MILWAUKEE- A multi-year investigation into the Milwaukee Health Department’s childhood lead poisoning prevention program wont’ yield any criminal charges.
The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office today announcing that the evidence related to any wrongdoing or negligence within the program did not amount to enough to pursue charges.
“There is no reliable documented evidence that, while MHD may have stated policies that were inconsistent with the statues, those stated policies were set with an intentional disregard for the mandates of the statues,” the DA’s office memo read. “While this is consistent with an overall assessment that the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program was mismanaged, that is not a crime.”
You can read the District Attorney’s full memo here.
Issues facing the program date back to at least 2017 & resulted in the resignation of former Health Commissioner Bevan Baker and the firings of multiple members of the health department at the time.