Milwaukee Public Schools’ buildings were constructed across three centuries, between 1882 and 2005.
Recent findings of unaddressed lead paint hazards in seven schools so far have drawn attention to MPS’ broader ability to maintain its large portfolio of aging schools. The district has lost nearly 30,000 students in less than two decades, and administrators say it hasn’t offloaded enough buildings to compensate.
MPS reported over $265 million in deferred facilities maintenance in 2024, according to a report submitted to the state Legislature. That facilities inventory logged 140 buildings.
The average deferred maintenance level across those buildings was $1.89 million, data show.
But those costs were not evenly distributed across the district. Eight schools had $0 in needed maintenance, and another seven had $5 million or more. The school with the most deferred maintenance was Milwaukee High School of the Arts, with $10.36 million.
Here’s the data.
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About the data
State requirements say MPS must submit an inventory of its school buildings to the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance and other authorities each year. No other school districts in Wisconsin are subject to that requirement.
Cleo Krejci covers K-12 education and workforce development as a Report For America corps member based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at CKrejci@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @_CleoKrejci. For more information about Report for America, visit jsonline.com/rfa.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Millions in maintenance needed in MPS, school-by-school dataset shows