Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele is trying to portray himself as the outsider who’s gotten rid of the insiders in county government. As we’ve explained in a previous Setting the Record Straight feature, contrary to Abele’s campaign messaging, with his family money and his Republican friends in the Legislature, this East Coast billionaire’s son is the ultimate insider in Milwaukee County government.
Abele has achieved this dubious distinction through a series of power grabs that have been enabled by conservative suburban Republican legislators fast-tracking Abele’s proposals through the legislative process with little to no public input. As a result, Abele has consolidated power in his executive suite; curbed the checks and balances provided by the democratically elected Board of Supervisors; oversees the all-appointee Mental Health Board, which shuts out the public; has near-unilateral power over the sale of the county’s non-park land, including the zoo, the airport and the Milwaukee Public Museum; and has his own taxpayer-funded private school district that is totally unaccountable to the voters and taxpayers.
But Abele isn’t quite finished consolidating his near total control of Milwaukee County government. You see serious power grabs like Abele’s efforts in corrupt Third World countries or the corrupt former Soviet Republics, which are now independent states, but to see it done in the United States requires a tremendous amount of money to buy off people and no respect for democratic values. History has continuously shown that major power grabs invariably lead to some serious corruption. Unfortunately, we are already beginning to see this corruption in Milwaukee County with things like no-bid contracts and the arrest of county taxpayers when they try to speak at public meetings.
A bill circulating in the Legislature apparently authored by state Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield), who’s taken campaign cash from Abele, would give the Milwaukee County executive even more power over the county budget. Basically, if this bill is introduced and passes, the Milwaukee County executive would be able to do pretty much whatever he or she likes with the budget long after it’s passed. The county executive could transfer funds within a department without county board approval and could move money to different departments if he or she gets the board’s OK, according to Board Chair Theo Lipscomb. The trigger for these new powers would be any variance between the budgeted revenues and expenditures and actual revenues and expenditures, which happens every year.
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Kooyenga’s proposal would also change the county’s budget cycle, from one year to two years, as well as give the county board less time to work through the executive’s proposed budget during public hearings but provide the county executive with more time to mull over vetoes in private. Lipscomb told the Shepherd that the shift from an annual budget to a two-year budget would cause havoc at the county and each two-year budget would be really shaky because there are so many unknown variables, especially in the second year of each budget.
Abele is facing re-election in April and trying to present himself as a man of the people who’s gotten rid of the insiders. But Abele, with the help of Republican legislators who don’t even live in Milwaukee County, has spent the past five years working to make himself the ultimate insider.
