In a departure from his predecessors’ examples, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele has not appeared before the Milwaukee County Board’s Finance, Personnel and Audit Committee to answer their detailed questions about his proposed budget for 2016.
Supervisors have formally invited him four times, none of which elicited Abele’s appearance. Their next invitation is for Wednesday, Oct. 28.
They’ve pointed out that then-county executives Tom Ament and Scott Walker explained the nuts and bolts of their proposed budgets before county supervisors and took questions about their proposals.
Yet Abele has only made one appearance before the board—on Oct. 1, to formally introduce his budget as the law requires. After his presentation, Abele took a few questions from supervisors as well. In response to Supervisor Khalif Rainey’s question about what the county executive’s budget does for African American Milwaukeeans, Abele mentioned increased programming at the House of Correction, a fatherhood initiative and funding for mental health and social services. Abele’s response was denounced immediately as being out of touch, insulting and “worthy of talk radio.”
The day prior, Abele offered an invited audience a preview of his county budget in the building that houses his business incubator, with former Democratic Party of Wisconsin chief turned campaign consultant Mike Tate mingling with Abele’s staffers. Abele took no questions from his hand-picked audience.
Since then, Abele has gone underground. He’s sent his top aides to explain and defend his budget before the Finance, Personnel and Audit Committee, just as he sent his top aides this summer to pitch supervisors and the public on the Bucks arena funding plan, which puts Milwaukee County residents on the hook for $4 million annually for the next 20 years.
Abele’s aides told the supervisors the county executive will meet with the 17 supervisors individually in private and that they also will relay the committee’s questions to the most knowledgeable staffer for a response.
“We want to be able to have an honest dialogue with you,” Raisa Koltun, Abele’s chief of staff, told the supervisors last Wednesday. “This forum, where the county executive is restricted to when he can speak and what he can speak about, is not a forum that allows for that kind of dialogue.”
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Law Requires Abele to Appear if Asked
Along with the invitations, county supervisors say that state statutes mandate Abele’s appearance if they request it. Under state law “a [county] board may require, as necessary, the attendance of any county employee or officer at a board meeting to provide information and answer questions.”
But Abele’s Director of Administrative Services Teig Whaley-Smith argued last week that “necessary” needed further clarification.
“What is the necessity of him showing up at this particular time when it’s likely that other people have the necessary answers to your questions?,” Whaley-Smith said in Wednesday’s meeting.
Supervisors scoffed at that assertion. Since Abele is the top elected official in Milwaukee County and the budget bears his stamp, then he should defend it in a public venue for voters, they argued.
“We want information so that we can act on the budget,” said Supervisor Willie Johnson Jr., co-chair of the finance committee.
County Corporation Counsel Paul Bargren told the board that there was no enforcement mechanism in the law but that they could hire an attorney and attempt to sue Abele to compel him to appear. Board Chair Theo Lipscomb told the Shepherd that route didn’t seem to be feasible, given the budget’s time constraints.
Other supervisors floated the idea of simply not signing Abele’s budget, but Bargren said that course of action would prevent the county from levying property taxes next year.
Questions about Budget Holes
In their budget hearings, supervisors are united in saying that they need to hear from Abele in a public forum.
His proposed budget raises a number of questions supervisors want answered. For example, Abele is using reserve funds to pay for a $20 million hole in the pension fund as a result of the county's outside actuaries' mistake in calculating pension contributions. [Editor's note: See below.] He’s also using reserve funds to pay for the $4 million the state is withholding in shared revenue to pay for the Bucks arena Downtown.
Abele also is blowing a $9.8 million hole in the sheriff’s budget, and he is forcing Sheriff David Clarke Jr. to figure out how to deal with it on his own.
Abele is also touting a 2.5% raise for county employees next year, which he said in his private, invite-only budget briefing at the Pritzlaff Building was “one of the biggest post-Act 10 raises in the state.”
Yet Abele’s boast about the raise crumbles upon inspection. In July, county supervisors approved a 1.5% cost of living adjustment for county employees; Abele vetoed it, but the board overrode it 14-4. When he didn’t implement the raises, Corporation Counsel Bargren determined that state law requires Abele to carry out the board’s policies as part of his duties as county executive.
Abele is now taking credit for the 1.5% increase he’d vetoed.
Abele’s additional 1% raise will be implemented mid-year 2016, so it could be considered a 0.5% raise for the year.
Suit Over Abele’s Top Aides’ Pay
Although supervisors seem to be cool on going to court to compel Abele to appear before them, Chairman Lipscomb filed a lawsuit last week against Abele over his top aides’ pay. In the suit, Lipscomb argues that the county board has the power to set employees’ compensation, which the county executive must implement. In the 2014 budget, the board adjusted the pay ranges of the county executive’s top aides so that they’d be in line with their peers in state and municipal government. Yet Lipscomb charges that Abele’s director of human resources, under Abele’s direction, “and without first obtaining the board’s authorization and approval, has unilaterally implemented a new compensation model” in conflict with the board’s policies.
The suit claims that Abele has ignored the board’s compensation policies to give pay raises to top staffers. For example, according to the suit, Health and Human Services Director Héctor Colón is paid $177,625, even though he’s in a pay grade that tops out at $122,422. Marian Ninneman, director of Retirement Plan Services, reportedly makes $103,530 although her pay grade only goes up to $92,542.
Abele’s office didn’t respond to the Shepherd’s request to comment for this article.
Editor's note: The original version of this article incorrectly stated that the county's auditors made a $20 million mistake in the pension contribution. The source of the pension error was the county's outside actuaries.
