Open Records
- News
Two Audits of DPI Slip to Late Fall; State Won’t Say Why
Two state audits of the Department of Public Instruction are running late, and the agency conducting them won’t say why. The nonpartisan Legislative Audit…
- News
AG Kaul again seeks more open government staff as DOJ records delays grow
Department’s median response time increased from 14 days in 2025 to 58 days during the first half of 2026
- News
Milwaukee Election Commission Still Hasn’t Released All Central Count Records 38 Days After Request
A new letter asks the Milwaukee Election Commission to produce the remaining records or explain why they have not been released
- News
Milwaukee Election Commission Promises State it Will Release Primary Records by Friday
The saga surrounding the Milwaukee Election Commission and its bungled Aug. 11 primary night operation took a new turn this week. City officials finally…
- News
Now State Elections Regulators Consider Pressuring Milwaukee Over Withheld Election Records
The search for answers from the City of Milwaukee is now escalating to the highest levels of state election oversight. On August 14, Dairyland Sentinel…
- News
Milwaukee Election Commission Warns of “Months-Long” Delay for Primary Records
Get reporting like this in your inbox, free. After ten days of silence and a direct follow-up inquiry, the Milwaukee Election Commission has finally…
- Opinion
Wisconsin Doesn’t Need New Transparency Laws. It Needs to Codify Enforcement of the Ones It Has.
For much of the past two decades, I’ve been involved in Wisconsin’s fight over open government. Our state’s transparency law starts with an uncompromising…
- Opinion
Delay, Deny, Deflect: Inside Wisconsin’s Government Transparency Problem
Wisconsin’s Public Records Law begins with one of the strongest declarations of open government in the nation. “The denial of public access generally is…
- History
Wisconsin Forged a Fortress for Press Freedom in 1848. We are Still Fighting to Keep It Open
Part of our Wisconsin in America at 250 series
- News
Portrait of Deceit: Public Records Prove DPI Misled Wisconsinites About “Portrait of a Graduate” Steering Committee
When State Superintendent Jill Underly launched Wisconsin’s “Portrait of a Graduate” initiative in late May, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI)…
- News
DPI’s “Portrait” of Secrecy: Why Won’t the State Reveal its Education Steering Committee Members?
When a state agency launches a massive new initiative to redefine what public education looks like, you would think they would want to brag about the people…
- News
DOJ Prod Gets DPI to Release $8M Forward Exam Workplan & Waterpark Workshop Details
It took 14 months, a mountain of ignored requests, the retention of a respected public policy legal powerhouse and a formal intervention by the Wisconsin…
- News
Dairyland Sentinel Asks AG Kaul to Force DPI Open Records Compliance
The Dairyland Sentinel filed a formal request Tuesday asking Attorney General Josh Kaul to intervene after the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction…
- News
UW-Madison Stalls on Promised Conservative Chair as Accountability Questions Mount
By Brian Fraley, Dairyland Sentinel The University of Wisconsin-Madison has yet to fulfill a high-profile 2023 agreement with state lawmakers to hire a…
- News
Make Do with Less? Not DPI.
The Department of Public Instruction spends nearly $400,000 on a four-day Waterpark Workshop… two years later they’re encouraging teachers practice “scrappiness.”
- News
DPI Stonewalls Public: Where’s the Secret Waterpark Workshop Contract?
By Dairyland Sentinel Publisher Brian Fraley DPI has a transparency problem that is quickly becoming a legal one. After a year of stonewalling our…
- News
Delayed DPI Records Reveal Taxpayers Soaked with $368K Water Park Resort Bill to Weaken State Exam Standards
By Brian Fraley, Dairyland Sentinel Publisher UPDATE 6:18pm As a result of Dairyland Sentinel’s reporting, this afternoon the Joint Finance Committee delayed…
- News
One Year Later: Dairyland Sentinel, Institute for Reforming Government Press DPI for Transparency on Forward Exam Changes
More than a year after first seeking public records related to changes to Wisconsin’s Forward Exam benchmarks, Dairyland Sentinel is escalating its effort to…
- News
Wisconsin Woman Sentenced to 111 Months in Medicaid Fraud Case
MILWAUKEE — The owner of a now-defunct prenatal care coordination business was sentenced to 111 months’ imprisonment for her role in a federal healthcare…
- News
275 Days Later: Underly, DPI Still Withhold Public Records on Lowering of State Education Standards
As of Thursday, October 23, 2025, it will have been 275 days since the Dairyland Sentinel filed a lawful open-records request with the Wisconsin Department…