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LAB's DEI Audit Leaves Questions Unanswered
There are a lot of unanswered questions in the two audits into diversity, equity, and inclusion in Wisconsin.
The Legislative Audit Bureau on Friday released its DEI report for both the Evers Administration and the University of Wisconsin.
The audits tracked spending, the number of people working in DEI-related jobs, and just how many agencies or UW campuses achieved their DEI goals. But auditors said they were unable to get a full picture of DEI in Wisconsin because many state agencies and UW campuses didn’t fully track their DEI programs.
“None of the agencies tracked the amounts they spent specifically on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We used the available information to estimate four types of costs that agencies incurred,” the auditors wrote. “Because some amounts overlap multiple types of costs, the amounts we estimated cannot be summed.”
The reports show that the UW spent about $40 million in the 2023-2024 budget year on DEI. That includes $12.5 million in salaries for 170 jobs.
"[This] audit shows us the extent to which DEI grifters profiteer off Wisconsin taxpayers,” Sen Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto said. "This report shows that taxpayers spent millions of dollars on DEI with very little to show for it."
Every UW campus, and most state agencies, created lists of DEI goals, but the audit shows that most did not complete those goals.
Wimberger said "the Departments of Justice and Public Instruction did not complete any of the DEI-related actions they had planned."
"Taxpayers are spending vast amounts of money on programs that barely get started or are rarely completed. The ‘action steps’ by agencies brought forward in this report are incomplete, and no one at the top seems to mind at all," Rep. Bob Wittke, R-Caledonia, added.
The audits note that while the state spent just $2.2 million on salary costs for 47 DEI positions, state employees also spent 4,990 hours attending DEI committee meetings in just a single year.
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