City workers are more careful and healthier. Or it could be that a recent report noting fewer workers compensation claims due to injuries and illnesses in 2006 compared to 2005 could be attributed to the fact that there are fewer workers to make those claims.

The number of workers comp cases among city workers in 2006 totaled 1,140, down from 1,171 in 2005, a 2.6 percent drop, according to the city's Department of Employee Relations. But the average claims for the past five years were 1,121.

Departments leading the way in lost time were the Department of Public Works (at 351, or 31 percent of the total), the Fire Department (346 or 30 percent) and the Police Department (300, or 26 percent).Library and Department of Neighborhood Services workers appear the most immune to work-related illness and injury, with DNS workers making nine claims and library workers making 10.

The total number of lost workdays to the city was 21,279 in 2006, a 13 percent drop from 2005.

Disband the Schools: The trial balloon by Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Bill Andrekopoulos that MPS would need a 16.4 percent increase in property taxes next year to maintain services, drew immediate criticism from at least one Milwaukee alderman.

Ald. Bob Donovan, the South Side representative who has become quite the critic of the mayor's actions on crime and now MPS, suggests that the state or the city take over the school system. Ironically, it's an idea floated by former Gov. Tommy Thompson and entertained by former Mayor John Norquist.

What Norquist did, though, was take over certain budgeting functions of MPS so the city's more favorable bond rating would help MPS and the city now charges MPS for such services as attorney's fees and other administrative duties.

Donovan suggests that if MPS gets its tax hike (a highly unlikely event) it should start paying the city for additional police presence in the schools. "MPS doesn't have the track record to warrant this kind of tax hike. It doesn't have a strong record period. It's time to intervene in a system that has run off course for far too long," says the alderman.

The Good Cruisers: It appears that UW-Milwaukee brass likes having Milwaukee Police cruisers on overtime prowling the streets around the East Side campus, keeping the college kids quiet.

MPD police patrol neighborhoods keeping students in line -- by issuing loud noise warnings and tickets and busting under-age drinking parties -- so homeowners can retain a sense of sanity. Just weeks after striking a new deal with the city in which UWM was to chip in $24,000 for the extra police presence, the university tossed in another $5,000 to fund to the cops.

In return, MPD provides two cruisers with two officers each for a four-hour period on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. UWM also has its own police department that patrols the neighborhood.

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