Milwaukee County Board: Bennies For Us, None For You!

In what was probably the worst PR move the Milwaukee County Board made today (which says a lot, considering that they made so many), the County Board voted almost unanimously to slash benefits for all unrepresented (non-union) employees.

All unrepresented employees who have not retired will have their pension multipliers cut from 2% to 1.6%, and will have a minimum retirement age of 64 as opposed to 60.  They will also not be receiving either a merit raise or a cost of living adjustment.

The thrust of this move is allegedly to force the unions into capitulating to the same thing.  However, I would be greatly surprised if this would happen.  First, there is the fact that the Board did illegal and bad-faith bargaining.  Secondly, they will have a hard time justifying to an arbitrator why some unions should give up all of these things when they did not do that with the nurses’ union, who had already settled their contracts without giving up anything but an increase in their health care contributions, which was made up for by also getting a modest raise.

The real kicker is that these hypocrites that voted for cutting employee benefits, and are planning on forcing the unions to do the same, won’t touch their own benefits.  Chairman Lee Holloway led the hypocrisy charge:

The move faces an uphill battle, according to County Board Chairman Lee Holloway. He said he opposes cutting pensions of elected county officials because most don’t hold office long enough to get much of a pension. Holloway also said he’s against making Milwaukee County elected officials have a lower pension multiplier than other elected officials in Wisconsin.

“I would not want to set that precedent,” he said.

Walker claims that he would have supported the motion, but did not make a push for it, which puts him on the hypocritical side with all the supervisor, except for John Weishan, who voted against the resolution.

When one adds all the boneheaded things they did today to the budget that they just passed a few weeks ago, the one with the $20+ million hole in it, and all of our elected county leaders should be darn glad that there is no such thing as Santa Claus.  For if there was, they wouldn’t even be getting coal.  They’d be getting their presents straight from the reindeer.