Not being able to avoid the knee jerk reaction that we avoided to the Public Policy Forum’s report on the sustainability of Milwaukee County, the Editorial Board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel issued a screeching screed on how Milwaukee County should be dissolved:
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 of 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.