Friday, May 09, 2008

CHICAGO Paper Exposes State of Wis Corruption?

Why a CHICAGO newspaper runs this before it shows up in the Milwaukee papers?

Politics improperly influenced the decision to hire a top state lawyer after former Gov. Tony Earl helped a friend's nephew get the job, a hearing examiner has concluded. The tainted hiring cost taxpayers $346,000 in recent legal settlements paid to two qualified internal candidates passed over for the job as the state's top unemployment insurance lawyer, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press under the state open records law.

Seems that Earl left a close pal in DWD, who engineered this hire, ignoring darn near every process safeguard in sight. One big one:

Bergan broke department policy when he did not perform reference checks on LaRocque. Other panelists wanted to find out why he was let go from CUNA Mutual Group in 2002 and was leaving his current job at a law firm.

Wonder if that $350K was budgeted?

HT: Owen

3 comments:

Headless Blogger said...

Hey Dad - Who is connecting the dots? Just this week we learn of the Boston Store clerk hiring a political hack to run the pension fund and Kate Falk hiring a crony to be her 911 manager.

Are there no laws to stop abuse of our civil service laws (a point of pride for Fighting Bob!) by elected politicians? Without a penalty, nothing will stop them from creating legal jeopardy for the taxpayers.

grumps said...

Wait a dang minute here! Isn't this exactly how Gabelman got his gig in Burnett County. You guys were all for sycophantic, unqualified hires 30 days ago.

What's changed?

Anonymous said...

As a regular reader of the Chicago Tribune, I'm accustomed to finding Wisconsin news that somehow doesn't make the Journal-Sentinel, which, in my opinion, is an absolute embarrassment of a newspaper for a city this size.