After Scathing Audits at WEDC, WisGOP Looks to Remove Independent Oversight |
News - Articles for State & Local |
Written by Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Melissa Baldauff |
Wednesday, 10 June 2015 10:49 |
A series of LAB and external audits beginning in 2012 show WEDC lost track of $56 million worth of taxpayer funded loans and found the agency lacked basic internal accounting controls, and now the Republican legislature is proposing to eliminate it. MADISON – Scott Walker has been plagued with bad press over the failures at his flagship jobs agency, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, as the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) has repeatedly highlighted the agency’s failures in a series of audits that show WEDC lost track of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded loans and failed to follow state and federal law – and now the Republican legislature is proposing to eliminate the LAB in favor of so-called independent investigators working under the direction of the GOP-controlled legislature.
“Wisconsin taxpayers trust our elected officials and state agencies to be responsible stewards of our resources and make smart investments in programs that go towards building strong communities,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Martha Laning said Tuesday. “When those agencies are failing, we must be able to rely on independent auditors that will correct the problems in an open and transparent way. As a former auditor, this proposal to do away with the Legislative Audit Bureau raises a number of red flags. It would be unacceptable in any business setting and it is unacceptable in our government to replace independent professionals with a group of self-selected insiders who are predisposed to bias. Maintaining the integrity and authority of the Legislative Audit Bureau is essential to upholding our state’s proud traditions of good, clean government.” |