Foxconn Bid Winners Donate $68,000 to Walker

Gov. Scott Walker. Photo from the State of Wisconsin.

Owners and employees from a third of the three dozen companies that were awarded contracts by Foxconn on Tuesday have contributed about $68,000 to Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s campaigns.

The Walker administration awarded Foxconn about $4.5 billion in state and local tax breaks, grants, worker training, highway improvements, and other giveaways to locate the plant in Wisconsin.

The companies and their employee contributions between January 2010 and December 2017 to the governor are:

Johnson Controls International, of Milwaukee, about $33,500;

Halquist Stone, of Sussex, $19,155;

Wolter Power Systems, of Brookfield. The company is a division of Wisconsin Lift Truck Corp., whose employees contributed $6,465;

HVA Products, of Mequon, $1,500;

Johnson’s Nursery, of Menomonee Falls, $1,500;

Jasperson Sod Farm, of Franksville, about $1,365;

Kevco, Inc., of New Berlin, $1,100;

Dickow Cyzak Tile Co., of Kenosha, $1,050;

Ideal Crane, of Madison, $800;

Werner Electric, of Appleton, $650;

Witte Supply, of Burlington, $500;

Red Cedar Steel Erectors, of Menomonie, $200;

Professional System Analysis, of Germantown, $100.

The top individual contributors from these companies to the governor were:

Thomas J. Halquist, of Elm Grove, president of Halquist Stone, $10,655;

Stephen Roell, chief executive officer at Johnson Controls, and his wife, Shelagh, of Brookfield, $10,000;

William and Marijane Halquist, of Hartland, owners of Halquist Stone, $7,350.

The project that the companies will be working on is a 120,000-square-foot multi-purpose building that will be used as office space for the construction companies chosen to build the company’s $10 billion liquid-crystal display manufacturing plant. The building will later be used for research and development activities.