Category: State news

In a development sure to have repercussions for Gov. Jim Doyle’s re-election campaign, a jury Monday convicted a state purchasing manager of improperly using political considerations in awarding a travel contract to a favored company.

A federal jury on Monday convicted a state procurement official of fixing a travel contract for a contributor to Gov. Jim Doyle’s campaign, adding a potentially explosive issue to the race for governor this fall.

Gov. Jim Doyle heralded stem-cell research in his keynote speech at the state Democratic Party’s convention Friday, making it a cornerstone of his re-election campaign.

Former Administration Secretary Marc Marotta’s office had contact with Adelman Travel while a contract was being considered, but Marotta insisted Thursday he had not misled the public when he said last year he had not talked to company officials during the bidding process.

It was a grand vision that University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos Santiago put before the UW Board of Regents Thursday. He pointed out how vital Milwaukee was to Wisconsin and UWM was to the UW System, how the city was slumping and the campus lacked research muscle and how an energized campus could rev up the city, region and state.

Georgia Thompson, a state bureaucrat charged in a federal case that has become an election-season scandal, got the chance to tell her side of the story Thursday in federal court in Milwaukee.

MILWAUKEE – A state purchasing official testified at her fraud trial Thursday she was never pressured by officials appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle to award a state contract to Adelman Travel Group.

Department of Administration purchasing supervisor Georgia Thompson said she disagreed with other contract evaluators who wanted to award the deal to Omega World Travel because they had put too much emphasis on style, not substance, of the proposals.

MILWAUKEE – University of Wisconsin politics and policies are shaping up as a campaign issue, but university leaders said today they’re doing their best to stay clear of it.

U.S. Rep. Mark Green, the likely Republican candidate for governor, said in a statement that the Board of Regents, who met today, would be “ill advised” to raise tuition by 6.8 percent for in-state students as they decrease tuition for many out-of-state students.

“One of our big challenges is ignoring press releases for political gain,” said Regent President David Walsh during a news conference this morning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “Mr. Green has his own agenda.”

One of two felony charges against state Department of Administration official Georgia Thompson is that she manipulated the process for awarding a state travel contract by asking two agencies, Adelman Travel Group and Omega World Travel, to make “best and final” offers.

Yet during testimony at Thompson’s trial in federal court Wednesday, another member of the committee evaluating proposals, Lisa Clemmons, said asking for “best and final” offers was her idea.

Months before other travel agents knew they could compete for a $750,000 state contract, Adelman Travel Group had already outlined criteria for selecting the winner, according to records introduced Tuesday in the federal fraud trial of the woman accused of illegally steering the contract to Adelman.

Federal prosecutors called more witnesses against a state worker who faces charges of fraud. Georgia Thompson faces two felonies after a lower-scoring travel agency won a state travel contract.

That agency, Adelman Travel of Milwaukee, donated $20,000 to Governor Jim Doyle’s campaign around the time of the contract process.

A state purchasing officer repeatedly cited “political” reasons why a major state travel contract had to go to Adelman Travel, a witness in the official’s criminal trial told a federal jury Monday.

Lawyer Stephen Hurley also portrayed his client Georgia Thompson as the victim of University of Wisconsin System officials and state bureaucrats who did not want anyone to tell them which company they had to use to book their flights and hotels.

It is with much trepidation and angst that I disagree with the May 29 editorial supporting the Wisconsin GI Bill. This bill gives veterans of the war in Iraq free tuition anywhere in the University of Wisconsin System and at any technical college in the state.
I acknowledge the horrors that our troops have endured. I understand that we want to do everything we can for our returning veterans. But I also know that the military is experiencing difficulty recruiting young people to join the effort to establish a pro-U.S. government in Iraq. Offering free tuition will simply aid the recruiters of these young people.

Also on Thursday, the state’s lowest-paid workers got a raise – to $6.50 an hour, the second of a two-step increase in the state’s minimum wage. Critics say raising the wage floor lowers the number of jobs available to low-income people – an argument that makes sense in theory but fails to hold up in practice. Sure, individual firms may find themselves forced to cut jobs. But the trend overall is that the number of jobs expands after the floor is lifted. The Center on Wisconsin Strategy of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the latest to document this phenomenon.

Among those arrested in southeastern Wisconsin over the last 20 months were a Waukesha firefighter; a University of Wisconsin-Madison English professor; former teachers at school districts as diverse as Milwaukee, Shorewood and Mequon; and a former computer consultant for S.C. Johnson in Racine.

MADISON, Wis. – Trial is scheduled to begin Monday for a state employee facing fraud charges for allegedly steering a lucrative travel contract to a company whose executives donated $20,000 to Gov. Jim Doyle’s re-election campaign.

(UNDATED) Veterans groups are praising a new law granting Wisconsin soldiers free tuition at all University of Wisconsin campuses and technical colleges in the state, but it�s not clear where the $9 million a year needed to educate returning soldiers will come from. (Third item.)

A full tuition waiver for Wisconsin veterans attending the University of Wisconsin System and the Wisconsin Technical College System might result in tuition increases for other students and higher property taxes, higher education officials said Tuesday.

Picnic Point was shrouded in mist as 38 new faculty and academic staff members climbed onto the bus that would carry them deep into the heart of Wisconsin. Over five days, the group experienced firsthand the defining tradition of both this state and its great university: the Wisconsin Idea.

Some people are calling the “Wisconsin G.I. Bill” the most significant legislation for veterans in Wisconsin in sixty years.

The new law provides free college tuition for veterans at schools in the University Of Wisconsin System and technical colleges.

A university campus brims not just with academics but also with intrigue, sometimes of Shakespearean dimensions. Ask Paul Barrows, the University of Wisconsin-Madison vice chancellor demoted for improprieties. The court of public opinion found him guilty on all counts. Trouble is, exposed to the light generated by a real hearing, the allegations crumbled to dust.

The University of Wisconsin System came under attack Wednesday for changes to its admissions policies, with Gov. Jim Doyle, U.S. Rep. Mark Green and state legislators voicing disapproval.

The University of Wisconsin System is changing its admissions policies to consider race, income and other non-academic qualities of applicants with the explicit goal of boosting student diversity.

The most voluminous body of information on record of the performance of Wisconsin public school students, being released today by the state Department of Public Instruction, shows little change in how well most kids are doing and no change in a huge problem: The huge gaps that, in general, separate the top students from the bottom along racial, ethnic and economic lines.

It turns out that Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett are in love with each other’s cities and they think it’s time their respective constituents start sharing that love.

The two mayors appeared together in an extraordinary forum put together by the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters before a nice crowd at the Overture Center Tuesday night.

Army Reserve Spc. Andres Dominguez’s university education has included both semesters of study and seasons that are lost – years of service given in a time of war.
The 24-year-old UW- Madison student figures he’s spent six semesters in training and deployments, including a year-long stint in Kuwait and the Middle East with his medical equipment repair unit.

MADISON – Wisconsin veterans would be eligible for free tuition at University of Wisconsin campuses and the state’s technical colleges under a bill Gov. Jim Doyle said he would sign in the coming days.

At the Department of Administration, the new $2.6 million software for employee e-mail led to lengthy delays in delivery and disappearing messages.

At the University of Wisconsin System, the software to track employees’ pay and benefits cannot be implemented after a $26 million effort to do so. And at the Department of Revenue, software glitches in a $37.1 million program still can cause inaccurate sales tax payments to counties.