A Greater Milwaukee Committee report this week that threatened a push for a state takeover of county government finances is being treated kindly by Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker.
While downplaying that aspect of the report, which has received most of the media attention, Walker said in a Wednesday interview with WisPolitics that many of the budgeting approaches advocated in the report are either being implemented or are being seriously considered.
"There's a pretty good chance some of it will get in the budget," said Walker, who has scheduled his budget speech for Sept. 28. "I was at Monday's GMC meeting, and the report validated our (budgetary) concerns for next year and the next five years."
The executive agreed with the GMC's characterization of the budget as "daunting but do-able."
But the discussion is likely to center on which services, if any, are cut to allow the 2007 budget to come in without a large property tax increase, which Walker would oppose.
The report calls for a 30-year borrowing program to help the county deal with an annual pension liability that Walker said would reach nearly $60 million in 2007. "That may be part of the answer because the state has done that," Walker
said.
He added his support for a recommendation to collaborate with other units of government to enable county government to reduce jobs.
Walker said he also agrees with the GMC's recommendation that the county change what it called a "fundamentally flawed" health insurance and benefit package for employees and retirees. "But those matters are going to have to be negotiated," said Walker, as they are part of the contracts the county has with its unions.
"The bottom line is that there is no new money," he said. "So if the union wants contracts with changes such as in wages, no layoffs, benefits, the number of jobs, other changes will have to be made."
Walker pointed out that all the county's labor contracts have been settled for the next year with one exception, which is going to arbitration and could provide some guidance for how the county will approach negotiations for the next year.
While the GMC report fell short of recommending a new revenue stream to pay for continuing certain county services that are now on the chopping block, it did say funding should be provided for bolstering public transit services, park rehabilitation, and funds for the county's cultural institutions, such as the finically strapped Milwaukee Public Museum.
A proposed 0.5-cent sales tax was meant to provide some of that funding. But Walker vetoed that, and his veto was narrowly upheld by a 12-6 margin, one vote short of the tally needed to override.
Walker said the money would simply have gone to offset the pension costs and not towards property tax relief, as it had been pitched. "It was being sold as property tax relief, but it wasn't," he said.
