Scott Walker scraps agency mergers hours after critical audit #WEDC audit damnin once again!

[riversedge]

Scott Walker scraps agency mergers hours after critical audit



8 minutes ago • By Dee J. Hall | Wisconsin State Journal
(73) Comments

Gov. Scott Walker, left, names Reed Hall, right, as the head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. in 2013. A Legislative Audit Bureau audit found that the agency failed to consistently require businesses to document how they used taxpayer money. Hall strongly disputes that finding.



Gov. Scott Walker announced Friday he is calling off two agency mergers proposed in his 2015-17 state budget, just hours after one of the agencies, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., was criticized in a state audit for failing to ensure that promised jobs had been created.

Walker said he was responding to concerns from legislators, businesses and the boards of WEDC and the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority about the merger of those two agencies.

Walker also called off a second merger of the state Department of Financial Institutions and the Department of Safety and Professional Services. He asked Republican lawmakers who were crafting separate bills to combine the agencies to stop work on those efforts as well.

“It is not the appropriate time to pursue these proposals,” Walker said in a statement.

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, who sits on the WEDC board, said halting the mergers is only part of the solution.

“While I am glad that the governor has heeded our advice to abandon a hasty agency merger, he must go further to take immediate steps to protect taxpayers by shoring up his agency’s failures,” Barca said.

The scrapped mergers were announced hours after the Legislative Audit Bureau released a report Friday critical of WEDC, Walker’s signature job-creation agency. The audit found WEDC failed to consistently require businesses to comply with key requirements in exchange for state funding, including documenting jobs it helped create.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/scott-walker-scraps-agency-mergers-hours-after-critical-audit/article_99a8ecea-f17f-5a8e-9154-1f2d366fad5a.html#ixzz3ZbTN6u8H





And this comment says it all!!

jimatmadison - 38 minutes ago
Unfortunately, the WEDC is working perfectly. It was designed to funnel Wisconsin taxpayer money to rich Walker campaign donors. That is exactly what it is doing.

Nobody in the Scott Walker administration has ever cared about any Wisconsin jobs except their own.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/scott-walker-scraps-agency-mergers-hours-after-critical-audit/article_99a8ecea-f17f-5a8e-9154-1f2d366fad5a.html#ixzz3ZbSm4YGd



And a link to the audit:


http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/05/08/3656838/scott-walkers-jobs-agency-violating-state-law-audit-finds/


Scott Walker’s Jobs Agency Violating State Law, Audit Finds
thinkprogress.org.feedsportal.com 10 hours ago

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R)

CREDIT: AP Photo

The job creation agency founded by Governor Scott Walker has been routinely violating its own rules and state law, according to a damning report released Friday by Wisconsin’s non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau.

Walker set up the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation in 2011 in order to give taxpayer dollars to private corporations to help them create jobs for Wisconsin workers. But a new audit of more than 100 grants from the agency found that the WEDC failed to follow up on whether the companies were actually using the funds to create and retain jobs.

The group also gave loans and tax credits to companies that did not meet its requirements, and did not even attempt to fact-check claims by the companies about the number of jobs they created. Additionally, the agency forgave, wrote off or deferred more than $4 million in loan payments that the corporations were supposed to pay back to the state. .........................

[pansypoo53219]

1. kansas here we come. tax cuts to come, despite no money added from the last ones. TINKLE DOWN FOR

EVERYBODY!

[Pharaoh]

2. I do believe we have been

In Kansas for sometime now................but how to get out of here?

[Scuba]

3. We don't get out of here by running yet another corpo-Dem against the Republicans.

We need progressive leadership in the party chair position, and progressive candidates for governor, state senate seats and state assembly seats.

We sure don't need another Mike Tate to hand pick another corpo-Dem candidate. If Jason Rae wins the party chair you can expect him to pick Chris Abele to be the next gubernatorial candidate. Even if we win, we would lose.

[Still In Wisconsin]

5. Abele? Really?

That would be an utter disaster. As you said, even if we win, we lose.

[midnight]

4. "Walker got caught red handed breaking our state law"

http://wisdemocurmudgeon.blogspot.com/