'Afraid even to tell the truth': Lawyer for MPS whistleblowers, lawmakers react to scathing MPS audit
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- An outside audit finding Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) has a "culture of fear" and needs an organizational overhaul sent waves across the city and over to the state Capitol in Madison Thursday.
The audit, ordered by Gov. Tony Evers, outlined a litany of issues facing the district's operations. The findings by the outside firm Evers hired, MGT, concluded the district is plagued by a deep resistance to change, redundant jobs and board members ill-equipped to do their job of overseeing the administration.
Ben Hitchcock Cross, a Milwaukee lawyer who said he's representing five different MPS whistleblowers in various state and federal lawsuits against the district, said many of the audit's findings matched what he'd heard from his clients.
"The employees are so afraid even to tell the truth to the administrators, like North Korea," he said. "Because they're afraid they'll get punished, that they go along with things they know are not true."
The auditors interviewed 18 district "stakeholders," including MPS leaders, Department of Public Instruction (DPI) officials and elected members of the MPS Board of School Directors.
In addition to finding leaders reluctant to change, the auditors also noted overlapping jobs, such as the administration and board having their own communications offices. There was also a theme of jobs and tasks with inconsistent chains of command, such as tech services being relocated across four different departments.
Hitchcock Cross said that also aligned with his findings in cases. He said a common complaint from whistleblowers has been qualified employees being passed over for leadership spots because high-ranking district officials instead wanted to take care of their friends.
"Many of these positions that we're talking about with overlap and everything else are ultimately for- they're created for the individual and not for the work," he said. "Some of these people have started as elementary teachers and have worked their way up, gotten their PhD to get to this level, and now, they're subject matter experts and they're a threat to these cronies because the cronies don't know what they're doing."
The report also called for the district's nine elected board members to undergo more extensive training to understand and perform their jobs. Last summer, board member Henry Leonard told CBS 58 the board does not receive training on district finances amid a fiscal crisis that forced MPS' previous superintendent, Keith Posley, to resign.
The MPS board released a statement Thursday calling the audit's findings and recommendations a "valuable tool" as it moves into a new era after picking Brenda Cassellius this week to serve as the district's next superintendent.
"The report validates the progress we are making while also serving as a guide for continued improvements," the board statement read. "At the same time, it identifies areas for growth, reaffirming our commitment to continuous improvement."
Lawmakers respond to audit
State Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay), who chairs the Assembly's education committee, told CBS 58 Thursday he was sympathetic to the MPS board's challenges given it's a part-time job, and those challenges play out in school districts across Wisconsin. However, given the district's size and influence on state aid other districts receive, he added MPS' board has no margin for error.
"It can be a problem everywhere, where you have board members that it's not their full-time job, they trust the superintendent and that kind of thing," Kitchens said. "But when you get to a situation like Milwaukee, we need board members that really are engaged there. They have to provide oversight."
The Evers administration is spending $5.5 million on a pair of MPS audits. MGT is still working on a second report; that one will examine the district's academic practices.
A spokesperson for Evers told reporters in a briefing Wednesday MGT will receive about $2 million for its work, and the rest will go to MPS for implementation of the audit's 29 recommendations. Kitchens said he was not opposed to that spending.
"I don't have a problem with it, personally," he said. "I think we really need to know what's going on, and again, we just have to hope that information is used by them."
Other Republican lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and State Sen. John Jagler (R-Watertown), chair of the Senate's education committee, have slammed the district in recent weeks, primarily over its ongoing failure to reintroduce school resource officers under state law.
Board member Missy Zombor told reporters Tuesday MPS is now offering to cover 33% of the 25 officers' salaries, along with the full cost of training. The district and Mayor Cavalier Johnson's administration have been at odds over who should pay for the SROs.
Kitchens said the ongoing delay was inexcusable and threatens to hurt MPS in the next two-year state budget.
"MPS needs money, but again, they have to follow the law," Kitchens said. "That's our only leverage that we have, is the funding."
State Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said he worried the audit's findings would be used as a weapon by Republicans to cut public school funding statewide.
"I think people are looking for changes," he said. "They're looking for people to stop pointing fingers, stop looking for scapegoats and to be able to recognize this is everybody's problem that we absolutely need to bring everyone together to fix. And, by the way, that includes the state."
Larson said he was optimistic the audit's findings and recommendations, along with Cassellius' appointment, will spur positive change in MPS.
"I think that combined within 24 hours of us having a new superintendent is a powerful formula to actually fixing what the underlying problems are," he said.