WEDC Gave Development Awards For Ineligible Work - - Some Already Completed

Here are another couple of astounding tidbits - - on top of questionable spending and job data FUBARs I blogged about earlier - - quoted from the state's devastating audit of the Scott Walker-conceived-and-chaired Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.

In this installment of audit highlights, the key words are "ineligible recipients...ineligible projects...amounts that exceeded limits...tax credits for [work] that had occurred before the contracts were executed."

From page 4 of the audit (full text):

Program Administration

WEDC did not have sufficient policies to administer its grant, loan, and tax credit programs effectively, including some statutorily required policies. It had no policies for determining how to handle delinquent loan amounts. In other instances, WEDC did not consistently follow statutes or its existing policies when making awards.

We reviewed files for 64 awards that WEDC made in FY 2011-12 and found that WEDC made some awards to ineligible recipients, for ineligible projects, and for amounts that exceeded limits specified in its policies. 

WEDC lacked invoices or other contractually required documentation showing that authorized costs were incurred for 7 of 29 grant and loan awards that we reviewed.

In addition, four contracts executed through the Jobs Tax Credit program allocated four businesses a total of $906,000 in tax credits for job creation and employee training that had occurred before the contracts were executed.