Sunday, June 16, 2013

Did Nepotism Charges Lead To Action On Act 10?

A few days ago, Lisa Kaiser of the Shepherd Express, broke the story of the nepotism, cronyism and favoritism that has been going on at the state's Department of Human Services in Milwaukee County.

I added my two cents by pointing out that due to Act 10, there is a greater rate of turnover of workers, making it possible for these types of shenanigans.

The Hunger Task Force, which has been getting bullied by both Scott Walker and Chris Abele, made some very good points in their press release:
A state run Milwaukee food stamp program has been charged with nepotism. State employees working at the Coggs Human Services Center on Vliet Street are speaking out about managers who have hired relatives, promoted them and recently offered them a bonus. Employees receiving promotions had less than two years of experience and were promoted over those with many more years working for the state.

Hunger Task Force Executive Director Sherrie Tussler said, “Why would state employees get a bonus? Bonuses are for the private sector. This just doesn’t make sense. Our state budget proposes requiring work for food stamps. That same $2.5 million dollars spent on bonuses could supply the Milwaukee County food pantry network for a full year. I thought we were trying to cut the costs of running these entitlement programs.”

News of the nepotism comes on the heels of the state being at odds with Milwaukee County over use of the Coggs Center, a public facility. Hunger Task Force was asked to stop using rolling computer carts to help non-English speaking residents of Milwaukee sign up for FoodShare benefits. The story first appeared in an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“Hunger Task Force seeks a well run Food Stamp Program for people in need in Milwaukee. The staff of the Coggs Center should be treated fairly and the program should be administered properly. There are customers in urgent need of emergency food.” said Tussler.
The mainstream media started picking up on the story Thursday. Channel 58 presented one of the more comprehensive reports:



There are two interesting tidbits about the Channel 58 story.

 One is that the reporter was looking high and low for Vanessa Robertson, one of the supervisor's named in Kaiser's report.  But he couldn't find her because she had fled the building to go to the call center, where she almost never goes.

The other is that witnesses report that when the reporter found some employees that were more than willing to talk about the working conditions, the county's private security guards came in and escorted the reporter from the building, a la Chief Erwin's Capitol Police.

Just days after this story broke, in a Friday afternoon news dump, the Wisconsin Supreme Court announced that they will now take up the Colas' ruling regarding Act 10.  This is a year after the ruling and after a number of requests by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.

The question is why, after waiting so long and denying all previous requests to review the decision, is the high court now deciding to hear the case.

Is it because of the nepotism, cronyism and favoritism cases being filed by the union?  Do they need to remove all power from the union to protect themselves from the consequences of their own wrong-doing?

Some would say that this is purely coincidental.

But the wise people will know that in Fitzwalkerstan, there is no such thing as a coincidence.

4 comments:

  1. Frankly right now there's so much negative information coming out of the state of Wisconsin I won't bother spending any of my money in that state. Once Wisconsin can start voting these people out of office and start changing their views you can start seeing my money again. WAKE UP WISCONSIN!

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    1. They rigged the system. It will be hard if not impossible to set things right for about a generation. You can see the crap, that happened with Waukesha county, in the actual recall election and the normal election with Scott Walker and see that the person in charge of the votes was also in hot water for some voter fraud crap ealier in her career.

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    2. Well I hope that the democratic and independent base really gets it together well before the next generation. How much worse does it get? If it keeps up at this rate most of Wisconsin will be slaves to the Rich with ZERO rights at all. Just makes me sad. Keep up the good work, Keep Blogging..And don't give up hope! This. Iowan hopes you guys can get the wagon back on its wheels, Ousting Walker and his Goonsquads.

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  2. Watch out Iowa they're not just after Wisconsin or even the US this is a worldwide fascist takeover.

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