I've gotten on the Wisconsin State Journal's Matt DeFour in the past for his admittance that he couldn't call out Scott Walker for lying. But he's made up for that in other stories, and deserves props for today's front-page story detailing just how much of a disaster the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) has been under Gov Scott Walker.
WEDC was one of Walker's first bills that was put through in early 2011, even before the union-busting Act 10. It replaced the Department of Commerce as the state's main economic development agency, and was done with increased privatization and less oversight to add to "flexibility." Not surprisingly, this has led to major corruption, with tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded loans not paid back. And as DeFour's article points out, WEDC became "a toxic mix of hasty decision-making, competing public and private sector objectives and political pressure to create jobs threatened to undermine the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. from the start, according to several former employees and top managers who spoke with the State Journal."
Here's a little taste of the hackery and "politics over everything mentality that has made WEDC such a disaster. Check out this quote from a grants specialist that worked for over 2 decades at the state
“In 1991 you could get in trouble for not following the rules, and by 2013 when I left you could get in trouble for following the rules,” [Doug] Thurlow said.
Thurlow said he raised concerns at WEDC staff meetings about the agency’s [illegal] use of CDBG funds amid HUD’s warnings but was told by [WEDC VP of of Economic and Communtiy Development Brenda] Hicks-Sorensen: “We don’t want to hear what we can’t do; we want to hear what we can.....
“They were like kids you put in a candy shop,” Thurlow said of the new managers. “They were hired because they had experience in a related field and were all trusted by Republicans. You knew who the real boss was there. It was Scott Walker.”
Oh yeah, Brenda Hicks-Sorenson later left to go to Nebraska to head up Pete Ricketts' economic development agency. And yes,
Pete's brother Tom gave Walker's Presidential SuperPAC $5 million, and is actively involved in that campaign.
Go read the whole thing, and realize that while this is one of the most in-depth reports on WEDC so far, it barelyt scratches the surface on the rampant pay-for-play that has plagued that organization since Scott Walker created it 4 1/2 years ago.