Browsing: Government Transparency

U.S. education secretary also plans to give them more say over federal school dollars

Following institute’s story, Gov. Scott Walker asks Department of Public Instruction to resubmit Wisconsin federal funding plan.

ESSA could offer opportunities for state to involve districts in decision-making

School officials make decisions they wouldn’t make otherwise to comply with funding requirements.
By Julie Grace and Dan Benson
September 12, 2017

Grants-in-aid represent more than 1,100 federal aid programs, each with its own rules and regulations.

For close to a year now, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute has been wrestling with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to obtain a report on what steps

More than it used to be, but Mayor Barrett fails to count all the state’s funding to the city or how much other communities give

St. Croix Chippewa agree to fix grants review process.

Managing federal education dollars is costing Wisconsin taxpayers millions and benefiting children hardly at all.

On Jan. 24, 2017, Mike Nichols, WPRI president, and Dan Benson, editor of the Project for 21st Century Federalism, testified in Madison before the Assembly Committee on Federalism and Interstate Relations. Here is a transcript of their presentation.

Institute releases data on the federalization of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

The questions we should be asking, however, are: Why aren’t our problems getting better? What value does the Washington bureaucracy add?

Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy is seeking a forensic audit of all federal monies awarded to the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa after 113 tribal members sent him a petition alleging mismanagement of federal grants.

Hundreds of districts in Wisconsin and thousands more nationwide are saddled with the Single Audit of federal funds that feeds a bloated bureaucracy in Washington while adding little or no value to educational efforts.

Analysis: Wisconsin school districts call federal audits illogical, duplicative and burden to staff and taxpayers.

Congressman Sean Duffy calls for HUD response to tribe’s misuse of funds detailed in WPRI ‘Federal Grant$tanding’ stories.

U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) is asking federal housing officials to explain why grants meant to help needy members of the St. Croix Chippewa tribe may not be getting to those most needing that assistance.

The “Federal Grant$tanding” project is a multi-year investigation of the growth in federal grants used by D.C. politicians to curry favor with voters

Dozens of families have at times languished on waiting lists for housing assistance, and in 2014 and 2015 federal audits show tribal housing officials loaned themselves housing money without proper oversight.

In recent years, more than a dozen Indian tribes from North Carolina to Wisconsin to California have come under fire for using federal housing funds to treat tribal officials to lavish vacations, gifts and cash advances for personal expenses, a WPRI review has found.