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The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

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Senate disputes Milwaukee County Board bill overhaul

State lawmakers, Milwaukee County Board supervisors and concerned county residents continued a heated debate on a bill designed to restructure the board at a public Senate committee hearing Wednesday.

During the hearing of the Senate’s Committee on Elections and Urban Affairs, disputes on the Milwaukee County Board’s budget, oversight, supervisor salaries and clarification of legislative and administrative roles resurfaced. Arguments turned personal when Milwaukee County Supervisor Deanna Alexander, District 18, brought up the board’s recently uncovered prohibited labor union negotiations, while Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, criticized Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele’s inability to get along with board members.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, cuts board funding by two-thirds, reallocates board authority to the county executive and potentially halves the salary of supervisors. 

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Neither Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, and Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, nor board supervisors could agree on whether to support a contentious Assembly bill’s Senate equivalent.

The overhaul proposal endorsed nearly unanimously by Milwaukee Board supervisors cuts the body’s budget and staff in half while allowing Milwaukee residents the option to restrict the salaries of supervisors by 20 percent in a referendum vote next April. Additionally, the board’s overhaul would require mandatory trainings every two years on the responsibilities of county governance.

Milwaukee County Board Chair Marina Dimitrijevic said the board’s overhaul passed at the committee level Monday and said the whole board will pass it Thursday.

Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, R-West Allis, said he remains hesitant about the board’s desired changes to the bill he and Darling are co-sponsoring.

“We have to question the sincerity of an effort that is put out in the 11th hour when all other hope is lost in derailing and putting this bill to death,” Sanfelippo said. “Not only the sincerity, but we have to check the credibility. Will the board actually make the reforms it has put forward”?

Sanfelippo said it is difficult to trust the Milwaukee County Board after the media has uncovered its secret negotiations with the Council 48 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a decertified union. He added the board has lied to Assembly members, the Senate president and Milwaukee citizens.

Dimitrijevic said the board’s alternative to Sanfelippo and Darling’s bill comes at the request of local Milwaukee residents, while state-level impositions could be “problematic.”

“The problem with state legislation trying to enforce reform is that it has not necessarily created clarity,” Dimitrijevic said, noting it is inaccurate to call the board’s proposal a last-minute initiative. “It has created concerns in the community and more confusion about the future. Locally, we have had local meetings across Milwaukee County and we have listened to residents, community business owners and the state Legislature.”

Supervisor Theodore Lipscomb Sr., District 1, said the proposed legislation would empower Abele in ways not even Gov. Scott Walker is empowered. He said he agrees local reform to the board clearly contrasts with the state-enforced changes.

Alexander is one of two board supervisors who have publicly supported the Legislature’s proposed reform bills. She said the bill restores power that should rightfully belong to the county executive, while the board’s plan is deliberately vague solely to “pacify” the public.

“The board has done some great things, but just as a batch of brownies stirred with a spoon dipped in crap doesn’t taste so good anymore, I hope you are all wise enough to taste what you’ve been fed today,” Alexander said of the board’s overhaul.

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