Walker presents budget to Milwaukee County Board
Milwaukee County Exec. Scott Walker outlined his goal of improving safety, affordability and pride in the county without raising taxes, while railing against state mandates in his budget address today before the Milwaukee County Board.
Walker's $1.3 billion budget boosts spending in most categories, while cleaving $9.3 million from administration and $7.6 million from capital improvements. Total expenditures would increase by $46 million. This is Walker's sixth budget he's submitted without increasing property taxes from the previous year. His base budget, however, represents an average annual increase of about 2 percent in the property tax levy added through board action.
"This budget was created so that the retired couple living on Social Security, the new homeowners with a baby, the entrepreneur just branching out to start a new business could make a go of it here," Walker said. "This is why we do not raise the tax levy. And it's also why I don't support adding to our overall tax burden with a new sales tax."
While Walker's budget increases spending for public safety by about $16 million, it also calls for reducing the population of its work release facility by some 360 inmates and placing them on home detention and GPS monitoring for a savings of about $2.4 million. Certain offenders, such as those convicted of serious violent crimes, drug dealing and sex offenses would not be eligible.
"Even with our fiscal challenges, we give the sheriff the resources needed to protect our parks and buses and to address violent crime in the City of Milwaukee and beyond." Walker said. "We put more into programs that keep our young people out of a cycle of crime. We do more to supervise offenders and not just watch them sleep at night. "
While Walker's budget cuts parks funding by about $500,000, it seeks to recover from the impact of that by abolishing 81 parks maintenance positions, 30 of which are vacant. Instead, more efficient equipment would be purchased, 20 new positions would be created and the county would hire more seasonal workers.
With figures for state shared revenue still uncertain, Walker said he tried to be "realistic" in his projections of what they may be, but said "the reality is that the state is sticking it to Milwaukee County."
Walker noted that in every budget version advanced so far, the costs for housing juvenile offenders has climbed about 22 percent, resulting in a $97,820 cost per year for each offender.
"This is enough to send more than 19 kids to UWM for a year," Walker said. "This is wrong."
Walker also railed against the fact that state government requires the county to hire staff to determine eligibility for food stamps, childcare and Medicaid , while reducing funding over the past four years to cover those positions by $2.4 million.
"It is time for the state to cover the costs of these mandates or eliminate them, period.," Walker said.
*See the budget:
http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/070927WalkerBudget.pdf
*See Walker's budget address:
http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/070927WalkerSpeech.pdf
