Wisconsin

Scuba

(53,475 posts) Fri Mar 22, 2013, 07:15 AM Mar 2013

Wisconsin: Our "Public/Private" agency broke laws and lost track of $50 Million. What to do?

Throw another $75 Million at them that's what! No need to improve accountability or transparency, just keep feeding this parasite more tax dollars, especially the kind paid by the little people.

http://cognidissidence.blogspot.com/2013/03/impeding-job-growth-and-hurting.html

There are several provisions in the budget that will not only impede job growth in Wisconsin, but will also have a negative impact on businesses, current Wisconsin employees, and neighbors searching for work. Some of these provisions are detailed below.

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Ignoring Problems at WEDC: The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, a hastily-created public-private agency, has recently come under fire as audits, reports, and news articles have confirmed that insufficient accountability and transparency measures led to fraud, waste, and abuse within the agency. Issues with WEDC include circumventing Wisconsin’s fair and competitive bidding process and ignoring federal and state laws when giving out grants. The final straw was losing track of over $50 million in loans, including about $12 million overdue. Despite the fact that this agency has been unable to track their allocated taxpayer dollars, Governor Walker decided to expand their budget by giving them $75 million in additional economic development tax credits without any increased accountability and transparency measures.

Several other offensive elements of the Governor's budget are detailed in the article.

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Wisconsin: Our "Public/Private" agency broke laws and lost track of $50 Million. What to do? (Original Post) Scuba Mar 2013 OP

Socializing the privateers.... midnight Mar 2013 #1

midnight

(26,624 posts)

1. Socializing the privateers....

Reply to Scuba (Original post)

Fri Mar 22, 2013, 08:15 AM

Mar 2013

Unfortunately, by increasing the funding for Wisconsin's voucher schools, we are doubling down on a failed system. For those looking to get the most precise snapshot of just how voucher school students are performing compared to their public school counterparts, they should look at data recently collected by the Department of Public Instruction. This data analyzes how all voucher and public school students in 4th, 8th, and 10th grade performed in reading, math, and science during the 2010-2011 school year. According to the data, Milwaukee Public School students outperformed voucher students in eight out of nine categories.

Governor Walker's budget also seeks to further privatize education not only through voucher expansion, but also through charter school changes, such as creating a Charter School Oversight Board (CSOB). This Board would be attached to Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction (DPI), but would ultimately act independently.

Not only will the Board creating these charter schools be controlled by a one-party majority, but it will also face little public scrutiny, can opt to ignore the local school board, and will have sole discretion over the charter school's budget, curriculum, and personnel policies and decisions (such as licensure requirements). Under this proposal, school boards could convert all of the public schools within the district to charter schools. Further, should the area school board opt to convert all schools into charter schools, all students in the district could be forced to attend them. Likewise, parents and teachers in the district would have no say about the state-imposed decision.
http://cognidissidence.blogspot.com/2013/03/impeding-job-growth-and-hurting.html

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