.
“There are almost an infinite number of options for how the Legislature could do this, but what we’re asking the court to do is to look at it and say to the Legislature, not good enough…. then we do expect that the Legislature and the governor will do their jobs,” Mandell said.
Mandell said that ideally a ruling would give lawmakers the opportunity to make changes in the next budget cycle. The budget process will kick off again in January 2027, after the state’s fall elections which will determine the make-up of the Senate and Assembly as well as choosing a new governor.
If the Legislature and the governor don’t fix the problem, Mandell said, the court should step in again.
Protesters rally in downtown Milwaukee in May 2021 to show support for Palestinians living in Gaza. A bill to define antisemitism will go before the Wisconsin Assembly for a vote Tuesday. Supporters say it's necessary to differentiate between criticism of Israeli policy and anti-Jewish hate, but critics say it would conflate political speech with antisemitism. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Assembly will vote Tuesday on a bill that would define antisemitism and that has prompted deep divisions — including among Jewish leaders, who are found among both the supporters and opponents of the measure.
Proponents of the legislation contend it is needed to take a stand against a surge in antisemitic actions, on college campuses as well as in other contexts.
Critics, however, argue that the bill would criminalize political speech critical of Israeli actions, most recently in the ongoing conflict in Gaza — which has also divided the Jewish community.
The bill would codify in Wisconsin law a definition of antisemitism that was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016.
Thedefinition states: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The IHRA has also published a list of bullet points as “contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere…”
The legislation,AB 446, requires local and state governmental agencies to consider the IHRA definition “including its examples” when investigating allegations of racial, religious or ethnic discrimination. Its Senate companion isSB 445.
The definition would also be used to determine “enhanced criminal penalties for criminal offenses” if a defendant is found to target a victim “because of the victim’s or group of victims’ actual or perceived race, religion, color, or national origin.”
The bill “doesn’t create any new criminal penalty or compel any legal proceeding to be initiated,” testified its Assembly author, Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison), at public hearings on the measure. “Rather, it provides a standard to be used in evaluating whether an alleged criminal act as provided for under current law was motivated by antisemitism.”
Both the IHRA’s examples and the bill’s criminal penalty language have become key points of criticism for the legislation’s opponents, however. Rabbis have testified both in favor of the legislation and against it.
“Nothing about this bill would prevent me, or anyone else, from rebuking Israel for its actions when conscience demands it,” said Rabbi Noah Chertkoff, who serves a congregation in the Milwaukee suburb of Fox Point, testifying in support of the bill at its Jan. 28 state Senate hearing.
At the same hearing, Rabbi Dena Feingold, the retired leader of a Kenosha congregation, called the IHRA definition “highly controversial and problematic in a number of respects” in her opposition testimony.
“It is far from universally accepted within the Jewish community, and many scholars and leaders have outright rejected it,” Feingold said.
The number of examples offered by the IHRA treating “anti-Israel rhetoric as antisemitism gives the impression that anti-Israel critics and protesters are by far the most likely sources of antisemitism in America,” Feingold added. “On the contrary, I believe that racists and white nationalists are the largest sources of antisemitism in this country.”
The legislation’s sponsor list is heavily Republican. A handful of Democrats in both chambers have signed on, but some have subsequently withdrawn their support.
At both the Assembly public hearing in October and the state Senate hearing in January, witnesses supporting the bill described increased antisemitic violence and actions, particularly since the massacre of more than 1,200 people in an attack on a music festival in Israel by the Palestinian political and military group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
Ari Friedman, executive director of the Jewish Security Network, said at the January hearing that an audit by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council found a 192% increase in antisemitic incidents in Wisconsin and similarly a national escalation in anti-Jewish hate crimes, according to the FBI.
The legislation “is not about suppressing free speech or political disagreement. Those rights are fundamental,” Friedman said. “But when expression crosses into harassment, intimidation and threats of violence directed at people because they are Jewish, it ceases to be abstract debate and becomes a public safety issue.”
The IHRA’s definition of antisemitism “explicitly does not criminalize speech,” testified the Jewish Community Relations Council’s chair, Jill Plavnick. “It provides clarity; helping schools, workplaces and courts recognize when hate crosses the line into discrimination.”
But Hannah Rosenthal, a former CEO of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation who served as a special envoy on global antisemitism during the Obama administration and also led the national Jewish Council for Public Affairs, testified in opposition to the bill in January, describing it as part of a Trump administration push to target critics of the administration’s Middle East policy.
She said the White House appears intent on using the IHRA definition of antisemitism “to identify individuals or organizations that disagree with the administration’s goal to fight any pro-Palestinian efforts as part of a Hamas network, and therefore antisemitic or even a terrorist.”
The IHRA definition “does include some very important examples of antisemitism,” Rosenthal testified. “But it is silent on conspiracy theories, the great replacement theory, white nationalism, Christian nationalism, deicide, blaming Jews for funding opposition efforts, and the like.”
(The “great replacement theory” is a conspiracy theory that “Jews and some Western elites are conspiring to replace white Americans and Europeans with people of non-European descent,” explained Rodney Coates, a Miami University professor, in a2024 article for The Conversation.)
Advocates have pointed to language stating that the bill may not be construed to infringe on constitutional rights under the First Amendment or to conflict with federal or state antidiscrimination laws.
“It affirms that nothing in this bill may be used to infringe on free expression,” Chertkoff testified.
But Amanda Merkwae, advocacy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, said that the bill incorporates the IHRA definition and its examples into Wisconsin’s antidiscrimination law — making what she called the “First Amendment savings clause” meaningless.
“Although the ACLU of Wisconsin appreciates the sentiment expressed by this provision, it cannot override the bill’s plain terms,” Merkwae said.
Reading Time: 6minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
Jolene Wilkens, employment and training supervisor, spoke about the services Wisconsin’s job centers provide and how job seekers can take advantage of them.
The physical locations remain an important resource for those who lack internet access, need a quiet place to work or need face-to-face assistance.
Staff at the centers can help people write resumes and practice answering interview questions.
Job seekers can also take free skills assessments to see what other types of work might interest them.
Looking for a job can be grueling and frustrating.
Though Wisconsin’s job market generally favors job hunters, with more openings than unemployed people to fill them, it can be hard to know where you fit in — or simply where to start.
The state’s Department of Workforce Development runs dozens of job centers across Wisconsin, each staffed with people trained to help you in your quest for work. Wisconsin Watch talked to Jolene Wilkens, an employment and training supervisor at Sheboygan County’s job center, about the services Wisconsin’s job centers provide and how job seekers can take advantage of them.
“We want to meet the person where they’re at, but we do a lot of cheerleading and bringing that positive attitude,” Wilkens said. “We’re here to support you. We’re not here to make this process more complicated.”
Here’s what to know.
Find your job center
Wisconsin has job center locations across the state. Find the closest one to you using the map below.
This map doesn’t include all of the department’s affiliate or satellite locations, such as job centers in correctional facilities.
While the number of people visiting job centers varies widely among the different locations, more people have used their virtual services online in recent years, Wilkens said. The Sheboygan location where Wilkens works typically sees between 60 and 80 visitors each week.
While the department offers many of their resources online, the physical locations remain an important resource for those who lack internet access, need a quiet place to work or need face-to-face assistance for any reason. Getting to know people individually also helps staff make personalized recommendations or watch for jobs that are a good fit for someone, Wilkens said.
“There’s a lot of folks that prefer to come in person and have that personal touch, and some of that is just the support they receive. You build a community,” she said.
What to bring with you
Depending on the services you’re looking for, you might need to bring documentation or identification with you. Here’s a list of things visitors often need:
Driver’s license or ID.
Social Security card or number.
A list of your last 18 to 24 months of work history, if applicable.
Your cellphone, to set up two-factor authentications.
Paper to write down your login information or to take notes.
A resume, if you have one.
Direct deposit or checking information.
What to expect when you show up
When you walk into a job center for the first time, you should expect to answer a list of questions from the employees.
They’ll want to know:
What work experience do you have? (It’s OK if you don’t have any.)
Have you enjoyed that work? What kind of work do you want to be doing? (If you don’t know, they’ll help you figure it out.)
Do you like your resume? (If you don’t, they’ll help you change it.)
Are you having trouble securing job interviews after applying? (They might want to take a look at your resume.)
Are you securing interviews, but having trouble landing jobs? (They’ll probably want to work on interview skills with you.)
Staff at Wisconsin’s job centers can help job seekers write or update their resumes, apply for work and practice answering interview questions. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Free skills assessments are available online and in-person through the Job Center of Wisconsin. Staff can provide people with resources if they decide to switch careers, for example, including information about education. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Finding the right fit
If you’re not yet sure what kind of work you can or want to do, job center staff can help you figure it out.
Staff will recommend taking the Occupational Information Network’s (O*NET) quiz to help understand your interests and the things you enjoy doing. The quiz asks you to rate how much you’d like different activities — such as building kitchen cabinets or teaching a high school class — if they were a part of your job. Your answers help the application suggest careers you might enjoy.
If you know what kind of jobs you want to do, or you want to see different jobs you’re qualified for, staff will recommend using a tool called Skill Explorer. The program asks you to input your job, education or training experience and produces a list of occupations and industries that your skills may transfer to. Skill Explorer also contains information about wages, job openings and projected growth for each occupation.
“Sometimes it’s not recognizing all the transferable skills that you already possess and being able to move those industry sectors,” Wilkens said. “Other times, it’s identifying, ‘I like what I do, but it’s not my passion. I want to upskill and go to something else.’”
If you want to return to school or job training to pursue a different career or to move up in your industry, staff will connect you to the Department of Workforce Development’s training arm. From there, career counselors help you track down the right educational program — and assistance affording it.
After settling on what kind of work you’re after, job center staff will focus on helping you secure the job.
First: the resume. Most job applications ask for a document summarizing one’s education, work experience and skills. Building one shouldn’t be overwhelming, Wilkens said.
Job center staff are trained to help people put together resumes that help secure job interviews. They also use a tool that creates a resume after asking you to answer prompts. When users log a job title, it suggests additions based on the profession’s occupational outlook, a federal compilation of data, information and predictions about jobs.
Wilkens encourages people to be open to changing up their resume or being challenged.
“You ask 100 people how to do a resume, and you’re going to get 100 different answers,” Wilkens said. “Just because you worked in one industry for 10 years, and then you did a 180 and went into a different industry, and now you’re looking at yet another, doesn’t mean there aren’t skills in there that we can transfer and highlight.”
People can get connected to various resources through their nearest Job Center of Wisconsin location. For example, if they need help applying for unemployment, staff will ask what their housing and food situation is like and offer options if they need assistance. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
You can access the department’s resume building tool here. It plans to roll out a new and improved version of the tool in the next year.
Job center staff will help throughout the interview process by scheduling mock interviews and helping you answer practice questions. They can also create an account on InterviewPrep, a tool that allows you to see how you sound responding to interview questions and get feedback from staff.
Staff can also help you choose between job offers by comparing the wages or cost of living between different locations.
Other services job centers offer
Unemployment and job loss resources
Wisconsin’s job centers partner with employers across the state to hold job fairs and hiring events. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
People commonly visit job centers to get assistance filing for unemployment.
“You can’t walk into an unemployment office, so you come into a job center,” Wilkens said.
Staff also complete an “assessment of needs” when people visit for unemployment help. They ask questions to understand if a person is experiencing housing scarcity, food insecurity or other struggles, so they can direct them to free community resources.
“Somebody will come in feeling really defeated and disheartened about losing their job,” Wilkens said. “We have resources for that. Helping people realize all the things that they brought to the job and why they were able to retain that job for so long, really helps reframe and start thinking and looking at things glass half full.”
“There are a lot of positives,” she said. “You didn’t just go to work and make widgets … You showed up promptly every day. You worked as part of a team. You were dependable and reliable. You adhered to safety standards.”
Support for people with disabilities
The state’s job centers have a Division of Vocational Rehabilitation that helps people with disabilities obtain and keep work.
The division can connect people to diagnosis and treatment, transportation assistance, interpreter services and help with job search and placement, among other services.
Job fairs
Job centers often host or collaborate with local employers on job fairs and hiring events. You can view a list of upcoming hiring events coming up across the state here.
Tony, Ryan and Taylor discuss the most-read School Transportation News magazine articles from 2025, which focused on student safety, operational efficiency and technological advancement. STN also recognized outstanding individuals and teams in the industry through programs like Innovator of the Year, Garage Stars, Rising Stars and Transportation Director of the Year.
Discover the new STN Transportation Director of the Year featured on our November issue cover. Other headlines include a NHTSA investigation after a driverless Waymo car illegally passed a stopped school bus and NTSB recommendations on seatbelts following a Texas school bus crash.
Frank Girardot, senior communications director for RIDE, discusses the electric school bus manufacturer’s School Bus Safety Week efforts.
Jennifer Gardella, director of transportation for Rockwall Independent School District in Texas and a 2025 STN Rising Star, discusses her childcare background, improving student relationships, training staff and receiving inspiration from fellow student transporters.
Headlines on “The Lost Bus” movie set during recent California wildfires, a school bus Wi-Fi solution for fiscal year 2025, a $10 million Ohio safety grant for seatbelts, and a Maryland school bus driver union sending flyers home with students to gain parental support of a strike.
Gregg Fox, transportation director for Franklin Square Union Free School District in New York and a 2025 Top Transportation Teams Award winner, discusses improving workplace culture, retaining staff amid a changing economy, leveraging technology for efficiency and meeting the challenging state electrification mandate.
Headlines include federal restrictions on undocumented workers obtaining CDLs and an investment into education technology.
Transfinder President and CEO Antonio Civitella shares how the company’s technology tools support students with special needs and discusses the value in participating in the free annual Top Transportation Teams program.
Special education attorney and returning TSD Conference keynote speaker Betsey Helfrich joins us to discuss current legal issues such as bus video and student cellphones, as well as overall support for students with special needs.
The school year is well underway. Student transporters discuss tips to managing the hustle and bustle this time of year. Photo courtesy: Thomas Built Buses Cover design: Kimber Horne
Leadership takes the front page in this month’s issue as the school year rolls on and student transportation leaders tackle a variety of challenges to keep services running smoothly. Hear from the 2025 Top Transportation Team award winners on building strong workplace culture, find what keeps directors in their current roles and learn more about purchasing trends for transportation related technology. Read blogs on the power of influential leadership, prioritizing professional development and more.
Find the preview for the upcoming Transporting Students with Disabilities and Special Needs (TSD) Conference to learn more about the speakers, topics and events coming to Texas on Nov. 6-11.
Rite of Passage
Students have gone back to school around the nation, and transportation directors share the challenges and solutions to keeping the school bus wheels going “round and round.”
Features
Small Moments, Big Impacts
Culture is the special sauce that drives the Top Transportation Teams award presented at STN EXPO West in Reno, Nevada.
Purchasing Trends Fluctuate
With the new school year underway, school districts share their most wanted purchase items and the expected benefits of each new product or technology.
Special Reports
Follow the ‘Golden’ Brick Road
Department culture and administrative support are leading factors for keeping transportation leaders in their current role or prompting them to look elsewhere.
The struggle continues over E-Rate funding for school bus Wi-Fi, the NCST addresses the omission of alternative transportation in its national specs manual, and NASCAR star power boosts a school bus illegal passing PSA in Michigan.
Just announced: the Zonar Bus Suite, an all-in-one routing ecosystem. During July’s STN EXPO West in Reno, Nevada, STN Publisher and President Tony Corpin caught up with Zonar CEO Charles Kriete and ez enRoute Founder Amit Anand to discuss their partnership that produced this solution.
Brad Hayn, director of transportation for Hoover City Schools in Alabama and a 2025 Top Transportation Teams Award winner, discusses building relationships for a cohesive team and successful technology implementation.
Headlines on tragic violent incidents, electric endeavors, drug testing, a bus fire and more.
Sean Hollas, interim transportation director for Goddard Public Schools in Kansas and a 2025 Top Transportation Teams Award winner, discusses fostering positive workplace culture and leveraging technology for efficiency.
Take a look behind the operational curtain with Brenda Boyd, transportation director for Holland Public Schools in Michigan and the Technology Super User featured on the STN September issue cover.
BOSTON, Mass. – Michelle Harpenau, Manager of Commercial Development for Durham School Services, has been awarded the National School Transportation Association’s (NSTA) Golden Merit Award for her exemplary service and dedication to the school bus industry
The NSTA Golden Merit Award was created in 1969 as a way to recognize school bus professionals for their dedication and contributions to the school bus industry in areas such as safety, community service, business practices, and vehicle maintenance.
Michelle, along with other award recipients, were recognized and presented with the award at the NSTA Awards and Installation Dinner on July 22, 2025, surrounded by family and fellow team members and industry professionals. The award presentation was held as part of NSTA’s 2025 Annual Meeting and Convention.
“Michelle is an exceptionally talented and valued team member who has an inherent ability to foster positivity within the team and work environment. She has led the company to growth and success as a result of her industry experience and aptitude for breaking down and simplifying financial situations for her team. Even in times of high stress, Michelle can be seen with an infectious smile on her face that spreads to those around her, lightening the mood, and driving motivation and morale,” said Dan Cecchin, Senior Vice President of Commercial Development, Durham School Services. “This award is fittingly well-deserved and an incredible symbol of Michelle’s impressive career and service excellence. Congrats, Michelle. Thanks for always going above and beyond for the team and Company. We are lucky to have you.”
About Durham School Services: As an industry-leading student transportation provider, Durham School Services and its sister brands, Stock Transportation and Petermann Bus, are dedicated to the safety of our students and People. Collectively, for more than 100 years, we have been committed to Excellence and upholding our mission of getting students to school safely, on time, and ready to learn. Through this mission and a grassroots approach to our operations, Durham School Services and its sister brands have earned recognition as a trusted transportation provider among our Customers and the Communities they serve.
David Weber, business development manager for School-Radio, analyzes new bus radio and communication technology solutions that can optimize district operations.
Regional Sales Manager James Holtz gives us a glimpse of the innovative new electric school bus Blade Battery from RIDE.
Amidst rapid developments in the clean fuel school bus market, Francisco “Paco” Lagunas, general manager of the North American bus market for Cummins, and Richard Garvin, director of strategy and commercial business development, present answers from the energy leader.
Director of Transportation Teri Mapengo discusses operations, technology and fostering the kind of positive workplace culture that won Prosper Independent School District in Texas a Top Transportation Teams award at this week’s STN EXPO in Reno, Nevada.
RENO, Nev. — Transportation directors from six school districts across the U.S. shared the grand and simple techniques they use to increase employee satisfaction and win a Top Transportation Teams Award.
The Top Transportation Teams award is in its third year. The three winning districts in the category with 100 or more employees consist of Hoover City Schools in Alabama, Prosper Independent School District in Texas and Goddard Public Schools in Kansas. The remaining three districts won for the under 100 employees category: Pembroke Central School District in New York, Wa-Nee Community Schools in Indiana, and Franklin Square Union Free School District in New York. Pembroke CSD won the highest overall rank and Prosper ISD had the most people participate. Antonio Civitella, president and CEO of award sponsor Transfinder, led a Monday Lunch and Learn panel with the districts’ transportation directors at STN EXPO West to discuss the reasons for their success.
“We’re not just coworkers, we all look out for each other,” said Gregg Fox, director of transportation for Franklin Square. He said he encourages his drivers to have a positive impact on every child’s day.
Julie Lawson is the transportation supervisor for Pembroke CSD, which also won in 2023. She said it’s all about relationships since her district is in a small town with students and drivers often knowing each other.
Amy Rosa, director of school safety and transportation Wa-Nee Community Schools – another repeat winner from last year – spoke to the good wages and positive relationships with district administration that make her school bus drivers feel supported.
Transportation is often the forgotten department in a school district, noted Sean Hollas, transportation director for Goddard Public Schools. Due to his previous role as a school principal, he said he knew making workplace culture a priority was key to employee satisfaction.
“It’s all about the people,” concurred Brad Hayne, director of transportation for Hoover City Schools, who made it a point to bring several team members to STN EXPO. “You have to be thankful that they’re there, because they could be driving for anyone.”
Teri Mapengo, transportation director for Prosper ISD, agreed that it was important to visibly support bus drivers and keep an open-door policy, so they feel heard.
Focused on Workplace Culture
Goddard Public Schools’ workplace culture was severely lacking when Hollas arrived. He observed from his experience in improving it, that keeping employees with ambivalent or hostile attitudes can harm overall team morale.
When making changes like implementing new technology, Hayne said, “You have to seek out the people who have sway in your department. Get them into your vision.”
Mapengo agreed that getting the loudest people on your side can greatly progress a leader’s ideas.
Fox said he drives the day’s earliest school bus route so he’s visible to his team members and the community, showing that, “I’m one of them, I’m in the field with them.”
Lawson said she likewise sits near drivers in the morning and throws pizza parties to make them feel comfortable talking with her.
“That’s what makes culture stick,” Civitella enthused.
Rosa shared that she has no driver shortage, which she attributes to good wages and benefits, positive word-of-mouth and the feeling that it’s a mission not a job. Being flexible with scheduling has netted her first responders and school staff who are able to drive part-time. “Now we have a line of people waiting to get in,” she said.
Civitella agreed with panelists that so-called small things like happy birthday wishes, handwritten notes, and emailed congratulations go a long way. “It’s all part of getting people recognized,” he said. One attendee who used to work for Mapengo got emotional as she shared that she still kept her former boss’ handwritten notes to look at.
Fox switched from a catered meal to a potluck to better reflect the cultural diversity and honor the contributions of all his employees. Mapengo added that potlucks are good opportunities for districts with tight budgets to still bring their teams together.
Panelists agreed that making improvements to broken or dirty appliances and break room furniture helps show transportation employees that they are valued and gets them more engaged.
Other techniques attendees added included themed dress-up days, holiday celebrations, March Madness brackets with prizes like having your route covered, personal holiday texts, and personalized conversations.
Mapengo added that a small but significant modification she made was changing “substitute drivers” to “support drivers” for a more inclusive feel.
Could Your District Be a Top Transportation Team?
All panelists agreed that the Top Transportation Team process was a worthwhile experience and they will try to win another award for their teams next year.
Fox stressed the importance of offering employees the chance to give their opinions, even negative ones. He and Rosa agreed that the national recognition by School Transportation News, presenter of the STN EXPO, is a nice change from the usually negative press that transportation gets, even as professionals successfully and quietly run multi-million-dollar organizations every day.
“Remember to keep it about the people,” Hollas said. He also advised cultivating good relationships between drivers and students’ parents.
Hayne noted that data, like the employee surveys that are used to determine the Top Transportation Team award winners, are important and inform his future operations. Show your people their voice matters, he said.
“It’s good to be good but it’s better to be great,” Mapengo commented.
Rosa said she sometimes zooms out on Transfinder’s bus routing map to see operations across the country to gain perspective in the midst of heated situations with a parent or principal. “We’re all in this together,” she stated.
Civitella reminded attendees that the Top Transportation Teams program is free for school districts to enter and includes a copy of the employee survey results. They also don’t have to be a Transfinder client to participate. The winners receive complimentary STN EXPO Main Conference Attendee registration, hotel and airfare.
“There’s always going to be ways you can improve,” he said.
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