MADISON-Is incumbent Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly hiding a millions-dollar structural deficit, a hiring freeze and potential layoffs from the public and Legislature going into her re-election campaign? Are her political operatives involved in an ongoing coverup of this information?

The Jeff Wright for Wisconsin campaign is seeking answers to these questions in an Open Records Request submitted Wednesday (text below) after a newly-obtained internal email from August (attached) suggests chaos in the finances at DPI.

The August email from a top deputy at the agency – never before shared with the public or the Legislature – cites “funding challenges” when laying out a series of drastic cost-cutting measures, limiting travel, hiring and programming. Underly has never disclosed these steps.

In the records request submitted on January 8th to the agency’s website, duplicated in the attached Open Records request sent January 8th to the DPI general counsel, the Wright campaign is seeking answers to the following questions:

  1. Why haven’t we heard directly from Jill Underly about the dire financial conditions before? Is the Department of Public Instruction concealing an internal deficit AND a de facto hiring freeze from the public (and Legislature) heading into an election?
  2. Has Jill Underly been honest with the public (and the Legislature) about the finances of her agency and whether financial mismanagement has caused the drastic measures laid out in the August email?
  3. Are political considerations – and NOT the mission of supporting K-12 education in Wisconsin – behind the apparent lack of transparency at DPI?

Wright for Wisconsin Campaign Manager Tyler Smith called for transparency and answers in submitting the records request today:

“The Department of Public Instruction has never been so isolated from the future of K-12 education in Wisconsin because of Jill Underly’s failures. The August email we have obtained, and which we share today, suggests chaos and coverup in the agency.

“The public has a right to know whether DPI has imposed a de facto hiring freeze or whether this once-proud agency faces unprecedented structural deficits, even as Jill Underly has sought conflict and put her political well-being above public education in Wisconsin.

“It’s time for Jill Underly to be honest about the internal finances at the Department of Public Instruction.”

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