Browsing: Government Transparency

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is facing a crisis of confidence after accusations of gutting academic standards, manipulating report cards, slacking on fiscal oversight and bungling oversight of sexual misconduct among teachers.

Vague Wisconsin laws have allowed teachers who are sexual predators to groom children without fearing either appropriately severe criminal penalties or sufficient scrutiny of their teaching licenses, according to testimony Thursday from law enforcement and education administrators.

There’s more evidence in recent days that the federal government spends money in two ways — too quickly and too slowly.

State agencies have begun their rush through a regulatory back door that will almost certainly cost owners of businesses large and small in Wisconsin tens of millions of dollars.

A new requirement to hire a “special inspector” to be on hand during construction will add an estimated $20,000 to any store, school, office, factory or apartment building in the Wisconsin.

Wisconsin’s tourism resurgence has been built, at least in part, by more than $160 million in federal bailout money and a record doubling of the tourism department’s budget.

A state Supreme Court decision wresting rulemaking authority from elected state representatives has opened the door to a barrage of new regulations and fees in Wisconsin.

A federal judge’s injunction is blocking the closing down Job Corps centers — including two in Wisconsin — that have an expensive and dismal record ostensibly training the young and disadvantaged for work.

With fewer passengers and mostly empty seats, it’s time to shut down the Hop, Milwaukee’s $128 million streetcar.

More than half of the employees in the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development and more than 40% in the Department of Administration still work remotely, five years after COVID sent them home.

Badger Institute supports 2025 AB 1, because no matter how lousy our kids’ and schools’ test scores are, it’s both counterproductive and plain wrong to pretend otherwise.

In his new book, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch laments the vast expansion of the federal government into matters once left to the states, and he cites Badger Institute’s “Federal Grant$tanding” book, published in 2018.

When Wisconsin’s high school graduates find out the rest of life hasn’t lowered the bar for “proficiency,” when they find out they’ve been misled, it will be a cruel slap of reality.

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.

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.”

The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated this week that people who filed for unemployment insurance during the pandemic stole somewhere between $100 billion and $135 billion in benefits — just a portion of the estimated fraud across all federal pandemic programs.

The city of Milwaukee announced it is building a new line for the $128 million streetcar known as The Hop. Unanswered anywhere in the strangely incurious media is why the city would open that line now.

Tucked away in Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed budget is nearly $3 million for a new cabinet-level chief equity officer and 18 new equity officers assigned throughout state government departments and agencies. The governor’s request comes at a time when diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs are under fire in higher education, business and in government for fundamental unfairness and divisiveness and a failure to achieve their intended goals.   

Gov. Tony Evers has asked that Wisconsin spend another $750 million to expand broadband in the state without knowing the current status of nearly $100 million in broadband projects paid for with federal pandemic funds.