WEDC’s woes continue but does anyone care?

Is anyone minding the store? And does anybody in Madison even care? Those are legitimate questions, as the boondoggle that is the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation continues to be the source of more bad news for Wisconsin taxpayers. We have heard, too often, stories of Wisconsin companies getting state tax credits in exchange for creating jobs, which too often aren’t being created. This has been an ongoing problem, and it continues today with news that a Janesville company got $500,000 in state assistance, but ended up shipping jobs to Panama. The CEO of WEDC says they will devote time at their July board meeting to discuss the issue. But why should we have to wait that long? Where is the urgency to be good stewards of our tax dollars. The board discussed the issue at its October meeting, and will add it as an agenda item in July. It shouldn’t take nearly a year for anyone to even hold hearings on the problem. And there is more bad news regarding the state’s job creation agency. The newest member of the WEDC board of directors, David Drury, also serves on the board of a copmany that received millions of dollars from WEDC, but then shipping jobs oversees. Plexus Corp. has to date received $8.9 million dollars in tx credits for creating jobs, but outsourced more than 100 jobs from its facility in Neenah to an overseas location. And the money they received for creating jobs still hasn’t been paid back. The answer is to put the person who took the state’s money on the board that determines what other companies should receive state help? That is like putting an arsonist in charge of fire protection.