WEDC board to see Foxconn contract before vote

Previous plan gave them summary, not full details

MADISON – Bowing to pressure from the left and right Friday, the head of Wisconsin’s job creation agency said state officials would have a chance to review a $3 billion contract with Foxconn Technology Group before voting on it.

Mark Hogan, who heads the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., told his board members in an email Friday that he expected to provide them with a copy of the proposed contract on Monday. Before, Hogan had said board members would get a summary, rather than the contract itself, before they voted.

Foxconn plans to invest as much as $10 billion in Racine County for a plant that would manufacture display screens and employ up to 13,000 people. In exchange, GOP Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers have agreed to give the Taiwanese tech giant up to $2.85 billion in cash payments and $150 million in tax breaks.

WEDC is finalizing the terms of the deal and the board is expected to vote on it Wednesday.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) and other lawmakers have said they believed the board should get to review the contract before voting on it, not just a summary.

As recently as Tuesday, WEDC spokesman Mark Maley said the agency would stick by its practice for other economic development deals and withhold the contract before the vote. But Hogan reversed course on Friday. “Given we are very close on the contract language, and given the size of the award, now is the appropriate time to make it available to you as board members,” he told board members by email.

He asked them to keep the contract confidential, saying it would not become a public document until it is signed.

The WEDC board was scheduled to vote on the contract Oct. 17 but postponed that action because the contract wasn’t ready. Carpenter, who sits on the WEDC board, has said he felt pressured to vote and didn’t get any advance time to get ready.