Newly elected Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to abolish the Wisconsin Department of Commerce (DOC) and replace it with a new agency, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), is much more than a gesture that simply changes acronyms and reassigns state bureaucrats.
With the change, which will no doubt be adopted by the Republican majorities in both houses of the state legislature, Wisconsin will for the first time have an agency exclusively focused on economic development and job creation.
The DOC today employs more than 400 people assigned to a hodgepodge of functions that often have little in common, ranging from providing guidance for affirmative action programs, export development, minority- and women-owned business certification, environmental assistance, preventing homelessness, sampling and testing petroleum tanks and protecting the public’s health in buildings to certifying licenses for professional occupations.
With Walker’s plan, the regulatory functions of the DOC will reviewed on a line-by-line basis. Those tasks will either be eliminated or reassigned to other state agencies, leaving the DOC to focus on the critical tasks of economic development and job creation.
“For too long the Department of Commerce has spent more time regulating business than promoting it. Throughout the campaign I promised to fundamentally change our government’s approach to job creation,” Walker said. “I am serious about enacting aggressive reforms focused on revitalizing Wisconsin’s private sector economy. While a lot of work goes into completely eliminating an agency and creating a new entity from scratch, I believe it will be worthwhile because a public-private partnership approach to the promotion of commerce will help businesses put Wisconsinites back to work.”
Yes, it is ironic that Walker now finds value in a public-private partnership to create jobs. That is precisely the model used by the Milwaukee 7 initiative that Walker once likened to “putting lipstick on a pig.”
Well, soo-wee! Pucker up, Wisconsin.
And yes, it is ironic that it was the Milwaukee 7 initiative that convinced Talgo Inc. of Spain to open a high-speed railcar manufacturing plant in Wisconsin. And because of Walker, those manufacturing jobs will now go to other states after he rejected a plan for Wisconsin to accept $810 million federal funds to build a high-speed rail line connecting Milwaukee to Madison.
History will judge whether Walker’s plan to reject high-speed rail was a stroke of brilliance or absolute tomfoolery.
That aside, having a state agency specifically and solely devoted to economic development and job creation helps to make good on Walker’s pledge to create 250,000 jobs in Wisconsin.
The state needs such an agency to promote Wisconsin as a place to do business. Wisconsin does not have a chamber of commerce. The default state chamber, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), has devolved to become little more than a political action committee for the Republican Party. Business development and recruitment are foreign concepts to the WMC.
If Walker’s WEDC sticks to its assigned mission and does so in a manner that is accountable to the public and fair, it will fill a critical void for Wisconsin.
Steve Jagler is executive editor of BizTimes Milwaukee.
