Wednesday, May 20, 2026
RUSD workers demonstrate for wage increases in 2026-27
Ryan Patterson
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Kelly Miller was one of about 50 people who demonstrated in demand of better pay Monday at the Racine Unified School District administrative service campus. |
RACINE — Educators demonstrated Monday to demand pay next school year that keeps up with the cost of living.
About 50 people from two unions made their presence felt with signs and chanting before the Racine Unified School District Board meeting.
Chants included “Pay us or lose us,” “Educators deserve a living wage” and “Retain, don’t retrain.”
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Dulce Cervantes, from right, Dawn Glasier and Amanda Schwartz were some of the teachers who demonstrated Monday at the Racine Unified School District administrative service campus, 3109 Mt. Pleasant St. |
Members of Racine Educators United, the union representing RUSD instructors, and Service Employees International Union Wisconsin, the union representing RUSD building service employees such as custodians, maintenance workers and engineers, want base wage increases of 2.63% next school year to keep pace with rising costs.
According to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, 2.63% is the applicable inflation rate for one-year collective bargaining agreements that begin July 1, which is when the REU and SEIU deals will start.
That inflation rate is also known as a cost of living adjustment, or COLA.
Teachers also want a salary step increase in 2026-27. The step increase, also called a rung, is based on educators’ years of service.
Educators believe that keeping experienced workers helps students and is less costly for the school district than hiring and training new employees.
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Spencer Carlson, from right, Maddie Kelly and Christie Bartow were three of the teachers who demonstrated in demand of better pay Monday at the Racine Unified School District administrative service campus. |
“We know these are tough economic times, but we have faith that the board and the administration recognize the value of front-line workers that keep the district running and that they’ll honor all of our hard work with COLA and a step,” said REU President Angelina Cruz.
RUSD and the unions have not yet exchanged base wage proposals.
The school board met in executive session Monday to discuss base wage negotiations, according to the meeting agenda, but did not vote on anything.
The school district and two unions are scheduling the date of the initial exchange.
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Mike Bellagio, Racine Unified School District Board member, right, talks with employees demonstrating for better pay Monday at the RUSD administrative service campus. |
Base wage agreements require approval from the RUSD Board.
Board President Jane Barbian wrote in an email that the board is “always looking for ways to recruit and retain high quality staff for our schools.”
“This means being as competitive as possible in our wage negotiations, and as our budget allows,” Barbian wrote “We understand that a quality workforce is needed to drive the district initiatives.”
RUSD educators and building service employees received 2.95% base wage increases this school year, 2% raises in 2024-25 and 8% increases in 2023-24.
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| demonstrated Monday to demand better pay next school year. |
Union members will likely demonstrate at the school board’s June 1 work session and June 15 business meeting if a deal is not reached by those dates.
“We’ll be back!” employees chanted while leaving.
Recent stories by Racine Journal Times reporter Ryan Patterson
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Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Mt. Pleasant police, fire departments seeing increased workloads
Holly Gilvary
MOUNT PLEASANT — Police calls in Mount Pleasant are “consistently going up,” with the police department seeing a 4.7% increase from 2024 to 2025 and a 7.5% increase from 2023 to 2025.
That’s according to Mount Pleasant Police Chief Robert Botsch, who delivered the Mount Pleasant Police Department’s 2025 annual report to village trustees May 11.
South Shore Fire Chief Dustin Ellis also presented the fire department’s annual report.
"As of today at 3 o'clock, we're about 300 calls higher this year than we were at the same time last year, already," Botsch said.
MPPD received 26,115 calls last year, according to the annual report.
Botsch said the department is focused on addressing hazardous driving, such as speeding and impaired operation, adding that overall traffic accidents increased in 2025 because the volume of traffic is increasing.
"Everything is unfortunately going up in the traffic area because we have a lot more traffic that is in our area," he said. "We've got a lot more construction that's going on."
The department reported 722 wrecks resulting in property damage, 256 resulting in injuries and 134 involving a hit and run.
The number of traffic stops is up as officers conduct more patrols "to try and adjust behavior," Botsch said.
This summer, MPPD will bring back its PROTECT Initiative (Proactive Operations, Traffic Enforcement and Crime-suppression Team) that it piloted in 2025 to provide additional traffic patrols and proactive enforcement from June 1 to Aug. 31.
“(Officers are) in the hotels, they’re frequenting bars, they’re trying to get in front of problems," Botsch said. "They’re a problem-solving group that just gets out and they have time to do other things.”
While all MPPD officers conduct traffic patrols and proactive enforcement during their shifts, they do so in between calls, according to Botsch. The designated PROTECT officers have the time to practice proactive enforcement for their entire shifts.
“People might complain that they've got speeders on their block; we might not have a squad during normal hours that can sit on that block because they're jumping from call to call to call to call to call,” he said. “Now, in the summer, from June 1 to Aug. 31, we might have that capability because now we've got a car that we've pulled out to just do proactive stuff.”
Last summer, PROTECT issued 177 traffic citations, conducted 13 felony arrests, 35 misdemeanor arrests, 15 municipal arrests, 23 warrant-related arrests, 39 narcotics-related arrests, three firearm-related arrests and reported 18 K-9 utilization instances.
No additional hires are necessary to staff the two-person team.
Staffing and recognition
Despite three officers leaving in 2025, MPPD ended the year fully staffed, hiring four new officers. Two of those hires finished their field training this month.
Botsch also highlighted the department’s community engagement efforts and events, such as the Lakeside COP (Community Oriented Policing) House. The Chicago Police Department visited MPPD’s COP House last year to learn more about their community engagement practices.
“We really engage well with the community and a lot of other agencies are trying to model that, and not just have a house in a neighborhood, but model the engagement, the ability to get out there, the ability to interact, the ability to build relationships," Botsch said.
MPPD also gained re-accreditation from the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Accreditation Group through 2028 after an assessment in October. Botsch estimated that about 10% of agencies in Wisconsin have this accreditation.
SSFD calls also up
South Shore Fire Chief Dustin Ellis said the fire department responded to 6,378 incidents last year, with EMS calls accounting for 78% of those.
The call volume is down slightly from 2024, but up overall from 2021 by more than 1,000 calls, according to the department.
Department expenditures in 2025 were about $11.26 million, with a 2026 adopted budget of $12.12 million. The main costs were staffing, overtime, healthcare and equipment.
SSFD will have 64 of its 69 positions filled after the May 29 Racine County Joint Fire Training Academy, according to the department.
Ellis said SSFD’s priorities for 2026 include facility planning, automatic aid expansion, workforce development, policy improvements and the implementation of a strategic plan.
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Monday, May 18, 2026
Gov. Tony Evers says Wisconsin is prepared for any FBI election probe
Molly Beck
MADISON - Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers says he has not been made aware of any "widespread" Federal Bureau of Investigation effort to probe the 2020 presidential election in this battleground state but has measures in place to respond if one materializes.
Evers made the comments days after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported FBI agents had questioned a top state election official and have sought interviews with people who helped administer Milwaukee's 2020 election.
It's so far unclear what the goals are of the questions.
A spokeswoman for the FBI has repeatedly declined to answer questions about the probe's scope and purpose. But sources told the Journal Sentinel the FBI's interview with Wisconsin Elections Commission deputy administrator Robert Kehoe focused on how elections work in Wisconsin and debunking conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in the state.
"No, I'm not," Evers told WISN 12 News political reporter Matt Smith when asked if Evers was aware of "widespread FBI activity here in the state."
"I haven't heard it, but we are adequately prepared and I won't tell you what pieces are in place but we're prepared to make sure that our elections happen safely," Evers said about November's elections.
"We have plans to, if they show up, we will be there to make sure that they are asking for what they have access to but also making sure that they're not doing what they shouldn't do," he said.
The Wisconsin probe comes after federal officials in January seized hundreds of boxes of ballots related to the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, and after the FBI issued a grand jury subpoena in March for voting information in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin have all been central to Trump's false claims that he won the 2020 election. Trump has insisted, without evidence, that former President Joe Biden didn’t win in Wisconsin that year.
A recount in two Wisconsin counties that Trump's campaign paid for, court rulings, a state audit and a conservative review have confirmed that Trump lost. Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes.
Officials in Wisconsin – and especially Milwaukee – have been bracing for an investigation.
If federal officials advance an investigation of the 2020 election in Milwaukee, it's possible that poll books and nearly 180,000 absentee ballots with attached ID numbers could be turned over to investigators. Since state law requires absentee ballots counted at a central counting facility to include poll list numbers, the data could be matched with poll book information to identify voters.
Ballots from the 2020 election typically would have been destroyed by now. But Milwaukee's 2020 ballots still exist, partly because of a lawsuit filed against the city by a New London man who has sued state and local election officials over the 2020 election and related issues.
Sources told the Journal Sentinel earlier this month no ballots have been seized by the FBI.
Agents sought to question one of Milwaukee County's top election officials about the 2020 presidential election at her home last week. Evers said the agents' decision to visit her home was "bizarre."
Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Saturday, May 16, 2026
How many data centers are there in Wisconsin? It depends how you count
Blaise Mesa
Wisconsin is building massive data centers. But the group DC Byte says it has 21 total.
Data centers are appearing across the country as demand for artificial intelligence increases.
In Wisconsin, a Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant is nearing completion and already has 375 full-time employees, according to a company executive. A second Microsoft data center is under construction, with even more planned for the future, the Journal Sentinel previously reported.
In September 2025, Gov. Tony Evers applauded the company's investment by highlighting the jobs being created in the state.
“This project is creating good, family-sustaining union jobs across the entire region from carpenters, plumbers and electricians,” he said.
There are other data centers in Wisconsin too, including the Cogent, Vaultas Milwaukee and Data Holdings Milwaukee facilities.
What is the purpose of data centers?
The data center boom due in part to the rise of artificial intelligence, but the specific purpose of each data center can vary by location, Stafford said. They are also used for:
- Cloud computing and storage
- Streaming
- E-commerce
- Telecoms However, a University of Virginia report and a World Resources Institute report both put Wisconsin's total at about 50, as the Journal Sentinel previously reported.
There are 53 data centers listed for Wisconsin on datacentermap.com, a website that maps data centers across the country. That count includes 19 data centers in the Milwaukee area.
- IT infrastructure
- Telecoms
- Disaster backup
How many data centers are there in Wisconsin?
There are a few different totals, depending on how the facilities are counted.
DC Byte, a firm that tracks data center development, puts the count for Wisconsin at 21, including 12 data centers that haven't yet gone live.
However, a University of Virginia report and a World Resources Institute report both put Wisconsin's total at about 50, as the Journal Sentinel previously reported.
There are 53 data centers listed for Wisconsin on datacentermap.com, a website that maps data centers across the country. That count includes 19 data centers in the Milwaukee area.
Rob Stafford, of DC Byte, said some facilities may have multiple data centers in one location, and some counts include every individual data center. But DC Byte does not, Stafford said.
These are the DC Byte counts for Wisconsin's neighbors:
- Illinois – 91 data centers (51 not yet live)
- Minnesota – 36 data centers (14 not yet live)
- Michigan – 25 data centers (14 not yet live)
The World Resources Institute report lists these states as having the country's most data centers:
- Virginia - 566 data centers
- Texas - 391 data centers
- California - 287 data centers
- Illinois and Georgia - 195 data centers
- Ohio - 194 data centers
Stafford explained that it can be difficult to compare the size of different data centers because energy use can be hard to quantify, so DC Byte doesn't track it "in any comprehensive way." DC Byte uses proprietary information and talks to people living near data centers to compile its data, he said.
What do data centers do to the environment?
Some large data centers can as much as five million gallons of water a day, the same amount used by a town of 50,000 people, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. Researchers who studied the affects of data centers on air quality say there could be as many as 1,300 premature deaths in the United States by 2030 due to air pollution from power plants supplying electricity to data centers,
At least a few Wisconsin communities have resisted data centers due to concerns about water use and electricity costs.
Three bighorn sheep are latest additions at the Racine Zoo
RACINE — Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep are the latest additions to the Racine Zoo's Mountain exhibit.
Helga and Mantis were born in spring 2023 at Hemker Park and Zoo in Freeport, Minnesota.
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Helga and Mantis are pictured with Mantis’s baby at the Racine Zoo. After being quarantined off-exhibit, the three are now enjoying the Mountain exhibit. Courtesy of Racine Zoo |
They arrived in Racine on Feb. 23 and were held in an off-exhibit quarantine, but are now at their new home in the exhibit, which underwent construction and renovations during the last year, according to a news release from the zoo.
According to the release, Bighorn sheep are the largest sheep native to
North America. They are named for the males’ large, spiraled horns, which can weigh up to 30 pounds.
The sheep are native to alpine grasslands of Western North America. In the mid-1800s, there were an estimated 200,000 sheep in the region, the release said. Their numbers declined as a result of hunting, habitat loss and the spread of disease from domesticated animals.
The numbers are now somewhat stabilized, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists them as “least concern.”
Recent stories by Racine Journal Times reporter Milana Doné
Foxconn North American facilities hacked. Impact on Wisconsin unknown
Ricardo Torres
Foxconn Technology Group is recovering from recent a ransomware attack which happened around May 12.
In a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the company said:
"Some of Foxconn's factories in North America suffered a cyberattack. The cybersecurity team immediately activated the response mechanism and implemented multiple operational measures to ensure the continuity of production and delivery. The affected factories are currently resuming normal production."
It's unclear which facilities were targeted and what the total impact of the attack had on the company. Reports have pointed to an organization called "Nitrogen Group" which allegedly committed the act.
Foxconn's North American headquarters is located in 611 East Wisconsin Avenue but it's main facilities in the state are in Mount Pleasant.
In 2017, the company originally planned to build a massive advanced manufacturing campus with $10 billion of capital investment and 13,000 employees statewide. However Foxconn drastically changed course with its operations in Wisconsin and, as of 2025, had more than 1,300 workers in the state.
Foxconn sold most of its land in Mount Pleasant to Microsoft which is in the process of building a massive data center campus. Microsoft is in the final stages of finishing its first data center and already has more than 375 workers at the facility.
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