Legislative committee reviews audit of Wisconsin government's DEI projects and spending

Wisconsin Rep. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, called the state’s work on diversity, equity and inclusion “disgusting,” “racist” and “discriminatory.”

But Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary Kathy Blumenfeld cautioned the Legislative Audit Committee on Wednesday about the DEI audit of Wisconsin government actions related to Gov. Tony Evers’ November 2019 executive order requiring each state agency to develop a DEI plan.

Blumenfeld noted that, while her department asked for additional staff to complete the work, it was not granted in the past two budgets.

She said that many of the tasks required by the order were already required by state affirmative action law and statutes passed during prior administrations.

The audit found that 21 state agencies completed DEI action plans between January 2020 and April 2024 with 1,212 combined DEI actions taken by those agencies.

The audits showed that Wisconsin state government agencies spent $2.4 million on the salary and costs of 47 employees related to DEI in fiscal year 2023-24, while the University of Wisconsin system showed that $40.2 million was spent on offices with duties related to DEI, though the amounts spent specifically related to DEI were not specified.

“All of this taxpayer money has been spent on DEI yet we’re seeing the implementation of it has not gone very well,” Kapenga said. “I’m not seeing any benefit of DEI.”

Blumenfeld was careful to say that the state takes diversity into account in the way that it recruits job candidates but not when it makes specific hiring decisions.

“We recruit all over, but don’t take it into account in hiring,” Blumenfeld said.

State government employees worked at 12 state agencies while $705,300 was spent on salary and costs related to 23 agencies conducting DEI training, while eight agencies spent $444,300 on actions related to DEI checklists.

State agency staff spent 4,990 hours attending DEI committee meetings.

Blumenfeld estimated that an estimated 660 hours were spent by Department of Administration staff complying with the audit but the department did not look into the salary costs for that time spent due to different salaries of various employees who spent time on audit compliance.