Browsing: Spending and Accountability

The Social Development Commission, Wisconsin’s largest anti-poverty social services agency, abruptly closed its doors in late April after the latest in a series of scandals stretching back over more than 30 years.

The Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted 6-4 to instruct the state auditor to find out what has come of Gov. Tony Evers’ 2019 order to make “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or DEI, a central feature of agencies’ plans and to corral every state employee into “mandatory equity and inclusion training.” 

If voters approve two constitutional amendment questions this coming August, Wisconsin would join 34 other states whose governors and legislators have authority over major federal funding allocations.

When the president tells borrowers not to bother paying back what they owe, it isn’t relief in the way medicine relieves your pain — it doesn’t alter any painful underlying causes. It isn’t forgiveness in the divine sense, metaphysically washing away the stain. The stain remains in the form of blood-red ink on the federal books.

The number of tenured faculty in the University of Wisconsin System has fallen roughly in line with the decrease in student enrollment since 2015.

At the national level, recent studies show that small businesses are not contracting with the federal government as frequently as in the past. And those that do are becoming more concentrated in a handful of congressional districts around Washington, where rent seeking is the norm.

State Rep. Bob Donovan is seeking a state audit of the Milwaukee Public Schools.

The status quo is on the ballot come April 2. Milwaukee simply cannot afford more mismanagement from MPS.

Enrollment in schools run by Milwaukee Public Schools district is now down to 59,200 — a dramatic and larger decline than is often acknowledged in a district that is asking its voters for $252 million more a year in funding in an April 2 referendum.

The children in MPS deserve better. The city deserves better. There is no realistic argument that more money is the solution. To the extent a big influx of cash allows further complacency, it is more likely to hurt.

Separate constitutional amendment on veto power also advances Wisconsin voters will decide on primary day, Aug. 13, whether the state…

According to the Milwaukee Public Schools’ own figures filed with the state, at least 20 of the district’s schools had enrollments last school year that were less than half the building’s capacity.

Many — if not most — kids counted as enrolled in the Milwaukee Public Schools miss at least three weeks of class throughout the year. In some schools, nearly all kids are chronically absent — that is, absent on more than 10% of possible attendance days.

“It’s like they said ‘Let’s just shoot for the moon’ with this referendum, Andrekopoulos told the Badger Institute. “At some point, don’t you have to say ’No’?”

“I have seen my fair share of ridiculous ideas, but this one might be near the top,” said State Sen. Duey Stroebel. “The notion that it is government’s job to subsidize and prop up a dying industry like journalism is preposterous.”

Two state Assembly members have proposed giving a $25 starter for a state-administered educational savings account to every child born or adopted in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin’s largest school district is planning to ask its voters to approve a $252 million annual increase in its revenue — and, consequently, spending — in an upcoming referendum. That district, Milwaukee Public Schools, has seen a sharp increase in spending in the two most recent years of state data after nearly a decade of spending that mostly kept up with but did not exceed inflation.

A formal agreement passed by the regents says that UW-Madison will seek philanthropic support to create an endowed chair that will focus on conservative political thought, classical economic theory or classical liberalism, depending on the donor’s interest.

After Gov. Tony Evers announced last week he was diverting $36.6 million in federal emergency pandemic funds for, among other things, a soccer stadium, a sports center and a railroad museum, state Sen. Duey Stroebel tweeted, “I struggle to see how any of these projects relate to pandemic relief.”

Legislative leaders say costly project not needed or wanted Wisconsin officials in the Evers administration, supported by politicians in many…