MADISON – The Democratic members of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee State Senator Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton), State Senator Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee), State Representative Francesca Hong (D-Madison), and State Representative Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) issued the following statement after the committee voted along party lines to audit the state crime laboratories:
“Once again Legislative Republicans are showing mock outrage at a problem that they should have solved in this year’s budget. For years, the state crime labs have been asked to do more with less as requests for staffing were ignored.
“Year after year Legislative Republicans chose to ignore the issue and the powerful budget-writing Joint Finance Committee dismissed requests to meet state demand. Now they have the audacity to demand an entire legislative audit into a problem they caused and continued to exacerbate with their years of inaction.
“The co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee (JFC) sit on the Audit Committee. They know full well that Attorney General Josh Kaul requested 16 positions for the Wisconsin’s crime labs in the 2023-25 biennial budget. And they know the Joint Finance Committee and Republicans ignored his request and instead gave him 3.
“If this was truly a problem the Republicans cared about they would have solved it years ago. Instead they feign outrage and point fingers at everyone but themselves.”
