For many years, riders of the Milwaukee County Transit System has seen its routes get cut and the fares go up, as less and less money is available for it. Once a standard for the nation, it has been in steady decline. This year, it has been recommended by the current administration, contrary to all advice, to again slash routes by up to 40% and raise fares by charging a quarter for each transfer. This will have a devastating effect on the local economy, not just of Milwaukee County, but for the entire southeast region of Wisconsin.
Likewise, the Milwaukee County Parks System has seen cuts for each of the past 27 years. This year will be no different, except that it appears that the parks will suffer the most severe cuts yet. Some of the options being considered by the current administration is closing ALL of the outdoor swimming pools, closing both community centers, and cutting maintenance at the senior centers.
Also being threatened is the money that Milwaukee County puts towards the Emergency Medical System. Without this money being in the budget, there will be people in areas of Milwaukee County that will not receive paramedic services for medical emergencies.
Because of these growing concerns, the County Board repeatedly tried to get a referendum to the voters to see if they would approve of a sales tax increase to save these systems and give the voters relief on their property taxes. But each time, County Executive Scott Walker blocked the people from having the right to express themselves.
Finally, in November 2008, the Board was able to put the referendum on the ballot. The people spoke, and the referendum was approved. Unfortunately, despite the hard work of community-minded groups like Quality of Life Alliance and others, the proposed sales tax was distorted during the budget process, and ultimately vetoed by Governor Jim Doyle.
Without this dedicated funding source, the situation in Milwaukee County will quickly become untenable. That is why Milwaukee County First is asking you to join your voice to ours, and to the many others who also put Milwaukee County first, and are calling on Governor Doyle and the State Legislature to pass this sales tax, and to allow us to help ourselves before it is too late.
Please sign our petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Milwaukee-County-First
and let those in Madison know that we will not quietly stand by and allow Milwaukee County to fall apart before our very eyes. It will only take a few seconds to sign the petition, and we will do the rest.
After you have signed the petition, please pass the word to your family, your friends, your neighbors and your coworkers, and ask them to sign the petition as well. Again the link to the petition is:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Milwaukee-County-First
If we do this separately, we will be just whistling into the wind. Together, we will create a voice that those in Madison will have to hear.
Since it’s safe to assume that all of these things cannot be protected, along with all the health and human services cuts we heard about earlier, simply by raising taxes, the question becomes what other things should get cut to save them?
I see a lot of “save this” and “save that”, but where are the priority decisions?
The state mandated things would have to take top priority, according to law. That would included the health and human services cuts, the courts and such.
The sales tax would allow the parks, transit and EMS to come off of the property tax levy, as well as preserve and strengthen these vital services, as well as make it easier to budget for the mandated services.
This is crap, “in November 2008, the Board was able to put the referendum on the ballot. The people spoke, and the referendum was approved.”
Why is this crap?
A – This barely passed 51 – 49. Not exactly a strong statement from the people. More like a wishy washy stance.
B – The referendum was controversial because of how misleading it was. Remember it started out by asking if you state should allow Milwaukee county to have the authority to provide property tax relief? Only after that did it get to the meat of the referendum.
C – This was only an advisory referendum. This means that it meant next to nothing.
I would bet that if this referendum was rewritten to be more clear and put to a vote today, it would fail miserably.
Actually, it passed at a slight higher level. But whether it passed by one vote or one million votes, it still passed.
It was only controversial to those that didn’t like it. Everyone else understood it.
It was advisory because the County needed the state to authorize it first.
Face it, Andy, more and more people are seeing that Walker’s methodology is failing. There was an extensive study done earlier this year by the Public Policy Forum that pointed out the simple fact that if a dedicated source is not found for transit, it will fail, and so will our economy. Whether we like it or not is not the point, it is the cold, hard truth, that no amount of spin will change.
Chris, your solution isn’t legal yet. You have to deal with reality as it exists now.
If the sales tax option is not available, then what?
As I said, by law, the mandated services has to come first. With this administration’s refusal to seek feasible, realistic revenue sources, the only options are to raise the property tax levy, an undesirable option, or to further slashes services like transit and parks, an untenable solution.
As mentioned earlier, the Public Policy Forum issued a report showing that a dedicated source of revenue, or economic collapse is imminent. By refusing to seek this source of revenue, there is willful neglect of the County happening.
“Actually, it passed at a slight higher level.” – Show me the link. I have found those with about 96% reporting and a 52/48 split. But where I found 99% reporting, the numbers were 51/49.
“But whether it passed by one vote or one million votes, it still passed.” – True, but reading “The people have spoken” implies that it won by a large majority and not that it won by such narrow margin.
“It was only controversial to those that didn’t like it. Everyone else understood it.” – Just more crap. If it wasn’t controversial, then there wouldn’t have been such a fuss about it before the election.
“It was advisory because the County needed the state to authorize it first.” – This statement is just as confusing as the referendum. This statement doesn’t say what is getting authorized. Does the state have to approve the cutting of taxes or the raising of taxes OR is it for the raising of taxes so that there could be a tax cut? If that is confusing, then it is just like the referendum.
Lastly, as I have said before and we have agreed to disagree on this view, MCTS is over sized for this county and because of this it is a financial burden to the community. Adjusting the MCTS to be a better fit for Milwaukee County so that it is not a financial burden should be a priority over blindly raising taxes for something that is wasting tax dollars.
I stand corrected in that the margin was 51-49%.
But 400,000 or so people still did vote for it and that is nothing to sneeze at in a county of about 1 million people.
The only reason that some people found it controversial is because it pointed out the shortcomings of Walker’s myopic budget schemes. The referendum itself was clearly written and easily understood. It was Walker and talk radio that was trying to skew it into something it wasn’t.
The referendum read:
Shall the State of Wisconsin grant Milwaukee County the authority to provide property tax relief of at least sixty-seven million dollars ($67 million) by levying a one percent (1%) county sales and use tax to be used to remove the following three items from the property tax levy: parks recreation culture, transit and emergency medical services (EMS)?”
What is so difficult about it?
And I respect your opinion on the bus system, even though I, and the people that have studied the issue, disagree. You fail to mention that the sales tax would go to much more than the transit though.
The difficulty comes in that tax relief is only implied and not guaranteed and many people voted as if it was guaranteed.
As you pointed out, the referendum was advisory. One cannot make a guarantee on an advisory referendum. Then it is no long advisory.
Make that “no longer advisory.”
You are blinded by your own goal of tax more to fix a problem instead of making something work better to fix a problem. The referendum implied that, if accepted, there will be property tax relief is taxes are raised. There is no other way to read that.
The transit system was award-winning, so I doubt efficiency is the issue. The decline is more related to the lack of availability and pricing it out of its benefits. The dedicated funding source would alleviate those issues.
The other benefit of the sales tax is indeed property tax relief. So what is the issue?
“I doubt efficiency is the issue.”
Are you kidding?
A Freeway flier on my way into work – 7 passengers.
A lunch hour at Bayshore, four buses pass by – Maybe 15 passengers.
A bus leaving Southridge mall at 7pm – 3 passengers.
It has been a long time since I have seen a bus at least half full. I’m sure there are and those are the time and routes that need to remain untouched or maybe expanded. However, where buses are empty or near empty, that is waist. That is a system that is too big.
The issue with the sales taxes is that it does not guarantee property tax relief. Plus, what happens when the sales tax isn’t enough? A higher sales tax?
You cannot be serious and consider three buses out the 150 in the fleet as being an accurate cross sampling. There are over 100,000 people that ride the buses at least everyday.
The system, or what there is left of it, does run very well, when allowed to.
But what is your answer for the tens of thousands of workers that won’t be able to get to work if the bus cuts occur? How would you help the scores of businesses that no longer have their employees?
You missed the point as usual. Plus you can’t count.
The point is that there is waste in the bus system. This waste should be removed prior to taxing people to make the system bigger?
You talk about “tens of thousands of workers” not getting to work. Are you serious with this 10% of the riders being affected? To get that number and if ridership was evenly spread out across the whole system, of the about 50 routes (non freeway flier and UWM), 5 whole routes would have to be removed. However, I highly doubt that ridership is evenly spread out across the system. So, even if 5 routes were drop, I suspect they would be the lowest ridership and thus coming no where near the “tens of thousands of workers” you claim.
I rarely take you seriously. If you keep making up numbers like this, it won’t be long before others don’t take you seriously too.
I am going with the numbers presented by both the State and the Public Policy Forum. Exactly where are your getting your figures from?
I’m using the numbers you have used. Counted the routes off the MCTS web site. The rest was just math. Which part is too complicated for you?
Chris, that answer was a cop-out.
I’m going to assume that a reasonable tax increase (4-5%) can’t put everything back. If that’s the case, what should get chopped? Under-utilized bus lines? pools? EMS?
You’re the first person that I’ve seen admit that a 4-5% tax increase is reasonable. But that is beside the point you are asking about.
As I stated, and what you claim is a cop-out is that the things that can’t be cut are mandated services. Although to be honest, they can be cut, but that will only lead to massive class action lawsuits and/or take overs, like it did with the Income Maintenance Program.
Mandated services include the courts, and aid to the disability and the elderly and the poor. That leaves non mandated services like the parks and the transit systems, which is a favorite chopping target. However, this is also becoming untenable.
Without sufficient transit, people will be unable to get to work or school. The local and regional economy will suffer. Crime will rise.
Same goes for the parks. One of the recommendations is closing all of the outdoor pools. What do you think will happen on a hot summer day when people do not have access to the pools? We already had a small taste of it this past summer, when a pool was temporarily closed and violence erupted.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how much Milwaukee County is going to able to recover from the damage of Walker’s myopic vision and budgeting schemes. Walker opted for a route that he felt to be more politically popular, while ignoring the reality of the approaching crisis.
The sales tax would go a long way to relieve some of that stress, as highlighted in a post that my colleague Jason Haas had put up last night. After that, I think a lot can be relieved by consolidating sites. Milwaukee County owns a lot of buildings like the mental health complex (and the Coggs Building, if the state follows through with their threat to move the Income Maintenance workers), which are underutilized or not used at all, but are at the same time renting space at places like the Reuss Federal Building.
That is not good management.
Chris, I understand that mandated services are priority because, well, the state says you have to do them; but what I am asking is, if you were Walker, or on the Board, what would you fund and what would you not if given the opportunity? Would you be willing to maintain a service at lower cost by contracting? If you had to close the pools to save homeless shelters, would you do it (albeit grudgingly)?
Another question I have is, is it fair to blame the County’s problems solely on Walker? He proposes 0 levy increase budgets, but from what I understand the final budget that has been passed for several years now has included a lot of changes, including tax increases, made by the County Board. That says to me it’s not all Walker’s policies being implemented, it’s the Board’s as well. It seems like the Board also has the opportunity to make policy if Walker is doing so poorly, though they must override a veto.
Thanks.
I will answer your second question first. Yes, it is fair to blame Walker. The Public Policy Forum did an extensive study earlier this year. The results of which are similar to the one that they just released regarding the City of Milwaukee, but they found the County to be in much worse shape.
One of the main problems they found was the lack of new revenue sources (such as the sales tax which we are now pushing for). Walker refused for years to pursue new and realistic funding sources. Instead, we see him actually removing the position of director of economic development, which is kind of like cutting off your arm because you had a splinter in your finger.
If the board had not resisted Walker’s ideology, we would be already bankrupt.
As for what to cut: First, privatization is rarely the answer. It almost always ends up being more expensive. The first thing I would do is move all county programs out of rented buildings and move them into the underutilized builidngs that the county already owns.
I would also take a serious look at each Department. They are seriously becoming top heavy with too many administrators with made up titles and not enough of the people that actually provide the services. (Note that I do recognize it is always more popular to attack the workers/unions, but not the most economically responsible.)
The thing that I keep hearing from county officials is that the services have been just about cut everywhere that can be before it starts having such a negative effect that the it outweighs any benefits it was supposed to bring. In other words, any savings made by cutting is lost in fines from the state and feds, class action lawsuits that cannot be defended, and loss of the revenue streams the County already has.
The answer isn’t deciding between letting inner city kids swim or providing shelter to the homeless. The answer is finding new revenue streams. If a business has cut so much that any more means making less product or providing less service, they explore ways to either improve the demand for their product/service, or other ways to fund their business, like grants and loans.