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Leave it to the Journal Sentinel’s Steve Schultze to find a victory for Scott Walker in the midst of a budget meltdown of Walker’s own making.
Once you stop chuckling at the JS’s front-page spin you’ll realize that the 2010 county budget is no laughing matter.
It’s based on wage and benefit concessions that had not been presented to the unions prior to the budget.
The problem with that is that it’s illegal. You cannot use the budget to negotiate wage and benefit concessions.
So that’s one problem.
Another is that the county is supposed to pass a balanced budget. That, obviously, did not happen. It wouldn’t be imploding just two months into the new year if it had been balanced.
I see that the JS is finally realizing that there are some legal problems with this budget.
They’re framing this blog post, of course, as a fight between Walker and the supervisors. Whatever. The supervisors aren’t completely blameless in this whole affair, since a majority of them rejected AFSCME’s tentative agreement last fall and failed to support tentative agreements with other unions, then agreed to the furloughs last week. Just a few were concerned about the impact of the budget on workers, but they were in the minority, obviously.
But Walker doesn’t care about the legality of the budget. He submitted a proposed budget with $32 million in concessions simply because he wanted to campaign on the issue of not raising taxes (an easily debunked claim) while blasting Tom Barrett as “Tom the Taxer.” (Barrett, by the way, managed to craft a budget built on a labor agreement substantially similar to the tentative agreement scuttled by the county.)
Another thing: Here’s the RFP from last August seeking privatized security services for the county.
Here’s details from Capper about why the budget is illegal.
Lastly, I’m posting excerpts of a communication from the county to represented workers about “frequently asked questions” about the extra furlough days. Note that the county admits that the wages and benefits concessions should have been a part of collective bargaining, not the budget process:
Once you stop chuckling at the JS’s front-page spin you’ll realize that the 2010 county budget is no laughing matter.
It’s based on wage and benefit concessions that had not been presented to the unions prior to the budget.
The problem with that is that it’s illegal. You cannot use the budget to negotiate wage and benefit concessions.
So that’s one problem.
Another is that the county is supposed to pass a balanced budget. That, obviously, did not happen. It wouldn’t be imploding just two months into the new year if it had been balanced.
I see that the JS is finally realizing that there are some legal problems with this budget.
They’re framing this blog post, of course, as a fight between Walker and the supervisors. Whatever. The supervisors aren’t completely blameless in this whole affair, since a majority of them rejected AFSCME’s tentative agreement last fall and failed to support tentative agreements with other unions, then agreed to the furloughs last week. Just a few were concerned about the impact of the budget on workers, but they were in the minority, obviously.
But Walker doesn’t care about the legality of the budget. He submitted a proposed budget with $32 million in concessions simply because he wanted to campaign on the issue of not raising taxes (an easily debunked claim) while blasting Tom Barrett as “Tom the Taxer.” (Barrett, by the way, managed to craft a budget built on a labor agreement substantially similar to the tentative agreement scuttled by the county.)
Another thing: Here’s the RFP from last August seeking privatized security services for the county.
Here’s details from Capper about why the budget is illegal.
Lastly, I’m posting excerpts of a communication from the county to represented workers about “frequently asked questions” about the extra furlough days. Note that the county admits that the wages and benefits concessions should have been a part of collective bargaining, not the budget process:
%u27A2 Shouldn’t these provisions be subject to collective bargaining?
Yes. They are subject to collective bargaining.
%u27A2 If the changes to wages and benefits are subject to collective bargaining how could they be included in the budget given the unions had not agreed to them?
The budget is a plan for the year. The budget always makes assumptions and predictions about what actual spending will be, what revenues will be, etc. In fact, the budgets have always made assumptions about what wage and benefit levels even though bargaining agreements have not been finalized. The difference this year is that those assumptions have been spelled out very clearly and the assumption is that there will be reductions, not increases.
To the extent that any budget assumption does not hold true, corrective actions must be taken during the year to bring the budget back in balance. For example, when we unexpectedly saw sales taxes drop last year and home foreclosures increase, the County had to implement corrective actions during the year to bring the budget back in balance.
The 2010 Budget recognized these changes had to be bargained and the budget included the following language on page 181: “Many of these modifications will require agreement with collective bargaining units for represented employees. To the extent that they are not achieved beginning January 1, 2010, the corrective actions that will be necessary to balance the 2010 budget may be severe.”
The 10 additional furlough days for represented staff are the first step in the corrective action plan that was anticipated when the budget passed. Corrective action steps are necessary to bring the budget back into balance.
