Dems Feud, Taxpayers' Screwed

The headline of this story should have been:

Doyle-Lautenschlager Feud Reaches New Hieghts
Taxpayers Pay the Price

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:

State officials fight; taxpayers wounded

Madison - A public records battle between the state Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation has cost taxpayers more than $18,000 in outside attorney fees, even though the two sides agree Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi improperly delayed the release of a report.

Busalacchi has acknowledged that he was in the wrong but claims he did not break the law because he did not act arbitrarily, as Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager maintains in a lawsuit against him. The DOT spent $18,584 during the investigation and initial stages of litigation for attorney Lester Pines, who represented Busalacchi.

Pines is an associate of Gov. Jim Doyle and the husband of Workforce Development Secretary Roberta Gassman.

Both sides say the other is entrenched, preventing a settlement.

The DOT replaced Pines with in-house counsel late last month. Department officials said the agency could not have done so earlier because of a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, bills from Pines are continuing to pile up in a related case over the demotion of DOT attorney Jim Thiel, who says he was moved from chief counsel to staff attorney after he released other records in December 2004 that showed Busalacchi had delayed the release of a report on engineering costs. Bills in that case have climbed to $25,883.

Lautenschlager filed suit against Busalacchi in July 2005 after finding he took months to give the State Engineering Association the report, which showed consultants cost 18% more than state engineers. The union has protested the amount of engineering work the state outsources.

Busalacchi was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday for a meeting with congressmen and unavailable for comment. Busalacchi told the Journal Sentinel when Lautenschlager filed the suit that he had acted improperly but that he did not believe he had violated the law.

"I'm the keeper of the records and for whatever reason we screwed this thing up," he said at the time. "I can't blame anybody. It falls on me."

Busalacchi said then that he kept the report under wraps because he wanted to persuade Doyle to hire more engineers. Doyle agreed to hire 10 more engineers as a result of Busalacchi's lobbying.

Busalacchi said he would be willing to personally pay a $1,000 forfeiture but that he would not admit to acting "arbitrarily and capriciously," as the lawsuit claims.

If Lautenschlager wins, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess could force the Department of Transportation to pay the attorney general's costs, which so far have added up to about $8,500.

Full story here.