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Walker’s Crew Plays Fast & Loose with Milwaukee County’s Cash
The Underbelly of the Milwaukee Parks Fiscal Deficit Story
by Robert Miranda
January 23, 2006
In a recent article published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, reporter Dave Umhoefer, who covers Milwaukee County government for MJS, revealed last week that
Milwaukee County's Parks Department is $2.3 million dollars in the hole. While the story labeled the deficit as “deep”, it implied that this was not really a big deficit when you look at the overall
“The combined parks-facilities-landscape division had a budget of $74 million in 2005, supported by $33.5 million in property tax levy,” Umhoefer wrote. “The projected deficit, while just 3% of total expenditures, comes too late for county officials to do much about…”
The story pointed the finger of blame for the deficit on the County Board’s action to disaggregate County Executive Scott Walker’s merger of the Milwaukee County Parks and Public Works departments. (In 2004 Walker combined the departments, calling the new bureau the Department of Parks and Public Infrastructure <DPPI>. In early 2005, Supervisors moved to separate the departments because of serious questions regarding management.)
Allowing Walker to deflect blame has become typical of how the Journal Sentinel has treated his administration. Ever since the county executive (and candidate for governor of Wisconsin) was swept into office on the heels of the pension rigging scandal that forced County Executive Tom Ament out of office, Walker has run the county free of scrutiny and criticism by GOP propagandists Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Now that Parks Director Sue Black is accepting responsibility for the Parks deficit; it appears that Walker will again be able to deflect blame —unless the public takes action and holds Walker accountable.
The parks fiasco is just the latest incidence of Walker’s department heads running up deficits and concealing them from the County Board for as long as possible before having to divulge the problem. Now that Walker has nominated the past treasurer of the group, Citizens For Responsible Government (CRG), for a seat on the County’s Ethics Board (CEB), will CRG and CEB look at this matter and hold Walker accountable for the fumbling of taxpayer funds by his administration?
The real story here is that this is not an isolated incident. The County Board has taken a beating at the hands of both Walker, especially in his annual budget messages, and the local media. While the previous County Executive was held accountable for the pension enhancement scheme, each time Walker or his department heads screw up, most fingers are pointed at the County Board.
The pension scandal became a storybook gold mine for the Journal Sentinel, even after Bruce Murphy, then the editor of MilwaukeeWorld.com and now editor of Milwaukee Magazine, beat them to it. This time, however, the huge story of scandalous financial behavior inside Milwaukee County has been piecemealed by the local media.
With the Friday the 13th revelation of a multimillion-dollar deficit in the parks department, its time the public knew the whole story behind the story.
Almost from the time he took over, Walker brought with him a style of executive level leadership that mirrored that of former Governor Tommy Thompson in the worst way. As Tommy headed off to a cabinet post in the Bush Administration, amidst praise, accolades, and a rock-star like profile comparable to that of Brett Favre, Wisconsin woke up to the news that Thompson had left our state with a $3.4 billion dollar deficit. Sure, there were rumors of a $500-$700 million deficit as Scott McCallum tried to replace Thompson as governor. However, it was not until it was certain that Doyle would get the job that the rumored deficit proved to be even more than suspected—six times larger.
No one was ever willing to call his highness, Tommy Thompson, onto the carpet for the creative bookkeeping that kept Wisconsinites in the dark about such a massive financial hole, and coming in as the newly anointed media darling of southeastern Wisconsin politics, Walker followed the Thompson model. He brought in administrators experienced in the Thompson method, and implemented the “Go ahead and run up deficits, but keep them concealed until I give the signal” system. Supervisors have complained about this disastrous practice but those complaints have fallen on deaf ears throughout Walker’s tenure.
Sources point out an incident that took place nearly three years ago, when the County Board recessed for its annual August legislative break. They returned to find that Walker had cut dozens of jobs, and laid off dozens more workers without consulting the County Board. His excuse was that he was informed of deficits facing parks and facilities. He told supervisors that he would have consulted the County Board, but since they were not in session, he had to act immediately, and on his own.
Walker then brazenly asked for the authority to rewrite the budgets of any department whose director anticipated a deficit. Clearly, this was a move to control the budget in order to prevent bad news from being leaked to the public. This power-move would have made Walker a financial dictator and rendered the County Board’s role in the annual budget process irrelevant. Supervisors not only balked at the idea of giving Walker this fiscal power, they also imposed a cap on the number of employees Walker could dismiss without coming through the established County Board committee processes.
Another charming story comes on a matter that took place almost two years ago. On the very day that the County Board members were sworn in for the 2004 to 2008 term, and after Walker was safely elected to his first full term as County Executive, Walker’s officials revealed that a major deficit and financial crisis was looming in the Department of Human Services.
First described as a possible $1 million dollar deficit, the total seemed to grow with each passing week until finally, it topped out at just over $10 million dollars. Supervisors and members of the public were shocked at the news. The initial trauma soon gave way to outrage by members of the County Board when evidence came forth showing that Walker and his officials had known about the deficit for several months, and had given a false picture of good financial health at a Human Needs Committee meeting just two months earlier.
Realizing that the directors of both the Department of Administrative Services, and the Department of Aging had been pressured by Walker’s office to conceal these problems from the County Board and the general public, county supervisors issued a warning to department heads that the County Board would consider revoking the confirmations, and thus terminating the employment of any department head who knowingly and willfully withheld knowledge of or deceived the County Board about major fiscal deficits. It appears that the troubled Family Care program in the Department of Aging may also have started the New Year with a near two million dollar deficit. This matter is one that still needs to be
reviewed. (post-publication link
addressing family care deficit.)
THE FIGHT TO DE-MERGE WALKER’S DPPI MESS
About a year ago, County Supervisor and Transportation Committee Chairman James White drafted legislation designed to separate the Department of Parks and Public Infrastructure—in effect he called for the disaggregating the Walker merger. Several attempts were made by supervisors to block his de-merger legislation – but White had called for an audit of the DPPI merger earlier in the year, and the County Board decided to wait for the audit results before acting on White’s proposal.
As March, April, and May of 2005 came and went, White began pressuring the audit department to get started on the report. Finally, in July the audit was released. The audit confirmed White’s assertions and concerns. However, no action to move forward with disaggregating Walker’s merger was taken by the County Board.
Supervisor White asserts that DPPI was suffering from a lack of management support and that Walker failed to make good on his obligation to fill the top three management spots needed to run the newly-merged DPPI effectively. White says that by filling only one of the three management positions for nearly a year after the merger, Walker let the DPPI slip into dysfunction and disarray. White points out that Walker argued that the merger would result in increased efficiencies and savings -- a statement we now know to be untrue.
The July audit revealed that the only visible savings within the merged department were due to Walker’s failure, or refusal, to fill the newly created management positions at DPPI. These new positions needed to be filled in order to replace many of the managers and technical professionals who had retired, resigned, or were let go. According to the audit report, Walkers failure to fill all three top-management positions meant that the merger happened “in name only.”
The County Board adopted the de-merger in late October 2005.
In September of 2005, Supervisor White, acting on information contained in the July audit, attempted to put forth a resolution calling for nearly $300,000.00 to be transferred from the County’s Parks Facilities’ account to the General Facilities’ account. Sources at the county pointed out that the audit showed that the Department of Parks violated county financial protocols and spent money meant to maintain non-parks buildings located off of parks grounds such as the courthouse. Permission to do that required the County Board Finance & Audit Committee’s approval of a fund transfer request. The County Board was again bypassed by the Walker Administration, and if it had not been for the audit, the matter would not have been detected and the cover-up would have continued.
There’s nothing that indicates that Walker responded to the audit’s troubling findings, or that he initiated a corrective action plan. Supervisor White tried to get corrective action through the budget process, and tried to get it done administratively; however, his efforts met with resistance. Just last week, White demanded that research staffers draft legislation calling for corrective action and restoration of the funds. After fighting since September for accountability and corrective action on $300,000.00 of the misspent funds, Supervisor White was shocked to hear the news that the Department of Parks had actually misspent up to $2.3 million. News of the Department of Parks $2.3 million dollar deficit sent shock waves throughout the County Board last week, Friday.
GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF THINGS
Insiders at the county say that the Journal Sentinel story was misleading. They point out that the story combined the budgets of the Parks, General Facilities, and Architecture and Engineering to come up with the $74 million figure. In fact, the Walker merger created one big department with two different divisions, a Parks Division, and a Transportation Division. The superintendents of each division had oversight of all of the sections within their divisions, but each section had their own managers.
Budget authorization for each section is determined through the County Board Finance & Audit Committee during the annual fall budget hearing process. Adoption of the budget restricts spending to the approved items within that section’s budget. The county executive, department heads, division heads and section directors have no authority to authorize expenditures for anything outside of the adopted section’s budget unless a fund transfer request is approved. In this case both the Parks Committee, and the Transportation & Public Works Committee would have to give their approvals before the Finance & Audit Committee approved the spending. Once the committee process was complete, a majority vote of the County Board would have to be obtained before funds could be spent.
County officials say that the Parks’ Superintendent, the highest ranking manager in DPPI, who answers directly to Walker, apparently violated protocols. She bypassed the fund transfer process, circumvented the Finance & Audit process, and authorized inappropriate spending from both the general facilities and A&E sections for the parks’ section needs.
With the $2.3 million dollar deficit looming large in the public debate, it is clear that the DPPI’s only administrator, its head administrator, may have authorized additional spending on the parks’ section needs, well beyond the spending restrictions set forth in the adopted budgets of both 2004 and 2005. The Walker administration (if the July audit is to be believed) may have knowingly and willfully concealed inappropriate spending in DPPI from the County Board, and the general public for over a year, say sources at the county.
When asked about this Supervisor White stated: “If Walker had put a strong team in place, the Parks’ Superintendent would have had to be accountable, and the runaway deficit spending would probably not have occurred. It took seven months to get an audit, and nearly a year to undo the merger, and instead of fixing a $300,000.00 problem that we learned about in July of 2005, we learn in January of 2006 that it’s really a $2.3 million dollar problem… no matter how you slice it, what the Walker Administration is doing is not responsible government.”
Walker promised taxpayers that Milwaukee County’s financial accountability processes and procedures would be reformed. “Instead, it appears that Team Walker has beaten, battered, and bruised those processes and procedures to within an inch of their institutional lives,” White said. “The County’s financial accountability processes and procedures are not reformed, they are deformed.”
Robert Miranda is a national award-winning columnist, Latino community activist and columnist for the Milwaukee Spanish Journal. rmiranda@wi.rr.com. This article originally ran at
http://wisopinion.com
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