Cronyism in Scottwalkerstan

Posted on April 20, 2012 at 6:45 pm by JM Ashby

According to a new report from The Associated Press, a bonus program resurrected by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has doled out three quarters of a million dollars in bonuses to select state employees.

An analysis of data The Associated Press obtained through an open records request showed Wisconsin agencies have handed out more than $765,000 in bonuses and merit raises this year to nearly 220 employees.

The money was awarded under a program former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle suspended but Walker reinstated last year. The money is meant to reward stellar performance, but it comes as the state faces a $143 million shortfall and after thousands of state workers took pay cuts through provisions in the collective bargaining law requiring them to contribute more to their pensions and health care. [...]

According to the AP analysis, 218 employees across nine agencies received raises or bonuses adding up to $765,195 between Jan. 1 and Tuesday.

The state Department of Justice, which couldn’t find enough money to fully fund services for sexual assault victims last year, was the biggest spender, giving out nearly $300,000 to 94 workers.

Assistant Attorney General Maria Lazar, who defended Walker’s collective bargaining law in an open meetings challenge and has handled the state’s defense of Republican redistricting legislation, got a $1,000 bonus and a $1.50-an-hour raise in March, bumping her salary by more than $3,000 to $104,730.

Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John, who defended the collective bargaining law in front of the state Supreme Court, got a $2.51-an-hour raise in March that adds up to more than $5,000 per year and brings his pay to $134,307.

The wages of the average state worker have either been cut or stagnated, while those at the top of the system have seen raises and bonuses. Sound familiar?

It sounds like the state is being run “like a business.”

To be fair, these’s aren’t mindblowing raises, however the circumstances leading up to them makes them look awfully unsavory.

This comes after Scott Walker and his loyal henchmen cut over $800 million from the state’s education budget, amounting to $615 per student, forcing layoffs and early retirement for thousands of teachers while also increasing maximum class size to 60 students.

It also follows over $500 million in cuts to the state Medicaid program, which resulted in the loss of another $500 million in federal matching funds.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Justice, which tried to charge sexual assault victims for rape-kits last year, handed out the biggest bonuses.

Despite the implementation of Scott Walker’s austerity agenda, the state is still projecting a budget shortfall of $143 million, mainly due to the new corporate tax cuts signed into law last year.

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  • gescove

    These ideology-driven cuts to public services and public workers at the state level is a principal reason for our slow economic recovery. This Robin-Hood-in-reverse looting of state treasuries is obscene. If Walker survives recall, I think my head may explode.

  • mrbrink

    In Illinois, we elected Pat Quinn by a narrow margin over a maniacal, off-to-glory-faced lever-pulling wingnut businessman. Rahm Emanuel is Chicago’s mayor, and all I ever hear about from either of their administrations has to do with cuts to public workers and services, cuts to Medicaid, closure of schools, increases in fines and fees and tolls, longer hours for teachers and students, new speeder-catching cameras(millions of public dollars for cameras because speed bumps, which are a much cheaper deterrent, don’t generate the desired revenue)to help pay for hundreds of millions in corporate bribes to corporations like Caterpillar, Sears, and Motorola to stay in the state and cushion the blow of a slight increase in corporate taxes signed by Quinn.

    There’s been some good, compassionate, thoughtful acts, albeit symbolic, but it’s mostly been done on Pat Quinn’s side. I honestly can’t stand Rahm Emanuel anymore. He’s been dicking around with protesters while the cost of hosting NATO and G8 summits was estimated to be about $60 million dollars that could go to real people working real jobs in the real economy. The tab was reportedly picked up by a multi-national corporate donor list that reads like a who’s who of phony capitalists and scammer-industrialists, oil companies and bankers. In other words, our overlords don’t seem to be hurting in the Obama recovery and they have millions in disposable income to reinvest in the propaganda for the methodical state by state corporate takeover of American democracy. We’re essentially funding and empowering the suppression of our own dissent and public protest over these very policies. While corporate henchmen march into our courthouses and legislatures with unprecedented buying power and influence, this country seems all too willing to provide them with the ammunition just to make them happy. And they’ll never be happy. Always wanting more and more concessions, relinquished wages and rights.

    So, even in a state like Illinois, where “Democratic” administrations have power, they’re still beholden to right wing conservative policies of redistribution of wealth to the top, and as long as stupid people keep giving away their rights and public treasuries to corporations, we’re going to see less return, and more disappointment. Less rights for us, more rights over us for them.

    Someone said to me the other day, “America’s broke and bankrupt,” in talking about retirement funds for public workers. I said, “it’s not, though.” I said, “there’s oceans of money, corporate profits and off shore accounts are swimming in it like their own private island and their obscene wealth is being financed on the backs of people who cannot afford to sacrifice another penny to greed and deceptive politics. We’re being scammed out of our retirement, healthcare, and education while corporate profits soar and Gordon Gecko greed make out like bandits.” I said, “the only people who think America is broke are the ones who have benefited while trying to break it.”

    I said, “unions, with their diminished power and influence(only about 12 percent of the overall workforce is still unionized!)aren’t breaking America. Corporate welfare and profit hoarding is.”

    And still, they use their ill-gotten gains, corporate welfare and power as a weapon on our senses. The class war makers give no quarter. Ever. And even in Democratically controlled states like Illinois, the corporate monarchists have their asses polished with care, while everyone else goes hungry and grows disillusioned in the institution of democracy.

    I think Scott Walker’s big problem is that he hasn’t been savvy in a public relations sense in pretending to give a damn about Wisconsin while shoveling hundreds of millions into the mouth of madness.