Finance
Budget crisis is top concern for MPS leader Cassellius | Opinion
Before seeking a new referendum MPS needs to rebuild trust in the community through completing state audits, putting in place controls to prevent overspending and routine reports to the public.
For MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius, who just wrapped up her first year leading Milwaukee’s public school system, her tenure has been punctuated by some very big numbers.
The first is $252 million. That is the amount of new spending voters narrowly approved in an April 2024 referendum to support operations in Wisconsin’s largest school district. Just months later, MPS was rocked by revelations the district was months behind in filing key financial reports to the state, which led to former Superintendent Keith Posley’s resignation.
The second is $1 billion. MPS faces a deferred maintenance backlog exceeding $1 billion. The district’s enrollment has declined 30% over the last 30 years, leaving many schools at less than 50% full. That, in part, is driving a plan to close some schools and to improve others to help lower costs.
The final is $46 million, the deficit MPS was running for the 2024-25 school year, an unexpected shortfall which has led to hundreds of staff layoffs.
Getting the district’s accounting, budgeting and financial reporting back on track has dominated Cassellius’s first year at MPS. In an April 15 interview with the Journal Sentinel’s editorial board, she talked in detail about the challenges putting that into order and progress she sees in restoring transparency into its operations.
State funding and aging buildings create budget nightmares
Cassellius says state needs to keep up its share of school funding
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel editorial board, MPS leader Brenda Cassellius says budgets and buildings are her two top worries.
Cassellius said the on-going budget crisis is her top concern. She said the state’s failure to live up to its share of funding is exacerbating MPS’ budget woes. A group of school districts, teachers and parents filed suit against the state Legislature and its Joint Finance Committee claiming the current state funding system is unconstitutional and prevents schools from meeting students’ educational needs.
Funding for special education is especially critical. About 20% of MPS students have disabilities, almost twice the share of the city’s charter schools, and the average of 14% across Wisconsin.
“What’s keeping me up now, you know, is really just the budget crisis we’re in, with not only this year but multiple years going out without additional state aid, we’ve been not getting funding for what our needs are for our students, and particularly our students with special needs,” she said.
Although the state budget increased special education funding to a 42% reimbursement rate, the actual rate has been about 35%. Another component to the budget headache is the age of MPS buildings. The average age is 85 years-old compared to 45 across the nation.
“We have just kicked this can down the curb or kicked it down the street or whatever you call it for too long. And it’s time that we really take on a serious conversation about the conditions of the learning environments in which we send our children,” she said. “Particularly in Milwaukee Public Schools, we serve the most vulnerable children. Children who have language barriers, children who have disabilities, children in high-concentrated poverty.”
What needs to happen before MPS seeks another referendum
Voters need to be comfortable MPS has made tough budget decisions
In an interview with Journal Sentinel editorial board, Brenda Cassellius said voters will need to see budget improvements before seeking more spending
Cassellius said MPS will definitely need to go back to voters for a new referendum in the future. In addition to the 2024 measure, voters approved an $87 million plan in 2020.
Before doing that, she said the district first needs to rebuild trust in the community through completing required state audits, putting into place controls to prevent overspending and routine reports to the school board and public about finances.
“I don’t think that the voters are going to want us to bring something forward until they feel comfortable that we have done the cleanup that is necessary,” she said. “And we’ve built the trust that we have the sufficient controls in place.”
In the interim, she’s hoping the state will meet its constitutional responsibility to adequately fund public schools.
“What the public expects is you know where the money is, you’re spending it as close as you can to children, you’re getting good on the promise around art, music, and PE, and the things the public said they wanted to fund,” Cassellius said. “And they want their kids to have so that they have a quality education and an excellent education in Milwaukee Public Schools, and that they had the right amount of staff that they actually need. In the school to be safe and to run a good operation.”
Rebuilding finance staff in wake of $46 million in overspending
MPS is rebuilding school finance staff in wake of reporting lapses
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel editorial board April 15, MPS superintendent discusses accountability for district’s financial problems.
The $46 million budget shortfall from the 2024-25 school year started coming into view last fall and was confirmed in mid-January. Cassellius noted that in addition to hiring a new superintendent, MPS also parted ways with its comptroller and CFO.
“We are really rebuilding the personnel and staff of the finance department. That is what’s critical, is having the right people in the right seats doing the work,” she said. “Also critical is making sure that you have the right controls in place. The audit findings found that we did not have proper controls in place and now we have those proper controls in place and when we find things we put new SOPs in place and that is what any business does.”
Identifying that shortfall, though painful, was the result of better accounting.
“Being three years behind in auditing means that you don’t have full sight on your actual revenues and expenditures. And so we have now full sight of our revenues and our expenditures and that’s why we were able to see this new deficit of $46 million,” she said. “And we still continue to work with DPI on those processes to make sure that every month we’re doing monthly to actuals and doing those accounting, reporting that to the board. In a way that is consumable to the public that they can understand.”
Jim Fitzhenry is the Ideas Lab Editor/Director of Community Engagement for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Reach him at jfitzhen@gannett.com or 920-993-7154.
BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Initial public offerings, better known as IPOs, may seem like big investment opportunities, but a financial adviser is warning they could be a risky addition to your portfolio.
Dan Cunningham of the investment management company One Day in July, said he recommends that people stay away when a company starts selling initial shares on the stock market.
Most recently, Elon Musk’s SpaceX became the biggest IPO ever, but Cunningham said people shouldn’t get caught up in the hoopla.
“They generate a lot of excitement, but when you look at long term results, IPOs have not been a good investment. So we really try to encourage people to stay away from the hype. You are really betting on the future and taking an enormous amount of risk by buying IPO shares in many cases,” Cunningham said.
According to Cunningham, the good news is that, over the long term, the market and most retirement funds that mirror it will balance out.
Copyright 2026 WCAX. All rights reserved.
DULUTH — The Duluth Homegrown Music Festival is seeking both new operational leadership and a solution to financial filing issues that caused the organization to lose its federal tax-exempt status, which it has not held since 2022.
The organization is currently operating as a taxable nonprofit, confirmed Don Ness, the former Duluth mayor who serves as president of Homegrown’s
board of directors.
Ness and the board are working to discern whether there might be any outstanding tax liabilities in the wake of an apparent filing lapse.
“It’s a serious matter that requires diligence to do things right, and to correct past oversight, and to make sure that we are in full compliance with all tax and regulatory requirements,” Ness said. “The board is 100% committed to that course of action.”
As the Duluth Monitor first reported, Homegrown had its federal tax-exempt status revoked in 2022 after failing to make required financial reports for three years. The Monitor also reported that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office has notified the organization it may be in violation of state law requiring the proper registration of soliciting charities.
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
“All but one of us have been on for less than a year,” Ness said of the current board members. “We’ve been committed to saying, ‘hey, we need to improve the points of accountability.’”
The organization will also require new operational leadership. Co-directors Cory Jezierski and Dereck Murphy-Williams resigned earlier this month, after leading Homegrown through four successful festivals.
“My contract ended at the end of May, and I knew a few days later that I did not want to continue in that position,” Jezierski said. “Simply put, it was the best thing for my mental health. It’s a job that requires many, many hours and a lot of work, and it can be very stressful as well.”
Amy Arntson / Duluth Media Group file photo
Murphy-Williams did not respond to an interview request for this article, nor did preceding Homegrown director Melissa LaTour. According to LaTour’s
LinkedIn profile,
she was Homegrown director from 2016 to 2022.
Jason Beckman, a recent president who is no longer serving on the board, responded to a News Tribune email but did not provide an interview availability before this article went to press.
Ness does not believe the reporting lapses were due to any ill intent. He praised Jezierski and Murphy-Williams for their success managing festival operations. “They cared deeply about the festival,” he said. “It’s amazing to see that our community continues to support this really unique and special festival.”
“Those guys run a hell of a festival,” said Scott Lunt, festival founder and a current board member. “I think they needed help with bookkeeping.”
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
By Jezierski’s account, issues with the festival’s tax status became apparent shortly after he became co-director. “We went to file taxes, they were rejected,” Jezierski said. “At that time we, of course, didn’t know why right away, but once we started pulling on that thread, we unraveled a whole lot of the problems that were going on.”
Jezierski said “it took a long time to try to get any sort of help” from the board, but said that by the time he and Murphy-Williams left the organization, “everything had been turned over to be reconciled” with a financial professional.
Ness, like Lunt, was deeply involved with Homegrown in its first decade but had not had an official role with the festival since then. After launching the festival in 1999 and running it on his own for several years, Lunt was “burnt out,” Ness remembered.
Derek Montgomery / Duluth Media Group file photo
After a transition period during which the festival was run in partnership with the Ripsaw newspaper, Homegrown established a nonprofit organization in 2006 with Ness as festival director. Ness subsequently stepped down when he was elected mayor in 2007.
By 2025, Ness was in his current position as executive director of the Ordean Foundation.
“I was approached by a couple of longtime music scenesters,” Ness recalled. “They said, ‘There are questions about (Homegrown’s) nonprofit status. There are questions about some governance issues. We’re concerned.’”
Ness agreed to join the board, and became president. The 2026 festival ran smoothly from an operational standpoint, but Ness found the financial reporting to be lacking.
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
“The last board meeting that we had prior to the (co-directors’) resignations was intended to be an overview of the festival that was a month before,” Ness said. “I certainly felt very uncomfortable with how little financial information we were receiving.”
Lunt also joined the board in 2025, marking his first time serving in that capacity. He said the new board has been spending significant time addressing the accounting and reporting issues.
“Every year at Homegrown time I’m like, ‘I should get more involved,’ and then I don’t,” Lunt said. “Then this board thing came up, and it was kind of sold to me as, like, four meetings a year. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s perfect.’ And now we’re meeting weekly.”
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
Although it’s unclear how the organization’s finances will look when the accounting and reporting issues have been fully addressed, along with any outstanding tax liabilities, both Ness and Lunt said they are confident the annual festival will continue without interruption.
“The organization will continue,” Ness said. “The festival will continue. Homegrown is in no danger in terms of its viability.” The financial documentation Ness initially received indicated budgeted revenues of about $140,000, against about $130,000 in expenses.
“Financially, I think we’re in a great spot. We have the money to hire the (financial) professionals, and we have (done so),” Lunt said. “We were hoping that we could get all this sorted out before it had to become more public.”
“We poured countless hours into this festival, and this is how it ends, with everyone talking about this,” Jezierski said. “It’s rough.”
“There’s a DIY ethos that is really at the core of Homegrown,” reflected Ness. “We’re throwing a music festival that isn’t waiting for some famous band from the East Coast to bless us with their presence. We are doing this on our own.”
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group file photo
That DIY spirit also means “you’re kind of passing wisdom down from person to person, and sometimes that’s imperfect.” Ness continued. “The ways that we do things evolve over time, because it’s not a buttoned-down corporate sort of thing. That can create its own set of challenges.”
“It’s self-supporting,” said Lunt about the festival. “It’s widely volunteer-run. You do need to pay a couple people, obviously, to keep track of some things, but it’s going to be strong into the future. It’s gone through its bumps before.”
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NEW YORK and SINGAPORE, June 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — LUMIQ, an AI-native financial services company, today announced a strategic funding round to scale auto-decisioning for financial institutions across the United States and Southeast Asia. The round was led by Bajaj Finserv, one of India’s largest and most diversified financial services groups, with participation from existing investor Info Edge Ventures.
Right now, thousands of customers are waiting for a policy to be issued, a loan to be disbursed, a claim to be adjudicated, because somewhere an FSI employee is drowning in decisions, held back by the risk of getting it wrong. Today, when e-commerce delivers the same day, banks and insurers still decide in weeks. We built LiteCone to take that burden: AI decides the routine cases, completely and accountably, so humans spend their judgment on the one case that actually needs it. This round lets us bring that to every financial institution in the markets that matter most.
Shoaib Mohammad, Co-founder and CEO, LUMIQ
From AI that assists to AI that decides
For decades, financial institutions have bought technology that made their people faster — faster data, faster scoring, faster copilots. The decision still landed on a human. LUMIQ is changing that. Through its LiteCone platform, the company deploys AI agents that read the file, apply the institution’s own guidelines, and reach the decision end to end — escalating only the cases that genuinely require human judgment. The output is not a recommendation. It is a decision, with full reasoning attached, cross-referenced to policy, and defensible under audit.
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Vaibhav Dobriyal, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, LUMIQ
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