Milwaukee, WI – FLAC has been watching the city government, including MPS, ignore the problem of lead in our water and deflect accountability for decades. It comes as no surprise that MPS mishandled lead remediation, when they have never taken lead poisoning as seriously as it should have been until it became too serious to ignore this spring after Golda Meir alerted parents of a school related lead poisoning case.
“Once again children in MPS suffered harm because of negligent management and deferred infrastructural maintenance. This fine is meaningless for an already bankrupt school district, this is criminal!”, said Rodney Washington of FLAC.
In addition, FLAC supports Lead Safe Schools (LSS) in calling for community oversight of the lead paint cleanup in Milwaukee Public Schools. We agree with the State of Wisconsin DHS assessment that MPS is not competent to do the job without significant supervision and community input.
On June 10, 2025, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported their finding that MPS and its subcontractors, Service Painting Corporation and Thomas A. Mason Company, Inc., received 13 code violations, including failure to conduct interior lead-safe work practices (Wis. Admin. Code § DHS Code 163.14(11)(f). The only result was the resignation of one administrator. These subcontractors are still in possession of the credentials to remediate lead in our city in spite of these code violations. The contractors sent in uncertified staff who may have not known about the dangers of lead remediation work because they were not trained by their employer appropriately. As usual, MPS is penny wise, pound foolish. This will certainly cost more in litigation than the remediation would have cost in the first place.
Freshwater For Life Action Coalition (FLAC), a community grassroots network, calls on the State of Wisconsin Attorney General, Joshua Kaul, to review this matter and initiate an investigation for criminal neglect by all parties involved.
