Investigating assisted living in Wisconsin

I'm Hope Karnopp and this is the Daily Briefing newsletter by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Sign up here to get it sent to your inbox each morning .

We have a calm weather day today, and it looks like it will (remarkably) stay that way for the next couple days. The high will be around 77 degrees today with some calm winds. Temps will reach into the low 80s for the start of an incredibly busy weekend of outdoor festivals .

Investigating assisted living in Wisconsin

For the past few months, our reporter Cleo Krejci has investigated assisted living in Wisconsin. The story begins with her time working in a facility and taking notes about what she observed: moments of love and care, like staff preparing Thanksgiving meals when families didn't visit, but also abuse and neglect. That experience informed the questions she investigated next.

The Journal Sentinel found assisted living facilities are increasingly admitting people with increasingly complex health issues. But the facilities weren’t initially designed for that kind of care — and state oversight of admissions, staffing levels and training hasn’t kept up. Krejci analyzed five years of data and interviewed more than 50 workers, families, nurses, researchers and others.

"The original intent was to be more of a social model. It wasn’t really meant to be a heavy health care-type model in line with a skilled nursing facility," said Mike Pochowski, CEO of the Wisconsin Assisted Living Association. "They’re not staffed that way."

As part of "The Gray Zone" series, Krejci also answers questions about the differences between assisted living and memory care , including costs, services, staff pay and ratios, whether a nurse needs to be on staff, and more. You can also submit your own questions and experiences as we continue our reporting.

About those August referendum questions

You may have heard there's some referendum questions on the Aug. 13 ballot and aren't sure what they mean. Luckily, Rachel Hale has an explainer about how these two questions came to be , which groups support a "yes" or "no" vote, and what the implications could be.

The questions essentially ask voters whether the state Legislature should get more power over distributing federal funding. The debate stems from clashes between Republicans and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers over distributing billions in pandemic relief funds.

Republicans and conservative groups support voting "yes" on the questions and see it as an important check on the governor's power. Democrats and liberal groups encourage voting "no" because they think the Legislature would slow down how money gets distributed during emergencies.

Don't miss these

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• How do you cram 80,000 attendees into one Mile of Music? Read about the history of the Appleton music festival .
• JR Radcliffe has a comprehensive schedule for watching athletes with Wisconsin connections compete in the Olympics , including Giannis Antetokounmpo.
• Here's the takeaways from the Packers' shareholders meeting , including construction projects and how NFL draft fundraising is going.
• Greendale's Raising Cane's location opens Tuesday. Here's how you can win free food for a year at their grand opening . (I recommend the sweet tea.)

Hope Karnopp can be reached at HKarnopp@gannett.com or on Twitter at @hopekarnopp .

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Investigating assisted living in Wisconsin