Amusing story about the UW-System's hide-and-seek game--and how it backfired.
The University of Wisconsin is once again looking at a delay in building a new UW-Madison engineering building...
... Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate on Wednesday voted down a proposal to spend $70 million on four building projects across the UW system....
Why?
Because that $70 million had been allocated to a science building at UW-Eau Claire, but when the bids were opened, the winning bid was $70 million less than allocated.
What did the UW-System do next? Exactly what bureaucrats do best: scheme and plot on the topic "How to spend this money without telling anybody we really didn't need it."
..."The Senate members’ No vote stemmed from UW officials’ lack of transparency and an inability or unwillingness to answer critical questions relating to these projects. Refusing to answer questions creates an adversarial relationship between the UW and the legislature that benefits neither us, nor the taxpayers who invest billions of their hard-earned dollars in your system each year."...
And it wasn't just a few weeks' delay, either.
...Sen. Andre Jacque, R-DePere, called the UW’s request a “bait and switch.”
“I am floored that bids for the UW-Eau Claire project came back more than $70 Million, more than 20%-below, what was expected all the way back in March of this year, and we didn’t hear a peep about it from DOA until last week,” Jacque said. “Apparently [the Department of Administration] and the UW have been working for months on plans to re-spend the money, but no one in the legislature was consulted until now. And I’m even more stunned that we are now immediately being asked to spend all of this cash right away on a Christmas tree of items without that discussion with the legislature that appropriated the funds in the first place, in order to keep that money from potentially being saved up or returned to the taxpayers...
So now the UW-System will see a number of projects on hold, including a crown-jewel Engineering building on the Madison campus.
FAFO, Jay Rothman. You are as dumb as we thought you were. (Several more posts on Rothman can be read here.)
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