Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett issued the following statement as his response to this report about the impact of the new state budget:
“Together, state and local governments and, state and local government employees, must be partners in solving the fiscal challenges confronting Wisconsin.
“However, Governor Walker’s budget proposals lack an important element: fairness.
“Members of the Milwaukee Police Association and the Milwaukee Professional Firefighters unions, two groups who endorsed his bid for governor, are inexplicably excluded from all elements of the budget bills. In Milwaukee, about two thirds of the cost of employee salaries and benefits go to police and firefighters. So, police officers are pitted against public health nurses, firefighters against librarians. The fair solution brings everyone into the process and shares the budget-cutting pain equitably.
“The governor claims he provided local governments the ‘tools’ to meet his local aid cuts.
“That’s simply not the case. As is stands today, Milwaukee can make up just a fraction of the $16.6 million in cuts to three of the city’s state aid programs. And, with an inflexible, state-imposed zero levy limit, the governor and legislature have taken away the flexibility and authority of locally elected officials to maintain 2011 service levels in our 2012 budget for police, fire, libraries, health and public works departments.
“We will be able to capture approximately $6 million in general city employee health care savings. If the governor had included all police and fire employees, another $4.6 million in employee health insurance savings could be realized. Due to the legal issue raised by the city attorney and, not yet addressed by the governor or the State Attorney General, the City of Milwaukee is not able to implement the changes to the employee pension contribution.
“Wisconsin has a long state-local partnership tradition. Under that tradition, local governments – the government closest to the people – are encouraged to make the best decisions for their constituents. State government shares and equalizes resources and limits its engagement in local affairs.
“In his budget proposals, that tradition is usurped by the governor. It’s time all of us, collectively, to challenge the state legislature to reverse the governor’s course and strengthen Wisconsin’s state-local partnership.”
