by | March 10, 2011 · 11:40 pm

The Bill Passes … What’s Next?

Update: Then there are these dire predictions from Supervisor Pat Jursik around transit cuts and other impacts of reduced state aid, cuts not necessarily lessened much by the budget repair bill.

Not surprisingly, the Assembly passed the collective bargaining bill on essentially partisan lines this afternoon, with South Milwaukee Rep. Mark Honadel voting in favor.

Now, what’s next for South Milwaukee?

In many ways, the answer to that question remains to be seen, and it won’t be known for some weeks and months.

Here is one thing I do know: Taking away collective bargaining rights from public employees will likely do little to lessen the immediate pain of the coming reduction in state shared revenue called for in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget. Even the financial pieces of the bill — like increased benefits contributions for public employees — will not help too much too soon.

This is in part because South Milwaukee has a contract already in place with AFSCME into 2012, one where we already have asked our employees to pay more for their health insurance. The exemption of police and fire employees from the collective bargaining mandates further limits their local impact. (We have similar contracts in place with those employees anyway).

Additionally, other considerations in the proposed budget bill — such as property tax levy limits, the removal of state funding for local recycling programs and reductions in local road funding — also promise to make the “tools” meant to help local governments balance their budgets less effective in communities like South Milwaukee, at least in the short term.

For school districts, it is much the same. The South Milwaukee School District, faced with revenue caps and reductions in state aid of its own, must still come up with more than $1 million in potential cuts even after passage of the collective bargaining legislation.

Will there be long-term savings because of this legislation? Probably, especially as employee costs make up the bulk of our city budget.

But until then, and even after, this is going to be a tough road, no matter where you stand on the issue. I promise to keep you posted as the landscape becomes clearer and we begin this important, albeit difficult, debate at City Hall.

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by | March 10, 2011 · 11:07 pm

Debating Debates: Stone, Abele and Wednesday’s South Shore Forum

I’m looking forward to Wednesday’s South Shore Economic Development Forum, and I give Milwaukee County Supervisor Pat Jursik for taking the lead in putting it together.

I am expecting an open, honest and robust discussion about some of the important issues facing the collective economies of South Milwaukee, St. Francis, Cudahy and Oak Creek. There are many … including many that we can, and should, tackle together.

One thing the forum won’t be, however, is a debate. So while the two candidates for Milwaukee County executive are scheduled to be there, state Rep. Jeff Stone and philanthropist Chris Abele will probably not interact much during the event.

Stone is raising Abele’s alleged unwillingness to debate as an issue in the campaign, even as the two candidates appear in 12 forums similar to next week’s before the April 5 election. Check out the Journal Sentinel story here. From it:

Stone called Abele’s rejection of debates a disservice to voters. The sessions Abele has accepted don’t allow an “opportunity for an exchange or a real, true debate of the ideas,” Stone said.

Abele spokesman Brandon Lorenz called Stone’s criticism “a desperate charge from someone who skipped out on two forums in the primary.” Stone did not attend the final two of four candidate forums held before the Feb. 15 primary, when it was a five-way race.

I hope this does not become an issue on Wednesday. There are plenty of other, more important, things we need to discuss.

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by | March 10, 2011 · 10:47 pm

Short-Term Fix: $7 Million in Hoan Bridge Work Underway

If you, as I do, drive the Hoan Bridge with any regularity, you know full well that the road is a mess.

The stretch as you leave the Lake Parkway heading north toward downtown is particularly bad and seemingly has been for years.

Thankfully, that will change over the next eight months, as $7 million in improvements ramp up on this vital connection between the South Shore and downtown.

Check out the Journal Sentinel story here.

Of course, this is only a temporary fix. I have expressed support in the past for at least considering options about the long-term term future of the Hoan, and I’m glad to see that a detailed engineering inspection seems to be nearing completion.

I think it’s only right that we have all the facts before deciding if spending potentially hundreds of millions of dollars on redecking is the best course. It mostly likely is, and I would support it if it is, but I want to be sure. This study will provide that certainty.

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by | March 10, 2011 · 10:33 am

It’s Time for Me to Dial Down the Rhetoric … And I Will

I’ve had complaints in the past week or so about the direction this blog has taken, that I’ve crossed the line and become too partisan in my posts around the state budget.

I hear you, and I agree. My blog has become something different than it was before mid-February. And that changes today.

I launched this blog to be a (somewhat) objective source of news and information on South Milwaukee and the South Shore, and it was that for its first 16 months or so. Then came Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill and the state budget proposal, and, like too many in this debate, I have let my passions get the better of me on a single issue.

I owe my readers more. I owe my constituents more.

So, going forward, expect to see a return to what you were accustomated to on this website — with more of a focus on local issues, local news and local information. In other words, I will refocus on providing the service to my readers that I set out to, and, in doing so, I will continue to keep the community dialog going … without overtly injecting myself into it.

Will I still post items about the budget and collective bargaining? Yes, but in a much more straightforward way that aims to present the information objectively and let readers react to that information.

That is why I started this blog in the first place, and why it’s grown to become a pretty high-trafficked website.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for understanding. Please know that I will learn from this and continue to stay focused on serving the people I represent … no matter what happens in Madison.

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by | March 9, 2011 · 10:25 pm

Majority Support for Union Busting? Where?

“The longer the Democrats keep up this childish stunt, the longer the majority can’t act on our agenda.”

So said State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald after Wednesday’s rush vote to essentially end collective bargaining for public workers.

I ask, what majority? He must be talking about the majority of the legislature … not the majority of the people they represent. After all, poll after poll has clearly shown there is little appetite, outside the walls of the Capitol, for curtailing collective bargaining rights for unions.

Of course, these Republicans have a so-called “agenda,” one built by mistaking election for mandate. And they’re pushing it, at their peril.

Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans say we should not be surprised by their move to end union rights. I argue strongly otherwise.

Never once during the campaign did Walker or any Republicans I know of even come close to threatening the future of unions. If they had, I guarantee the results in November would have been much, much different.

And it’s why the results will be much different in 2012. Their actions Wednesday assure that.

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by | March 9, 2011 · 8:36 pm

Runaway Train: Republicans Ram Through Anti-Union Bill

Well, at least we know what this was all about now.

In a possibly illegal vote that gives new meaning to the term “ramming through legislation,” a legislative conference committee and later the state Senate voted Wednesday night to essentially put an end to collective bargaining and, eventually, public unions.

Check out the Journal Sentinel story here.

Here is what South Milwaukee State Sen. Chris Larson had to say about the situation:

“This is a travesty is what it is,”Larson said about the vote. “I can’t sit by and let them kill the middle class.”

That’s what Republicans seem bent on doing. And they’ll pay for it at the ballot box — sooner (through recall elections) or later (2012 or 2014). That much I do know. This is not the will of the people.

I’ll post more on this soon, as this “travesty” — as Sen. Larson aptly put it — continues to unfold and the action shifts to the Assembly.

For now, I end with a message to South Milwaukee Rep. Mark Honadel: Here is your chance to do what’s right for middle-class workers, for teachers, snowplow drivers, clerical workers, custodians and public health nurses. For garbage collectors, administrative assistants, police officers, firefighters and prison guards. For your neighbors. For the people you sit next to at church, the people you see at the food store and the farmers’ market. For us.

Do what’s right.

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by | March 9, 2011 · 1:26 am

Public Hearing on Proposed School Budget Cuts Tonight

The public hearing on the preliminary South Milwaukee School District budget and staffing recommendations — and the district’s proposed $1.4 million in cuts for 2011-12 — is tonight at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center.

The hearing starts at 6:30 p.m.

The district has set some ground rules for the debate, which you can view in their entirety in this document. Among them:

  • The budget hearing will begin with an overview of the district’s financial position. It is anticipated that this will take approximately ten minutes.
  • Prior to the start of the meeting (and during the beginning of the meeting) members of the public will be asked to sign up to speak and to designate the topic they wish to speak regarding. Each person will be limited to two minutes.
  • Only South Milwaukee residents, South Milwaukee staff members, students attending South Milwaukee or parents of South Milwaukee students will be allowed to speak.
  • Budget topics will be addressed one at a time. Members of the public that signed up to speak regarding that topic will be called forward one at a time to speak.

I hope that the discussion is honest, reasonable and civil.

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by | March 6, 2011 · 6:40 pm

Couple Uplifting Stories of Local Interest

Update: Here is a Journal Sentinel story on Buddy, the heroic dog.

In these times, we need some good news, don’t we?

Here are a couple uplifting stories from the past couple of weeks involving South Milwaukeeans …

  • This one from WISN shares the story of a heroic dog who saved his South Milwaukee owner from freezing to death during the Blizzard of ’11.
  • And this one on Jerianne Hayslett’s South Milwaukee NOW blog is about an effort to help a 99-year-old man who had $1,500 stolen from him last month.

Unfortunately, there is some bad news. The South Milwaukee boys basketball team’s season came to an end on Saturday with a 56-53 loss to Milwaukee Pulaski.

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by | March 5, 2011 · 3:33 pm

Setting the Record Straight, and Sharing the Blame, on School Funding

A couple of readers have taken issue with a shot I took at Gov. Scott Walker in my earlier post on the proposed South Milwaukee School District budget cuts.

And they’re right. I was wrong to put this problem on Walker.

Indeed, there is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the state’s inadequate funding of schools, and the problem certainly pre-dates our current governor. It’s also not a Democrat or Republican issue. Both parties have failed us here. Scott Walker, Jim Doyle, Scott McCallum, Tommy Thompson and all the legislatures in between share in the responsibility.

Simply, there has been a shocking lack of political courage when it comes to education funding over the years, a lack of courage from leaders to stand up and say that full 2/3 funding of schools — without getting there through forced budget reductions — is a priority and should be not be compromised.

Until that happens, and until revenue caps on school districts are addressed, you will continue to see school districts across the state struggle to fund their education programs … and face major cuts annually.

It’s what has happened in South Milwaukee for years, and it will continue to happen until politicians decide they don’t want to keep pushing hard decisions around education down the road.

Some laugh when they hear people say “it’s about the kids.” Well, this is.

All you have to do is look at the proposed cuts in South Milwaukee for 2011-12, and you can see that there is really no fat being trimmed from this budget. These are cuts that will directly impact learning, both inside and outside the classroom.

The question becomes: When will someone in Madison do something about it? When is enough, truly, enough?

No, Scott Walker did not create this problem. He inherited it. Let’s hope he is the one who solves it.

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by | March 3, 2011 · 11:11 pm

$1.4 Million Short: South Milwaukee School District Proposes Deep Cuts

The city will have to make tough decisions on its budget soon. The South Milwaukee School District is already there.

The district — faced with a significant reduction in state aid contained in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed biennial budget — is recommending more than $1.4 million in cuts for the 2011-12 school year. And that assumes passage of Walker’s so-called “budget repair bill.”

Among the cuts, fee increases and other changes proposed at the School Board meeting Wednesday:

  • Closing the school pool, saving $150,000;
  • Eliminating 1.5 music positions at the middle and high school and one instrumental position, saving a combined $249,000;
  • Eliminating high business and technology education positions, saving a combined $218,000;
  • Eliminating an elementary school teacher ($72,500), custodian ($73,000) and high school attendance secretary ($34,000);
  • Reducing police liaison services, including elimination of the DARE program, saving $25,000;
  • Increasing by $5 annual student fees for all middle and high school students and increasing by $25 fees per sport for athletes;
  • Eliminating the high school debate club, photography club, among other extracurriculars; and
  • Closing most school buildings on Fridays during the summer.

The complete closure of the pool may not happen until the end of 2011, following a full study of the issue. Interim grant funding would cover pool costs until that study is complete. If and when it does close, it would also mean the elimination of the high school swim teams, all South Milwaukee Rec Department usage of the pool and usage by high school physical education classes. The custodian position to be eliminated is tied to the pool closure.

The music cuts would also mean the end of the orchestra program, but only after further study of the issue.

Driving the cuts and fee increases is an approximately $1.4 million “structural deficit” caused by a $1.86 million decrease in revenue (thank you: Scott Walker) combined with a nearly $450,000 reduction in district expenses, according to detailed information on the district’s recommended budget and cuts here. Looming retirements are actually minimizing the proposed cuts.

From the district budget document: It is anticipated that the district will have numerous retirements in the teacher and support staff groups. The administration has estimated  that the savings from salaries from an experienced staff member to a new staff member will result in a total savings of $340,000.

The proposed budget, and the cuts, will be discussed at at public hearing on Wednesday, March 9, at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center, with final decisions made on the cuts expected at the School Board’s March 23 meeting.

I’ll keep you posted on this, and please post your comments below.

If that meeting is anything like last year’s, it should not lack drama.

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by | March 3, 2011 · 12:23 am

Fresh Eyes: UWM Students Put Their Focus on Our Downtown

Now, more than ever, we need new ideas for our struggling downtown. I’m hoping a group of graduate students from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s respected School of Architecture and Urban Planning will help deliver some.

A study of downtown South Milwaukee is one of several projects that the Applied Planning Workshop is focusing on this semester, and I’m happy to have them bringing some fresh eyes and fresh perspectives to this issue.

Economic Development Director Danielle Devlin deserves credit for helping make this happen and coordinating with the group. I also joined Danielle in making an introductory presentation about South Milwaukee at a recent class, where we also had chance to meet the students on the project and see first-hand their genuine interest in delivering some creative thinking here.

Danielle is asking that the work of the students include:

  • Mapping analysis of current land uses, parking, vacant buildings, land values and zoning impacts;
  • A review of current zoning and development policies;
  • A design preference survey or other tool to gather input about desired uses and character;
  • Sign code updates;
  • Identification of redevelopment sites and potential strategies for marketing, programming, funding and phasing of projects; and
  • Recommended sustainable development and planning strategies.

For now, the students are still gathering information through interviews and other efforts, and they expect to make a presentation before city officials in May. I look forward to the results, and I hope their report is the start of what will be an ongoing discussion about a collective vision for our city center.

We need a plan for downtown South Milwaukee, something the community can rally around and then work on together to make a reality. We lack that now, and you can see the result: too many vacant storefronts, too little urgency and too much apathy.

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by | March 2, 2011 · 11:27 pm

Big Lakefront Development Plans for Oak Creek

The look of the lakefront in the South Shore could change drastically in coming years.

Wispark LLC is reportedly negotiating with Oak Creek to purchase 80 acres on South Fifth Avenue, not far from South Milwaukee’s southern border, for potentially mixed use development.

Click here to see the Journal Sentinel story. From it:

Development firm Wispark LLC is negotiating to buy 80 acres along Oak Creek’s lakefront, a property that would play a major role in that community’s effort to redevelop former industrial properties near Bender Park.

The property, at 9006 S. 5th Ave., was once home to the Peter Cooper Co. glue factory, and was later used by Oak Creek Storage and Handling Inc.

City officials have been working for years to redevelop the larger lakefront area, dubbed Lakeview Village.

Last year, the Common Council approved a tax incremental financing district that covers 335 acres, most of it undeveloped or underdeveloped, overlooking Lake Michigan near Bender Park, which is at the end of E. Ryan Road.

City planners have envisioned a mix of uses in the area, including housing and retail, along with public green space that provides access to Lake Michigan. The area would likely take 10 to 20 years to develop, according to a 2009 study conducted by the Urban Land Institute.

Of course, this is not the only major redevelopment project planned for Oak Creek in coming years. Wispark will also work to redevelop the former Delphi site at Howell and Drexel Avenues — a project that could become a “city center” of sorts for Oak Creek — and a business park proposed for Howell and Oakwood Road. Oak Creek Patch has more detail on all three projects.

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by | March 2, 2011 · 11:09 pm

News From the County: Updates from County Supervisor Jursik

Milwaukee County Supervisor Pat Jursik has published her March edition of E-news. Among the updates in this month’s edition of particular interest to 4th District residents:

  • The March 16 South Shore Economic Development Forum at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center;
  • An update College Avenue construction, including word that the stretch from Pennsylvania to Packard Avenues will close to through traffic from April to November; and
  • An update on the Hoan Bridge repair project.

Pat also provides a perspective on the ongoing budget debate in Madison. From it:

Is there some ability to compromise? Is it necessary to deal with the entire budget deficit in one year after the worst recession since the Great Depression? I hope all constituents will call on our state leaders to find a way to compromise.

Here here!

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by | March 2, 2011 · 10:13 am

Big Brother: Walker’s Argument for Meddling in Local Government

Here are the pertinent sections of Gov. Scott’s Walker’s budget brief that relate to local governments and his rationale for seizing more control over how local governments are run.

Property Tax Relief and Local Government

In challenging economic times, Wisconsin property taxpayers continue to have among the highest property tax burdens in the country. According to U.S. Census data, Wisconsin ranked ninth among the 50 states in property tax burden as a proportion of personal income in 2008 and has been in the top ten states most of the past three decades. In 2010, property taxes as a percentage of personal income rose to their highest level since 1996 as levy growth exceeded the growth in personal income.

Despite the significant budget challenges facing the state, the Governor recommends maintaining nearly $900 million in general fund support for direct property tax credits, including funding a $5 million annual increase in the first dollar credit enacted in the previous biennium. The Governor also recommends restraining the growth in property tax levies by extending county and municipal levy limits for the next two years and limiting the growth in levies to the greater of 0 percent or the change in equalized value due to net new construction. To further protect property taxpayers, the Governor recommends limiting the base allowable levy to the actual prior year levy. Additionally, if debt service would be lower in the budgeted year than in the prior year, counties and municipalities must pass those savings on to the taxpayers by reducing allowable levies accordingly.

In the context of local government aid reductions for schools, technical colleges, counties and municipalities, strong levy controls are important to avoid aid reductions from becoming tax increases for property owners and renters. Under current law, levies could be increased to offset the amount of the aid reductions, placing a significantly larger burden on property taxpayers.

Due to state budget constraints, current funding of county and municipal aid cannot be maintained. The Governor recommends reducing county and municipal aid payments by $96 million in calendar year 2012, with reductions to municipalities of $59.5 million and reductions to counties of $36.5 million. Recognizing that aid reductions may put a strain on local government budgets, the Governor, in his budget repair bill, has recommended providing the necessary flexibility to local governments to meet these reductions without a significant degradation of essential public services.

To provide assistance to local governments in meeting the constraints of diminished resources, county and municipal aid reductions would be allocated in a targeted manner so that low population and low value communities that will not be able to realize significant labor cost savings will see modest aid reductions. Due to larger full-time labor forces in more populous municipalities, measures to reduce labor cost pressures for those governments will yield greater savings, so those governments are generally better able to manage reductions in state aid. Low population, low value municipalities that rely heavily on county and municipal aid due to limited tax bases generally will see smaller savings from higher employee contributions to pensions and health insurance. To address these mismatches, the allocation of county and municipal aid reductions has been structured with aid reduction maximums based on valuation that rise with the population of municipalities to match the general tendency of compensation savings to be concentrated in larger municipalities. While individual municipalities will have varying abilities to meet these state aid adjustments, the allocation of aid reductions has been designed to align with the ability of local governments to absorb the reductions.

General transportation aids for counties and municipalities have been reduced by 10 percent for calendar year 2012 and will remain flat through calendar year 2013. The reductions in general transportation aids for municipalities are also targeted to lessen the impact for less populous communities. This was done by lowering the aid rate per mile of road by only 3 percent, protecting small communities with many miles of road and shifting reductions to larger communities with both the tax base and the employee compensation savings to absorb larger reduction amounts.

Other Local Government Initiatives

The Governor recommends providing additional tools to local governments to manage expenditures by:

  • Removing recycling mandates;
  • Allowing municipalities to merge police and fire departments to create greater operational efficiencies; and
  • Eliminating library maintenance of effort funding requirements.

I’m not sure what the last bullet point refers to, but I will find out. And it’s disappointing to hear that we’ll be receiving less transportation aid from the state under Walker’s budget plan — another way he’ll stick it to local taxpayers.

You can find this language, and even more flawed arguments in favor of less local control, on pages 50-53 of this document.

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by | March 2, 2011 · 12:46 am

Walker’s Budget: Of Course It’s Bad For South Milwaukee

South Milwaukeeans: Get ready to feel the pain from Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget.

While we’re still sorting through all of the potential impacts of Walker’s plan announced Tuesday, it’s very clear that the governor has decided to balance the state budget on the backs of local governments (in addition to the poor, middle-class teachers and other public employees, unions and countless other constituencies who dared not support him during his campaign).

Does this surprise anyone? It shouldn’t.

My biggest objection: The further erosion of local control through new and ridiculous mandates on local communities from a governor who somehow claims to be in favor of smaller government while at the same time loves telling local leaders what we must do to govern local residents.

Among my biggest complaints with his hypocritical plan:

  • Shared revenue cuts. As expected, Walker is using cuts in shared revenue to local governments as a key part of his plan to balance the state budget, and why not? Passing the buck like this is easy. The average cut is expected to be more than 12 percent … which for us could quickly punch a nearly $400,000 hole in our budget. And it could be more. Just what will that mean for services in the short and medium term? Stay tuned.
  • Levy limits. At the same time he slices state aid to local governments, Walker wants to limit how much communities can increase their tax levies to fund the services facing the cuts. His proposal: Allow local governments to only raise property tax levies equal to the amount of new construction. For South Milwaukee, where new construction is almost non-existent, that likely means we will not be able to raise taxes at all going forward. Now, I’m no fan of large tax increases, nor could I see supporting one, but I stand behind the approximately 2% percent increases we’ve delivered in our last two budgets – fair and reasonable increases that reflect the fact that costs to deliver our first-class city services go up every year. In Scott Walker’s world, apparently there is no such thing as inflation.
  • Recycling. This is perhaps the most hypocritical part of Walker’s plan. He is proposing that the state no longer help local governments pay for their recycling programs – while removing the mandate that communities offer these programs at all. The state now provides South Milwaukee more than $120,000 for this purpose. Without it, we will likely have to pass on the full cost of our recycling efforts to residents, resulting in higher fees for this service. The alternative? Get out of recycling altogether, which simply can’t be an option if you at all care about the planet. Plus, we recently signed a long-term deal with Veolia to run the South Milwaukee recycling program, so that can’t happen anyway. When you see this increase on your bill, I ask you to remember that it is brought to you by a Republican governor who campaigned against higher taxes and fees.

Couple all of that with Walker’s “budget repair bill” — his attempt at killing public unions and providing so-called “tools” that likely won’t come close to closing the shortfall he would create with the three items mentioned above — and you have a terrible piece of legislation that will deliver nothing but pain to local residents.

And it will be painful. Count on it. South Milwaukeeans will see real impacts from Walker’s budget through cuts in services, and there is simply no way around it. Our budget is so tight already – our staffing so lean – that it is inevitable. I wish it weren’t, but it is.

Yet, it could be worse. I can’t even begin to get into the potential impacts of Walker’s budget proposal on local schools. That’s another post for another day.

But rest assured that our kids will feel the pain even worse than we will at City Hall thanks to Scott Walker’s “reform budget.” As the parent of a Rawson Elementary kindergartner and husband of an ESL teacher for the Whitnall School District, that scares the heck out of me.

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