{"id":17497,"date":"2025-09-29T17:11:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T17:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=17497"},"modified":"2025-09-29T17:56:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T17:56:57","slug":"exclusive-evers-wedc-have-not-released-expense-public-records-for-european-trade-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=17497","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Evers, WEDC Have Not Released Expense Public Records for European Trade Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/exclusive-evers-wedc-have-not-released-expense-public-records-for-european-trade-trip\/\">https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/exclusive-evers-wedc-have-not-released-expense-public-records-for-european-trade-trip\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/evers-maps-commission.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Evers Drew Congressional Maps Eric Wimberger Republican\u2019s Second Tax Cut evers vetoes evers budget\" title=\"Ian Andre Roberts\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(The Center Square) \u2013 Gov. Tony Evers\u2019 office and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. have not released records related to an early April trade trip to Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Evers and WEDC officials went to Germany and France and took part in Hannover Messe, the world\u2019s largest industrial trade show.<\/p>\n<p>The trip included visiting Hannover, Hessen, and Berlin in Germany and the Bourgogne-Franche-Comt\u00e9 region in France.<\/p>\n<p>Former WEDC Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecentersquare.com\/wisconsin\/article_25d0edb8-2ca8-4c6d-9ea6-47c2480d007b.html\" target=\"_blank\">traveled to Europe<\/a> for the trip along with WEDC Vice President of Global Trade and Investments Micah Oge as well as other WEDC staff.<\/p>\n<p>The Center Square filed public records requests with both Evers\u2019 office and WEDC regarding expenses shortly after the trip and has not received a response for five months as of Sept. 29. That included a follow-up from The Center Square asking for a status update on the requests on Sept. 18, which received no response from either office.<\/p>\n<p>Public funds are often used for official economic development trips. WEDC and Evers&#8217; office also did not respond to requests for further detail on who went on the trip or the costs associated with the trip in early April.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;ve seen growing delays from state agencies over the last several years,\u201d Attorney Tom Kamenick, President &amp; Founder of The Wisconsin Transparency Project, told The Center Square. \u201cIt&#8217;s important for the public to be able to monitor government expenses, especially when officials are spending our money taking trips to foreign countries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut journalists can&#8217;t report on such things in a timely manner when those same officials delay providing records for months and months. Evers&#8217; administration has to do a better job responding promptly to record requests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hughes has since resigned from her post, as of Sept. 19, and announced on Monday morning that she is running for governor.<\/p>\n<p>Evers\u2019 administration is searching for a replacement, according to a press release. Evers has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecentersquare.com\/wisconsin\/article_9aee108d-19b7-4194-b637-423ef6f004bf.html\" target=\"_blank\">announced he will not seek reelection<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/exclusive-evers-wedc-have-not-released-expense-public-records-for-european-trade-trip\/ (The Center Square) \u2013 Gov. Tony Evers\u2019 office and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":1146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17499,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17497\/revisions\/17499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}