(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Joint Finance Committee has decided to delay consideration of $1 million in additional operational funding after a report highlighted how DPI spent $368,885 to hold a four-day standard setting event in June 2024 at a Wisconsin Dells waterpark.
Committee co-chair Mark Born cited the report to start the nearly two-hour hearing.
“Within the last couple hours, a media report came out, the Dairyland Sentinel came out with a report regarding taxpayer use of funds at a resort for a conference and, since it’s so new, we just want to have the opportunity to at least review what’s going on there with this questionable use of funds,” Born said. “We just want to hit pause on that.”
Born said that the committee will meet several more times in the next four to six weeks and could consider the additional appropriation for DPI operations over that time.
The Dairyland Sentinel report came after DPI released 17 more pages of documents on Monday after more than a yearlong wait on a public records request related to the meetings. The Institute for Reforming Government recently joined that fight and the Dairyland Sentinel credited them for pushing the issue.
“Bottom line, when the state government hides or delays access to records, we push back,” Jake Curtis, IRG’s General Counsel and Director of its Center for Investigative Oversight, said in a statement. “When the public deserves answers, we work to get them. This time, that pressure paid off.
“The public has a right to know what its government is doing and IRG will continue to hold public officials accountable for failing to produce public records the public has a right to review. We applaud lawmakers for pausing the money earmarked for DPI until they can dig into what happened at the water park.”
Dairyland Sentinel wrote that it would have more on the records release later this week.
“After a year of stonewalling by DPI, the team at the Institute for Reforming Government turned up the heat and got results,” Brian Fraley of the Dairyland Sentinel said in a statement.
TCS was unable to obtain comment from DPI on the report or funding delay before publication.
