A new audit says Wisconsin’s economic development arm didn’t come near its promised jobs mark, and might have misspent thousands of dollars in grants.
The audit of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation says the agency spent almost one-billion dollars between 2011 and 2021, and created just over 17-thousand jobs. WEDC had promised that billion dollars would result in over 26-thousand new jobs. The audit also found that the WEDC awarded 50-thousand dollars in grants to ineligible companies, sent 20-thousand dollars to the University of Wisconsin when the money should have gone to small businesses, and didn’t collect over 60-thousand dollars in misspent grant money from at least eight different companies.
