Browsing: Tracking the Trillions

Facing a $5 million bill to run the free streetcar known as The Hop next year, Alderman Scott Spiker wondered if a huge increase in handing out parking tickets is the funding answer.

Government overregulation is imperiling the start of a $1 billion plan to expand broadband service to the hardest-to-reach places in Wisconsin.

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.

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.

The public is unlikely to ever know how the state Department of Administration came to decide how to allocate and spend nearly $4 billion from three federal pandemic emergency spending bills.

Questioned by a sometimes frustrated Joint Legislative Audit Committee Tuesday at the Capitol, DOA leaders acknowledged that many of the decisions about how to allocate money to state agencies and local governments were made in phone conversations and emails with Gov. Tony Evers and his staff that were not documented.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has added the $500 million to his 2023-25 budget to address a “burgeoning crisis” in mental and behavioral health, particularly among Wisconsin children, created by the impact of the pandemic. In his State of the State address, he declared 2023 the Year of Mental Health.

The Legislative Audit Bureau criticized the state Department of Administration for its lack of openness in how it is deploying $5.7 billion in federal health emergency funds granted to Wisconsin.

The audit report, released Wednesday, comes months after the Badger Institute first called for a comprehensive audit of all state spending of funds provided through the CARES Act, American Rescue Plan Act and the Investment and Jobs Act.

Using billions of emergency pandemic bill dollars to plug gaping holes in their budgets, local governments across Wisconsin and the country are setting themselves up to ask for tax increases or slash services as basic as police and fire protection when the federal funding runs out. 

The Federal government has sent billions of dollars in COVID relief funds to Wisconsin. These taxpayer dollars have been distributed with little oversight or accountability. Do you believe government at all levels should be transparent about who receives this money and how it is being spent?

With cost overruns on bridge, road and other infrastructure megaprojects in Wisconsin as certain as death, taxes and Packers’ title-run failures, budget hawks are on high alert with new federal money about to inundate the state.

Voters have amended the state constitution 146 times. Will they do it again?

Local governments, awash in federal cash, still trying to spend down millions from the CARES Act 

No strings attached entitlements for targeted groups is preview of something more permanent 

An unnecessary second stimulus is an invitation for state, county and local officials to act irresponsibly with our tax money

As stimulus rules supercharge costs, pressure grows to expand the unaccountable program in Wisconsin