Milwaukee County Budget Looking Worse Than State Budget

Just before the holiday weekend, without any sort of advance notice, Scott Walker revealed the preliminary recommendations for the 2010 county budget.

It includes some real doozies, like cutting more services for the elderly and the disabled:

Some $2.3 million in cuts in services to elderly and disabled people and others were proposed, including major trims in independent living supports, adult day care and job help. Support for emergency shelters would end, saving $460,000. County aid for children and adults who attend Wil-O-Way summer camp would be cut in half. Support for the 211 social services hotline would be reduced almost by half, to $192,000.

It also includes closing all the deep well swimming pools. Now one may wonder, “So what?” But think about it. A lot of people use those pools, especially when it gets extremely hot out. When they can’t get in, violence can erupt.

And forget using Lake Michigan to cool off. If you drive, you’ll have to feed the parking meters he wants to put up, and he wants to slash the transit system even more, so that you won’t be able to take the bus there either. (Add to the slashing of more routes, he also wants to add a 25 cent charge for a bus transfer. What a racket…make it so people have to transfer, then charge them extra for it.)

Walker also wants to do his annual proposal to privatize the parks and other county positions, even though it has never saved any money.

Add to all this a new version of a death tax with higher fees for death certificates, as well as many other fees.

Even as draconian and poorly thought out Walker’s budget is, he is claiming it is still over $40 million too much, and will probably only add to the misery.

To add insult to injury, Walker also throws his own staff under the bus (if there is still one running), and blaming them for following his directives:

He noted that the measures were put forward by the bureaucrats, not him. Nonetheless, he imposed tough budget guidelines for his department heads that left little room for cheer.

But this is the norm for Walker and the budget process. He makes absurd demands, presents a lousy budget, and leaves it to the County Board to fix all of his mistakes.

It is also worth noting that he still hasn’t done the any of the things that would help save tax payer dollars, like sitting down with the unions and do some good faith bargaining regarding the new contracts.