Scott Walker Gets Another Pass

While I am troubled by the latest blunder coming out of Milwaukee County Government( The Task Force on Work Reform for Men), the question that Bice failed to ask is why would the County hire an individual to consult on job creation when he has messed it up wretchedly in the past? In the case of Gerard Randall both Supervisor Coggs and County Executive Scott Walker should share the blame for this latest miss-step. After all, with Walker’s blessing, they hired Randall to handle Job creation again when he failed at it not that long ago.

The Private Industry Council (PIC) controlled $14 million in public money to run a job trainings program for Milwaukee County. PIC was controlled by appointments of County Executive Scott Walker and Randall was paid $154,000 a year to head PIC.

Without any involvement and oversight from the County Board, PIC failed to generate any measurable outcomes regarding job creation; in fact before the City of Milwaukee took over the oversight of the federal funds the status of job creation under PIC was this;

The agency has no money left for the last quarter of its fiscal year for job training, meaning certain programs will be stagnant from April to June with possible staff lay-offs. That, of course, should lead to questions as to where the money went and the societal impact of not being able to train people who need and want jobs.

All job training of any kind was cut off.

Free bus tickets–desperately needed by job seekers to get to either training or their job–are no longer being issued, leaving willing workers stranded.

Orientation continues, but job search training -- to help people apply and obtain jobs -- has been cut off.

It was clear that PIC was ineffective in controlling the $14 million in federal funds for job creation. So why then would Scott Walker give his blessing to the Board to hire Randall, given his recent track record on job creation, to consult the County Board on a task force to create jobs?

It appears Walker gets yet another pass from MJS.