Photo by Virginia Small
Update: Milwaukee County supervisors have introduced amendments to the 2021 budget that restore funding to the parks budget. The amendments specifically address proposed closures of the domes in summer and of swimming pools. Those amendments are linked here. The board will vote on the final budget on Nov. 9, and then it must be signed by the county executive.
Almost 20 Milwaukee County pools will be closed during 2021, if County Executive David Crowley’s proposed budget is approved. Also, the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory, known as the Domes, would close during summer months. These amenities closed during 2020 in response to the pandemic and most never reopened.
The County Board’s Finance and Budget Committee is currently holding budget hearings. A final hearing will be conducted virtually at 4 p.m. Friday, October 30. Residents may access contact info for county supervisors here. Individuals wanting to speak at the October 30 hearing are encouraged to register in advance here. Public comment will be limited to two minutes per person.
At a hearing on October 16 several supervisors questioned why, during this pandemic, parks are getting big budgetary and service cuts when they are especially needed and well-used. “Parks are what the community wants” was a common sentiment. Nevertheless, parks funding is recommended to be reduced by $1.2 million, or about 3 percent. That’s a higher percentage than most other departments, on the heels of previous deep cuts. Several supervisors, including Ryan Clancy, Joe Czarnezki, Sylvia Ortiz-Velez and Shawn Rolland, raised specific concerns about inequities in the proposed budget.
Photo by Virginia Small
During the past decade, the parks department has been expected to generate—from various fees, concessions and beer gardens—most of its operating budget. Those revenues recently exceeded 60 percent annually, up from 50 percent in 2017. This regressive approach is out of step with other municipalities nationwide and prices many people out of enjoying activities in parks.
In 2017 former County Executive Chris Abele ordered park administrators to work toward funding all parks strictly from money collected from visitors, by 2024 if at all possible. Consequently, facilities that do not generate enough revenue to cover operating expenses increasingly are deemed budgetary “drains” by county officials, as judged in profit-and-loss terms. They are considered more expendable.
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Mitchell Park Domes to Close During the Summer
Milwaukee County Parks officials intend to close the Domes seasonally. According to the county executive’s budget summary, “the 2021 Recommended Budget proposes seasonal closures at both the Domes and the Boerner Botanical Gardens based on their non-peak seasons. The Domes will be open in the winter months and closed in summer months...”
Boerner Botanical Gardens, primarily an outdoor attraction, will continue being open in summer and closed in winter. Staff at the Domes and Boerner will “float between the two facilities based on the seasonal needs of each,” the budget summary said. The Domes have always operated year-round, except during renovations.
At the hearing, Sup. Ortiz-Velez called seasonally closing the Mitchell Park Domes, “simply unacceptable,” since it would thwart the attraction’s viability. She represents the district that includes Mitchell Park.
The Parks’ budget summary also said that county horticultural facilities are not meeting park officials’ expectations that they should “break even.” This often-repeated narrative departs from long-standing funding of parks as quality-of-life amenities to benefit everyone, not profit centers. Regarding the Domes, the budget summary said, “The revenue per guest was also not adequate to cover the expenditures of operating the facility. There is also no separate charge for admissions to special exhibits and events. Combined with the deteriorating nature of the facility, the Domes costs more to operate than it recovers in revenues, requiring a significant tax levy subsidy.”
The Milwaukee County Zoo also receives large subsidies to cover gaps between income and expenses. Nonetheless, it is not scheduled to be closed seasonally in 2021. Milwaukee County park facilities that generate what is deemed sufficient revenue are recommended to stay open. Facilities in some such parks, including ones with beer gardens, have gotten recent upgrades to facilities. Some amenities in parks are primarily, or solely, available to paying customers, including some beer gardens and concessions that aggressively prohibit use of taxpayer-funded picnic tables by “non-customers.”
Sup. Sheldon Wasserman, chair of the county board’s Parks Energy and Environment Committee told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently, “They’re not cutting anything that’s generating money. But if you’re not generating money, [if] your ticket sales aren’t really, really good, you are on the liability sheet and those things are being cut, or struck back, and that’s what’s happening.”
In other words, the parks-as-businesses model now reigns within what is widely called a “broken system.” Regarding the consequences of this approach, economics professor John T. Harvey wrote in a Forbes article in 2012, titled “Why Government Should Not Be Run Like a Business”: “To ask that the government be run like a business is tantamount to asking that the government turn a profit. The problem in a nutshell, is that not everything that is profitable is of social value and not everything of social value is profitable.”
Photo by Virginia Small
Fewer Opportunities for Water-based Recreation
One result of treating parks like businesses is that places that do not produce high revenues are viewed as less valuable. Half of Milwaukee County’s deep-well and wading pools are slated to be shuttered in 2021, as they were in 2020. Of the county’s eight deep-well outdoor pools, four are recommended for closure: Grobschmidt, Hales Corners, Jackson and McCarty. Only three deep-well pools managed by Milwaukee County Parks will be open: Sheridan, Washington and Wilson. The pool at Hoyt Park in Wauwatosa, owned by Milwaukee County and privately managed, will open.
The indoor pool at Noyes park on North Good Hope Road in Milwaukee would stay closed until fall 2021. The county’s only other indoor pool, at Pulaski-Cudahy Park, is scheduled to stay open.
Of the county’s 27 wading pools, those in the following parks are recommended for closure in 2021: Alcott, Algonquin, Indigenous Peoples (formerly Columbus), Greene, Lyons, McCarty, Rainbow, Saveland, Sheridan, Tippecanoe, Wahl, Walker Square, West Milwaukee.
These wading pools would be open: Cooper, Hales Corners, Humboldt, Jacobus, Kops, LaFollette, Lindsay, Mitchell, Pulaski-Cudahy, Sherman, Smith, Tiefenthaler, Washington and Wedgewood. Seven of the county’s eight splash pads are scheduled to reopen, “subject to change closer to the season next year as various factors including mechanical failures and staffing can require modifications.”
The county’s “water parks” will open: Cool Waters Aquatic Park at Greenfield Park in West Allis, Schulz Aquatic Center in Lincoln Park and Pelican Cove in Koszciusko Park on Milwaukee’s South Side. Parks officials said they used “a combination of population density, proximity and our racial equity index to determine” which sites with water-based recreation would open. Nonetheless, if the budget stands, pools will be far less available than other amenities.
Equity and Access Impacts
Parks administrators acknowledged in a “Racial Equity Budget Tool”—mandated as part of budgetary planning—that these facility closures have negative public-health ramifications: “The closure of wading pools and deep well pools has a negative racial equity implication by reducing access to water and heat relief across the county.” Additionally, the report said, “Various fee increases have the potential for negative racial equity implications as they may become a barrier for access to those amenities.” Milwaukee County’s 2019 budget noted the need to “continue to develop and implement a program to address racial and ethnic disparities in drowning fatalities in Milwaukee County,” with increased swimming education.
Sup. John Weishan, Jr. said at the hearing that these closure plans amounted to “managing for failure.” He said that closing pools for up to two years, resulting in even less revenue, could be used to justify permanently shuttering facilities. The long-time supervisor observed that this has been a pattern in previous decisions to shut down county-owned pools and other facilities. All but two of the deep-well pools in Milwaukee’s predominantly African American neighborhoods have already closed in recent years.
Photo by Virginia Small
County residents have one other option for water-based recreation—Lake Michigan. Among waterfront parks, Bradford Beach is the most popular. However, public access to a key amenity there could also decrease if plans move forward to privatize the rooftop of Bradford Beach’s pavilion.
Milwaukee County Parks officials are working with a current Chicago-based vendor that wants to make the rooftop venue for “finer dining” and drinks. It would exclusively cater to guests able to pay higher prices and to groups renting the space for private events. Milwaukee County Parks officials have not responded to repeated queries about whether the county would likely even net any more income than what is currently paid through the vendor’s five-year agreement to provide concessions at Bradford.
Modest Increases to Boat-launch Fees
Supervisors inquired about increasing boat launch fees at the county-owned McKinley Marina. Jeremy Lucas, director of administration and planning for the parks department, said fees would increase slightly next year, for the first time in more than a decade. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) sets guidelines for fees. Although most daily launch fees will be closer to DNR maximums, many of the annual fees proposed for McKinley remain low--between $20 and $108 below rates allowed by DNR. Supervisors suggested that boat owners likely could afford increased fees easier than residents hoping to enjoy visits to swimming pools with their families.
Equity Takes a Back Seat
Milwaukee County Parks officials said in their equity report that “racial equity and revenue generation by nature clash, but Parks’ budget structure, with a reliance on revenues and decreased reliance on tax levy, cast the structure in stone over a decade ago. With all-time-low staffing and service levels, a larger system footprint, and increased services, Parks is positioned to continue its focus on revenue generation, resulting in less capacity to support basic service needs.”
Consequently, deep inequities will remain normalized in Milwaukee County Parks. In fact, Milwaukee County’s long-entrenched two-tier system of parks—for haves and have-nots--could worsen during the pandemic and beyond. Milwaukee County’s newly stated goal of becoming “the healthiest county in Wisconsin” could be just wishful thinking without funding for health-enhancing facilities and activities to help accomplish that goal. Milwaukee County currently ranks 71st out of 72 counties in health outcomes, according to the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute’s 2020 County Health Rankings.
Sup. Weishan urged budgeting decisions that “manage for success.” Concerned citizens may express their opinions to their supervisors, including to speak during the final hearing on October 30, to be held virtually starting at 4 p.m. Supervisors will consider amendments to the county executive’s budget on Oct. 26, 27, 29, and Nov. 4, before adopting a final budget on Nov. 9. For example, the board could propose increasing the parks budget and decreasing other allocations.
