A Republican state senator from Fond du Lac is defending the governor’s troubled economic development agency despite a new critical audit . A Democratic lawmaker says the agency hasn’t worked out. The report from the Legislative Audit Bureau shows the agency is still struggling, failing to track jobs its awards are supposed to create and retain, handing out nearly $10 billion in bad loans over the last two years and failing to turn over millions in tax credit repayments to the state. Fond du Lac state senator Dan Feyen serves on the WEDC board. “I think its an audit that shows some areas we can always do better on,” Feyen told WFDL news. “The audit that was done two years ago, WEDC implemented all the processes that were recommended and of those was the job verification thing. It is a hard thing to come up with,’ Feyen said. Democratic state representative Gordon Hintz of Oshkosh says its time for a change. “I think after six years we can say that it hasn’t worked out,” Hintz said. “Part of it we need to significantly lower expectations and realize the most important investment in our economy that state government can have are investments in things like infrastructure, transportation and our university institutions.” In spite of the audit, Feyen says he believes the WEDC has corrected many problems and is moving in the right direction. Feyen says he believes the WEDC is trying to do the right thing. The agency has faced scrutiny over its operation since Walker and GOP lawmakers created it six years ago to replace the Department Commerce. Republican state senator Robert Cowles, who co-chairs the legislature’s Audit bureau, says “there’s a cloud over this situation until we finally have accurate quantification.”
