• What Happened: Newcap, a Wisconsin nonprofit receiving nearly $14 million annually in taxpayer money to help low-income residents with housing, utilities, and healthcare, has been placed under state financial monitoring after FOX 11 uncovered executive pay schemes, lavish conference trips, and falsified government reports.
  • Why It Matters: When it was time to file required compliance reports showing how the money was spent, leadership would allegedly gather in a room and fabricate numbers. Meanwhile, CEO Cheryl Detrick's salary more than doubled to $239,641, the highest of any comparable agency in the state.
  • Bottom Line: The people who were supposed to be helped are still waiting. The executives who were supposed to help them got cooking classes, ghost tours, and first-class plane tickets.

For over 60 years, Newcap has told Wisconsin's most vulnerable residents that help is on the way. According to former employees, board members, and a FOX 11 investigation, the help was going somewhere else entirely.

Newcap is a Green Bay-based nonprofit serving low-income residents across 10 northeastern Wisconsin counties. In 2024, it received nearly $13.9 million in state and federal taxpayer grants to provide housing assistance, home weatherization, utilities help, and healthcare. An independent audit now questions whether the organization can continue to operate at all, as it has run a $2 million deficit for two consecutive years.

What happened to the money?

Former employees paint a damning picture. Conference trips charged to grant funds included first-class plane tickets, far more employees than necessary, early arrivals, late departures, and what leadership called "team-building." Those team-building activities included cooking classes, ghost tours, and high-end dinners. "Why, when you only needed four people to go, did you take 14 people?" asked Holly Clark, a former Newcap board member. One former employee said, "I didn't pay for a thing. I feel like a lot of those expenses were paid for through grants and funding that should have went to low-income people who need help."

The reporting requirements that come with government grants weren't being met honestly either. A former Newcap employee with decades of construction experience told FOX 11 that when it was time to file compliance reports, "leadership would gather in a room and often come up with numbers, seemingly out of nowhere." Another former employee said directly: "I was being asked to give numbers that just did not exist."

At the top of all of this sits CEO Cheryl Detrick, whose compensation more than doubled during her tenure, from $98,876 in 2016 to $239,641 in 2024, the highest salary of any comparable agency CEO in Wisconsin. Newcap was also devoting 4.8% of expenses to executive pay, well above most of its peers.

The Wisconsin Department of Administration placed Newcap under enhanced financial monitoring late last year, a step described as rare. State lawmakers from both parties have demanded independent reviews. Detrick was placed on administrative leave days after FOX 11 began publishing its findings. Between 14 and 17 employees have since been laid off.

Newcap served more than 15,000 low-income individuals last year. Those people are still waiting for help. The executives already got theirs.