State agencies’ hiring of outside contractors surged last year, according to a report quietly released by the state Department of Administration. The annual report, posted Monday on the DOA’s website, shows that state agencies spent $363.8 million on private contractors — an increase of 26 percent compared to the previous fiscal year.

Walker’s official calendars from his first 13 months in office chronicle these and scores more hours he spent building credentials with conservatives in Wisconsin and across the nation. The second installment in a three-part series.

More UW students are seeking mental health care, but not all campuses have enough staff to take care of them. Key findings from a the Center’s collaborative project with a UW-Madison journalism class.

About this story
Jenny Peek and Kate Prengaman reported this story with other journalism students in a UW-Madison class taught by Professor Deborah Blum, in collaboration with the nonprofit, nonpartisan Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and the Investigative Journalism Education Consortium, which includes Midwestern university journalism professors and students working on news projects in the public [...]

A decade ago, Thomas Murphy was a college dropout who used alcohol and drugs to deal with undiagnosed depression. Therapy made the difference for him. But he can’t receive it at school. When he re-enrolled at UW-Madison and went to the counseling center, he walked out with no appointment and a list of referrals.

Murphy’s story underscores a national dilemma: a surge in students seeking intensive counseling and psychiatric care, which college mental health centers often lack resources to provide.

About this story
Jenny Peek and Kate Prengaman reported this story with other journalism students in a UW-Madison class taught by Professor Deborah Blum, in collaboration with the nonprofit, nonpartisan Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and the Investigative Journalism Education Consortium, which includes Midwestern university journalism professors and students working on news projects in the public [...]

It makes sense to study contributions in search of larger patterns. So MapLight, a national nonpartisan research organization, recently launched a new feature that tracks campaign contributions by company for the U.S. Congress and two state legislatures, in California and Wisconsin.

The other day I was asked if I knew where the Center for Equal Opportunity, which opposes affirmative action and bilingual education, gets its funding. It’s a good question.