9% of Wisconsin economic development awardees didn't provide documentation

(The Center Square) – An audit of businesses that received grants and tax credits from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. resulted in 9% of businesses not providing the agency with documentation to prove they deserved the award.

An additional 19% of businesses didn’t keep the required paperwork and now understand what they need to keep in the future. Now, the WEDC must decide what to do about the businesses that did not provide the required proof.

The state collected 664 performance reports across the state from awardees and audited 80 of those included 40 tax credit workbooks.

“Our role as an extension of WEDC is to work with all the awardees that were selected for testing to see that the underlying information that they’re holding or maintaining supports the information that’s been reported to WEDC as part of the award,” said Jake Lenell of auditing firm CliftonLarsonAllen in Milwaukee.

The audit showed that 70% of businesses selected had all the correct information that appropriately backed their performance reports.

WEDC voted to accept the audit and will move forward analyzing the results of the audit.