Scott Walker, in another fine example of putting his political aspirations before the common good of Milwaukee County, has started pandemonium among the municipal leaders within the county:
“You’d better be prepared not to have the (paramedic funding) from the county,” Oak Creek Mayor Richard Bolender warned fellow mayors and village presidents at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Council. “I think it’s just going to die. . . . I have a bad feeling about this.”
Bolender said he expected the cash-strapped county to cut off funding for the service within a year or two. Others, such as Franklin Mayor Tom Taylor, were concerned about what would happen to paramedics and other services if state and county officials dismantle or revamp county government, as discussed in a recent report by the Public Policy Forum.
That report, commissioned by the Greater Milwaukee Committee, talks about giving municipalities responsibility for running paramedic service and maintaining county highways, “but I didn’t hear anything about the transfer of dollars or revenue,” Taylor said. Funding also would be a problem if municipalities had to take over county parks, he added.
The problem stems from two things.
One is the fact that Walker, in a grandstanding maneuver that included little forethought except for how it might benefit his campaign, has been touting the idea of dismantling county government. This is, of course, nothing more than the ultimate abdication of duties by Walker, who has a long history of doing so.
The other issue is that Walker and the County Board passed an illegal budget that only continues to worsen with each passing day.
Frankly, I don’t blame these municipal leaders for being very concerned about the future of Milwaukee County and the support it has given to them. The county government is in complete disarray, and our elected leaders are too busy either trying to run away from the county as fast as they can or trying to point fingers at others and not trying to fix the issues at hand.
Greenfield Mayor Michael Neitzke shows how far their trust as been strained in this quote:
Also at the meeting, County Treasurer Dan Diliberti defended the role of county government, saying it streamlined services and saved money by avoiding duplication.
Greenfield Mayor Michael Neitzke replied that the county had a chance to play the role Diliberti outlined, but “it sort of blew it. . . . I’m just personally not prepared to give the county another shot.”
And as I had pointed out a long time ago, in a blog far away, merging the redundant municipal services into one larger, more efficient and more cost effective system is proving to be difficult due to politicians not willing to give up the least bit of control of their own little turfs:
St. Francis Mayor Al Richards lashed out at County Board Chairman Lee Holloway’s support for merging municipal health departments into a county agency. Richards called Holloway’s comments “divisive,” and compared them to the city-suburban tensions in the days of former Milwaukee mayors Henry Maier and John O. Norquist.
Terry Cooley, the board’s chief of staff, said later that Holloway was simply advocating the economies of scale that other counties achieve through their countywide health departments.
I sincerely think that if we had a responsible leader that was dedicated to Milwaukee County and not their own interests, the consolidation of services could easily be done. But that would require someone to put in the time, the energy and the proactive thinking necessary to develop a plan for this to be done and to point out to the municipal officials that they could be saving their constituents money by cooperating with each other and the county instead of having petty turf wars.
Here is the 4th Street Forum’s show about the budget crisis that Scott Walker and the County Board has led us into:
It takes about an hour, but it is rather interesting. Please note that near the end, Supervisor Patricia Jursik admits that they passed a deficit budget, which, of course, is against the law.
Things are really starting to move in regarding the much needed dedicated funding for our transit system and our parks system.
The state legislature is poised to consider two very important bills.
One is SB-511, which is the bill that would allow Milwaukee County to pass the half-cent sales tax for the transit system as the prelude to the RTA.
On January 19, Governor Doyle was joined by many of the area’s business leaders, each of whom pointed out that a sustainable, and even extended transit system would be good for not only their businesses, but for the entire regional economy. Without a doubt, the fact that our transit system, which has been cut by some 20% over the last few years, has contributed to the fact that the Milwaukee area lost nearly 50,000 jobs in the last year, as well as why we are lagging in our economic recovery.
No less important, even though it is receiving less attention, is AB-504, which would provide the vehicle for getting dedicated funding for our parks system. And as has been proven in New York City, parks are also vital for a thriving economy:
Such cuts could turn out to actually cost the city money. Fine parks contribute to the economy by increasing property values and, as a result, real estate tax receipts. A 2008 analysis found that the completion of the Greenwich Village section of the Hudson River Park raised real estate prices in the adjacent two blocks by 20 percent.
[...]
Parks also attract tourists and residents who come to events and activities or who just want to enjoy the surroundings, generating economic activity inside and near the park. Central Park attracts more than 25 million visitors a year, about one fifth of whom come from outside the city, according to “The Central Park Effect,” which was prepared by the economic analysis firm Appleseed for the Central Park Conservancy. The study determined that in 2007, spending by visitors and enterprises in the city’s most famous park directly and indirectly accounted for $395 million in economic activity. This activity, as well as increases in property values near the park, generated $656 million in revenues for the city in 2007.
“Measuring the Economic Value of a City Park System,” released in April by the Center for City Park Excellence at The Trust for Public Land, analyzed seven ways that city parks provide economic benefits: property values, tourism, direct use, health, community cohesion, clean water and clean air. Starting with conservative assumptions of park use and other variables, researchers calculated dollar values for each of these benefits in a different city.
Even though supporters of Milwaukee County like yourself, as well as the other like minded groups, such as the Park People and the Coalition for the Advancement of Transit, have made many calls and sent many emails in support of these two bills, I have learned that there are some legislators that state they have hardly heard a peep in support of these two vital bills. This is especially true for the leggies that represent the suburban areas.
Please take a few minutes now to call and/or email your state representative and state senator and call on them to support this bill. Everyone needs to do this, but especially those that live in the suburbs.
If you don’t know who your representative or senator is, you can find out by clicking on this link.
We thank you in advance for supporting our community by making these important calls.
When the County Board and County Executive got done trying to come up with the 2010 county budget, we warned of the giant black hole that they had built into it. The County had illegally budgeted a non-existent contract with the unions into it. As a result, the budget was not balanced, as is required by law.
Unless the unions were to immediately capitulate to the concessions demanded by the county, the budget was doomed to fail from day one. As we predicted, the unions did not immediately capitulate. In fact, they filed lawsuits against the county and against specific Supervisors, which has held up any contract negotiations.
Weeks after we issued our warning about the county budget, the local newspaper caught on and also announced that the budget was already in trouble. The paper also quoted Rob Henken, President of the Public Policy Forum, who warned that Walker’s usual fix to budget issues, laying off hundreds of workers, would no longer work:
Rob Henken, president of the nonpartisan Public Policy Forum, said it was unlikely the county could avoid another budget crisis in early 2010. The county is beyond the point where layoffs can be used as a patch for the county’s revenue woes without having “significant service cuts,” he said.
Despite all of these warnings and calls for action, Walker and the County Board failed to act in a responsible manner. Now , their game playing is catching up to us.
JSOnline is reporting (in an altered story*) that the Board’s Finance and Audit Committee just approved more cuts in staff and in services. The article goes on to give a laundry list of services that are being proposed to be cut, including in the courts, the correctional system, and other departments.
Results will be in a slowed up legal system, a more unsafe correctional facility, and longer lines for people wanting to get birth certificates, wedding licenses and other similar documents.
Ironically, Supervisor Johnny Thomas is now lamenting the results of his actions and the actions of his colleagues:
Supervisor John Thomas said he wasn’t happy with the cuts but noted the 2010 budget approved in November forced the issue by its furlough provision. He said the full $8 million savings assumed for the furloughs across county government would not materialize. The work of furloughed employees will wind up forcing more overtime and other unanticipated costs, he said.
“There’s a domino effect, and it’s going to lead to overtime and inefficiencies,” Thomas said. “Public safety is in jeopardy.”
Of course, to be fair, it is not entirely the Board’s fault. A great deal of the responsibility lies at the feet of Scott Walker, whose recommended budget was so faulty that there was no way for the Board to even be able to fix it without doing a drastic overhaul, as they did for the 2007 budget (which not so coincidentally, corresponds with the other time Walker ran for governor).
It should also be noted that there are growing rumors that there will still be massive lay offs in either late March/early April and or in late June/early July. If this were to happen, we will be witnessing a systematic failure in county government, much like they are currently witnessing in Colorado Springs, who is being victimized by their own irresponsible behaviors:
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.
“I guess we’re going to find out what the tolerance level is for people,” said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. “It’s a new day.”
Some residents are less sanguine, arguing that cuts to bus services, drug enforcement and treatment and job development are attacks on basic needs for the working class.
“How are people supposed to live? We’re not a ‘Mayberry R.F.D.’ anymore,” said Addy Hansen, a criminal justice student who has spoken out about safety cuts. “We’re the second-largest city, and growing, in Colorado. We’re in trouble. We’re in big trouble.”
Unfortunately, thanks to Walker’s political grandstanding and showboating, and the Board’s ineffectiveness, we are also in trouble. Big trouble.
The question is quickly changing from how can we prevent the damage from happening to how much more can we tolerate before something breaks.
*As I was preparing for this post, the JSOnline article ended with Supervisor Patricia Jursik also complaining of the looming disaster. She was quoted as saying “We did not pass a balanced budget.” That quote, or any mention of Jursik, is now missing. It would be nice to know why the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel made the decision to take that line out of the story.
I’ve noticed some questionable facts and some errors in assumptions. However, before I go into details, Rob Henken, President of the Public Policy Forum, emailed me and graciously offered to discuss the report with me, which I will gladly and gratefully take him up on.
I also want to talk to a few other folks as well, just to get all my ducks in a row.
One thing that I am still disappointed in was the fact that the report was centered around the dismantling of the county and only touched on other possibilities. Apparently, some County Board Supervisors were disappointed as well.
But as I read the report more carefully, I don’t think this lopsided look was the fault of Mr. Henken or PPF. Rather, it was the fault of the Greater Milwaukee Committee who commissioned PPF to do the study with the wrong focus.
For the past few years, Scott Walker has been touting the idea of abolishing county government. His solution is to push off his responsibilities onto the state and the municipalities, especially the City of Milwaukee.
I argued against them a year ago on my personal blog. Those reasons still hold valid, even in light of the recent PPF report regarding this issue.
The fallout from the recent tragic fire that destroyed Pizza Man and a number of other businesses, as well as displaced several people from their homes goes to fortify this position.
While some people have tried to make political hay from fanning the flames of this tragedy, there are still some deep embers burning in the community:
Debate over whether Milwaukee is playing with fire by cutting Fire Department staff has led to criticism of suburban departments such as West Allis, which has decided to fire back with words of its own.
The back-and-forth started with a leading Milwaukee firefighter who suggested that suburban fire departments aren’t capable of fighting urban fires, according to an open letter written by the West Allis Police and Fire Commission.
The letter quotes comments made by David Seager, president of the Milwaukee firefighters union. He spoke Jan. 20 on Jeff Wagner’s radop show on WTMJ-AM, according to the letter.
Seager is quoted saying a number of suburban fire departments, including West Allis’, don’t have the ability to conduct “urban firefighting.”
“It’s blatantly clear that these communities, if called upon, to respond to a working structure fire of any nature within the City of Milwaukee, they would have extreme difficulty . . . not to mention the fact that the City of Milwaukee conducts aggressive, offensive firefighting tactics, which means that we actually go into the building and fight the fire to reduce any further damage.”
In the letter, West Allis Police and Fire Commission President Joseph Kempen says he is “deeply disappointed” by the comments.
“I am confident that West Allis firefighters are as well trained and proficient as any of the area’s top performing departments,” the letter says.
When one would expect Milwaukee’s finest to be appreciative of the help received by the neighboring fire departments, like officials in Cudahy were after the Patrick Cudahy fire last summer, we instead find this territorial sniping.
I, for one, if in need of emergency services, would rather have either cooperation between the various departments, or have one countywide fire department that would serve the entire county. Not several smaller departments getting into turf wars. Not to mention that one department would have less administrative costs and better response times than several departments unwilling to cross city lines.
Walker and the supporters of Walker’s idea of abolishing county government have it completely backwards, as this unfortunate situation demonstrates.
Last week, I told you of a letter from the USDA to the State regarding the abysmal condition of Milwaukee County’s Food Share program. I did note one bright note:
On the bright side, the letter did point out that the state appeared to poised to finally have worked its way through the backlog created by the county’s failure and the transition.
The state has cleared a backlog of thousands of food stamp applicants it had last year, but federal officials are still warning that more progress is needed to improve the turnaround time for issuing benefits.
Wisconsin’s rate for issuing food assistance to the poor within 30 days dropped to about 82% by mid-2009, as the state struggled with a surge of applications in conjunction with the expansion of the state’s BadgerCare program. By September, the figure rose to nearly 87% – better but still not good enough.
Other Midwestern states, except Minnesota, had even lower figures for processing food aid applications on time. States are supposed to handle at least 95% of their food aid applications within a month, under federal guidelines.
This shows what can happen when you have a program that is adequately staffed. Even at that, the workers were putting in a lot of overtime to get the job done.
It is a shame that Scott Walker willfully failed to do his job in filling those positions like he should have. If Walker had done the right thing, it would have avoided a lot of people being denied or delayed their benefits, and it would have saved tax payers a lot of money.
Now if only the paper would get on the ball with the Eschweiler Buildings, which still has that big branch sticking out of its roof, two months after the storm that put it there.
I attended the news conference at Bucyrus International last week and have a different view from how it was reported in the Jan. 20 article “Sales-tax funded transit proposed” (Page 7B).
While it’s true that the panel of business leaders stated that Wisconsin’s economy depends on reliable transit, the article failed to capture the urgency as demonstrated by some of the state’s largest employers standing together in adamant support of the southeastern Wisconsin RTA bill.
“It’s foolish to ignore; transit builds the economy,” said Bob Mariano, chairman and CEO of Roundy’s Supermarkets Inc.
Scott VanderSanden, president of AT&T Wisconsin, said, “A region’s economic vitality depends on having a dependable and reliable transit system, something this part of the state is sorely lacking . . . . Getting this bill through the state Legislature is critical to the region.”
While Europe and Asia are recognizing the advantages of rail and are investing billions in connecting their cities, our businesses are doing their best to overcome the crippling effects of a deteriorating transit system while remaining competitive in today’s economy.
Transit is essential, they said. The RTA bill, now in the hands of the Legislature, must be passed. Failure to do so is not affordable.
Two days ago, the Editorial Board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote an alarmingly irresponsible editorial calling for the dissolution of Milwaukee County.
The Jan. 27 editorial “Dissolve the county” missed the mark, in my view, on local government reform. How could the Journal Sentinel Editorial Board support the most extreme option after reading just the executive summary?
Our strategic planning process is the proper way to engage the public and work with other local leaders. The state should listen to the voters, who expressed their support for a dedicated sales tax to support county services and address long-term funding challenges.
The Public Policy Forum did not recommend any specific action. The individuals who commissioned this study are ignoring large parts of the forum report, which detailed the difficulties with restructuring county government. Any move to eliminate county government would not erase the costs of running critical services such as mental health, courts and the Sheriff’s Department. Someone has to provide these services.
The state’s underfunded mandates are part of the reason Milwaukee County has a structural deficit, so it’s unrealistic to think the state could absorb additional costs. The state is already fumbling the FoodShare program it took over from Milwaukee County last year.
Transferring functions to the state and creating special districts with taxing power would only increase excess layers of government and call into question accountability. Taxpayers deserve better representation, and that is why our democracy created counties in the first place.
Marina Dimitrijevic
Milwaukee County Supervisor
4th District Milwaukee
The paper also ran a full length column by Board Chairman Lee Holloway. Here is a sampling of what he wrote:
I also can’t imagine that creating more duplication by dissolving the county and transferring functions to municipal governments would achieve savings of this scale. True reform should actually involve consolidation of municipal services. There are dozens of police departments, fire departments, health departments, libraries, etc. in nearly every county.
We have 19 municipalities in Milwaukee County, and some are relatively small. Do they each really need their own bureaucratic departmental structure? Could efficiencies be achieved by partnering with neighboring communities, as the North Shore Fire Department has achieved? Could the county actually run some of these services and achieve efficiencies of scale?
There are 72 counties, 190 cities, 403 villages and 1,258 towns in Wisconsin. It’s very easy to see where the real duplication exists. By far, Milwaukee County is the most populous county in Wisconsin and contains one first-class city, two second-class cities and five third-class cities, far more than any other county. Larger populations deserve more representation, not less.
Businessman Sheldon Lubar has been the driving force behind “blowing up” county government, and it’s important to note that he and Michael Morgan served as co-chairs of the Governor’s Task Force on Milwaukee County Finances in 2006. Several task force recommendations, including increased court and shared revenue funding, still have not been approved. These are tools that could have helped us.
Milwaukee County is the last resort for people with nowhere else to turn. Without the county, who would provide critical safety net services that serve seniors and those with disabilities? Who would run the mental health complex? Who would operate our correctional facilities or courts? Blowing up the county would not make these obligations to our society go away.
As a report being released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Public Policy Forum notes, Milwaukee County government faces challenges so serious that a fundamental change in its operation is necessary. At the same time, in our view, the current government has become so dysfunctional that it seems highly unlikely it will be able to meet those challenges.
Which is why the state needs to step in to dissolve Milwaukee County government as we know it and find a suitable replacement. And it needs to do so soon. As he did on Milwaukee Public Schools, Gov. Jim Doyle needs to take a leadership role with the help of key legislators. There are too many governments in Milwaukee County; it’s time to reduce that number.
Although the forum doesn’t take a position on which of several options is best, the best replacement mechanism could be to hand some services to the state, some to the municipalities and some to regional boards that could provide services in the areas of transit, parks and recreational services. But the door should be left open to other mechanisms as well, such as a metropolitan government that would take over county as well as municipal services.
The Editorial Board then goes on to call for the formation of a committee to do a section-by-section analysis of the feasibility of dumping the County’s responsibilities on either the state or on local municipalities.
Apparently, the Editorial Board either does not read their own paper or they have a severe memory loss issue.
For if they had read and retained what their own paper has been covering, they would realize that state take overs of Milwaukee County functions are both damaging to the tax payers and to those dependent on these services.
For example, over 10 years ago, the State took over the child welfare system in Milwaukee County. The cost to taxpayers immediately shot up tens of millions of dollars each year. And the quality of service is so bad that many children have been neglected, abused and even killed while they were in the state’s custody. Things have gotten so bad that the paper has started a series that they label “Fatal Care.” Heck, the Board themselves have written pieces regarding the need to reform the child welfare system.
Another example of this would be the recent state take over of the income maintenance program. The cost to Milwaukee County tax payers jumped millions of dollars in the first year alone, but there has been a drop in performance, even from the terrible numbers posted by Walker’s administration, which prompted the take over in the first place.
Furthermore, there would be resistance from upstate tax payers would resent even the perception of more of their tax dollars going to support Milwaukee County. This would lead to greater problems and delays in getting any sort of immediate help for Milwaukee County citizens when it is most needed.
Foisting the county’s responsibilities onto the City of Milwaukee is also irresponsible. The first concern is just the sheer logistics and political ramifications of political boundaries and jurisdiction. How would the suburbs feel with the City of Milwaukee dictating policy to them, or having Milwaukee workers entering their municipalities to arbitrarily enforcing some policy. Another concern would be the distribution of the burden.
Putting the burden of countywide services on Milwaukee County would also create an unfair burden on city tax payers, who will have to pick up the tab for any suburbs that are reluctant to pay their fair share for the services they are receiving. This, of course, could lead into another whole series of turf battles where only the citizens will get hurt.
For these, and a myriad of other reasons, the dissolution of Milwaukee County government would be a prime example of irresponsible impulsiveness and a severe lack of responsible leadership.
Milwaukee County First would rather see the County government take these immediate actions to help address issues that are leading us to the imminent fiscal meltdown that we are on course for:
Conduct a complete, exhaustive and authoritative audit of all of Milwaukee County’s assets, revenues and expenditures. Furthermore, this audit should be done by the County Board Auditor, Jerome Heer, and his staff, since Walker’s staff has a history of noncompliance and of being less than forthcoming with the complete truth.
In relation to the survey, move all County offices out of rented space and into buildings already owned by the County. Furthermore, look at putting related services in the same place. For example, move the Department of Health and Human Services to the unused space at the mental health complex.
Conduct an analysis of worker-to-supervisor ratio to minimize expenditure on non-revenue-generating positions and maximizing efficiency and revenue by increasing the number of front line workers who actually provide the services and can generate new revenue for the county.
Proceed with honest and good faith bargaining with the unions. While this may be more difficult now due to the high levels of mistrust between the Walker administration, the County Board and the unions, it is really the only way that they will even have a chance of getting the needed concessions to control health care and pension costs. Trying to arbitrarily force concessions is not only illegal, but will meet with a high level of resistance, as seen by the “TEA Party” groups against health care reform.
Take immediate actions to restore lost revenue streams and find new ones. While there would be a lot of complaining about any sort of raise in taxes, there are still a lot of people that understand that if they want quality services, then they have to pay for them. The people in Oregon have just recently demonstrated this. Other sources include looking at selling off or leasing unused properties that the county owns and that serves no purpose; restructuring how the mental health complex operates in order to expand their ability to charge Medicare and other insurances; and keep pushing for the dedicated sales tax bills to make it through the state legislature as soon as possible.
Consolidate the Department of Aging into the Department of Health and Human Services. This will have to be done sooner or later with the advent of Family Care. This would eliminate a lot of big salaried administrators and streamline efficiency.
Take a serious look and start discussions with the City of Milwaukee and the suburbs to consolidate services, much like those suggested by County Board Chairman Lee Holloway.
Re-open consideration and discussion of Holloway’s proposal to eliminate the county executive position to increase efficiency and remove the threat of further damage being done to the county, as has been done by F. Thomas Ament and Scott Walker.
These would be good first steps to making lasting and serious structural changes to Milwaukee County and its municipalities and to how they do business. Furthermore, these steps can be done in thoughtful, but expedient, ways that won’t cause the damage that such knee jerk reactions like those by the Editorial Board or Scott Walker would have inflicted upon us.
the idea of dismantling county government. This is, of course, nothing more than the ultimate abdication of duties by Walker, who has a long history of doing so.
