Madison – Representative Shae Sortwell (R-Gibson) released the following statement today regarding the legislature’s ongoing investigation into Governor Evers’ failure at the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS):
“The legislature was assured by the agency back in March that the professional licensure backlog would improve through the governor’s allocation of federal ARPA dollars into system upgrades and new staff positions.”
To initiate its software upgrades, DSPS authorized a blackout period of sixteen days, running from the end of April to mid-May. During this period, no one was allowed to file for a license, including several medical students who graduated at that time and continue to wait for their licenses to be approved in order to find employment.
“Unsurprisingly, the Evers administration continues to fail our prospective healthcare professionals in the state. The legislature is still receiving several contacts from its constituents who are waiting months, even with a new computerized system. And no one can get answers because the agency never answers the phone or responds to emails.”
“The governor and his bureaucrats maintain their showing of incompetence when they take more than a year from the time the backlog started (dating to as early as July 2021) to use federal dollars or the $5 million the legislature gave them in the budget to make limited improvements. Even worse, Evers has yet to fill a single staff position out of the nine he created back in February. If he truly cared about the people of Wisconsin, these positions would not be vacant and people could get some answers. But how can Wisconsinites get their licenses, when their ‘leader’ is an absentee governor?”
