Monday, March 9, 2015

Drug-testing needed at Walker-chaired jobs agency, WEDC

Sounds to me that some drug-testing is need over at Scott Walker's bells-and-whistles job creating agency after reading in the Journal Sentinel today are still breaking the law by failing to track how millions of dollars in state money are being spent.

Remember that auditors slammed the agency two years ago for much the same thing, so you have to wonder of these staffers are sitting around the office playing xBox or otherwise hanging out on the workplace sidelines instead of getting into the game.

For those of you who don't get these references, these are the things that Walker has said about low-income food stamp and Medicaid assistance recipients, inferring their laziness and criminality is responsible for their situations.

But if this troubled state agency also wracked by executive turnover can't track its grants, and the recipients can't follow paperwork instructions, maybe these are the entitlements that need to be double-checked on both ends by laboratories and the law to make sure taxpayer dollars are not being ripped off.

WEDC chairman and head coach Scott Walker should be called to task - - hey, he's even in the state today back from fund-raising and preening in Iowa - - where he talked little about his failing WEDC or the half-met promise to create 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin, or the recent downward revision in the jobs that have been added here that are already clustered in low-wage categories.

Just a few days, The New York Times and others carried a big story about Jeb Bush's failed experiment to create 50,000 jobs through state spending in Florida.

Walker's WEDC-FUBAR should get at least the same coverage.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

WEDC should be starved out of existence just as Walker is doing with so many state agencies. Also Vos better make WEDC his top priority rather than the GAB. WEDC has yet to pass an audit nor make the corrections mandated. Finally WEDC is pure and simple a failure. It has created few if any jobs directly and at best might have been influential in about 5,000 jobs. There is no bang for the taxpayer buck with this dog of a Walker creation.

Joe R said...

GAB is the target. Its annual budget is about $7 million. WEDC's annual budget is $69 million, and it gets a pat on the back from Vos and Walker. Weird priorities.