But areRepublican candidate Scott Walker and Democratic candidate Tom Barrett tellingthe truth about their records?
Walker’sProperty Taxes Increased 20% Since 2003
Let’s take alook at Scott Walker’s record as Milwaukee County executive. He’sfamously proclaimed that he’s never proposed a budget that included a propertytax increase.
Is thattrue? And if so, how does he manage it?
The truth isthat Walker hasproposed budgets with property tax increases. In fact, if you check out Walker’s proposed budgets on the MilwaukeeCounty website, property taxes havegone up 19.9% since Walkerproposed his first budget in 2003. Back when Walker took office, his property tax levy was$218,708,524. But Walker’sproposed budget for 2011 has a recommended property tax levy of $262,264,740,or a $43 million increase in property taxes over the years.
So how didthat happen?
Well, eachyear, Walkerproposes budgets with a property tax levy that matches the previous year’sproperty tax levy. But Walker’s budgets areunworkable, so the County Board adds in more moneyto fund necessary programs. Walker vetoes thoseadditions, and then there are enough responsible supervisors to be able tooverride at least some of Walker’svetoes. Thus, the tax levy gets raised.
Then in Walker’s next proposedbudget, he uses the “enhanced” adopted budget from the previous year as hisbase budgetnot the 2003 level from which he started. The charade starts allover again: Walker proposes an unworkablebudget, supervisors add in necessary spending, Walker vetoes those additions, supervisorsoverride his vetoes and higher property taxes are the result.
So propertytaxes have increased $43 million since Walkerhas taken office. But for political reasons, Walker forces the supervisors to do the adultthing and craft a realistic budget with added funding.
But there’sa catch: The situation got so bad last year that Walker’s proposed budget for 2010 included$32 million in employee wage and benefits concessions that had never beenproposed to the unions and never discussed in any contract negotiations. Infact, over the course of 18 months, Walker’s labor negotiator had come up witha vastly different tentative agreement with the county’s largest unions, butWalker’s proposed budget ignored all of that and the agreement went down inflames. The 2010 budget situation is still unresolved, so Walker has orderedsome employees to take 26 unpaid furlough days this yearabout a 10% pay cut.Even that isn’t doing the trick, however, since the county will run about $7million in debt this year.
In Walker’s proposed 2011budget, the amount of the non-negotiated concessions for employees and retireesis $19 million. Overall, his proposed budget has a $30 million hole built intoit from “phantom” savings that probably won’t materialize in the real world.And a Greater Milwaukee Committee analysis found that Walker’s leadership has been so disastrousthat the county may consider filing for bankruptcy.
So whileyou’ll hear Walker crow on the campaign trail about how he’s decreasing thecounty’s tax levy by $1 million this year, remember that he’s more interestedin running for higher office than crafting a realistic budget.
Barrett’sProperty Taxes Increased 24% Since 2004
So how doesTom Barrett fare with his city of Milwaukeebudget?
The city’sadopted budget in 2004, Barrett’s first year as mayor, had a property tax levyof $199,012,386. His proposed 2011 budget had a property tax levy of$246,752,411. So taxes went up $47,740,025 during Barrett’s tenure, or about23.9%.
Remember: Walker’s property taxeswent up 20%, so the two candidates are responsible for very similar propertytax increases. It’s just that Barrett takes the “no drama” approach, while Walker views the countybudget as a political document to further his ambitions.
The otherpoint to note about Barrett’s 2010 budget is that he honored essentially thesame union agreement that Walker ignored when Walker crafted his fantasy-filledbudget for 2010and for 2011, for that matter. So while taxes did increase, thecity had honored its agreement with its workers and managed to find efficiencieselsewhere to make the budget work.
In addition,no multimillion-dollar budget hole is looming over the city as it’s loomingover the county. The city isn’t in a budget crisis, but the county certainlyis.
StateSpending Promises
So much forthe past. What do Walkerand Barrett pledge to do in the future?
Walker has proposed about $4 billion of tax cuts,the vast majority of which favor big corporations and wealthy residents. Forexample, Walker wants to cut taxes on the top 1% of earners, which would reducestate revenues by $287 million over the two-year budget cycle; reopen the LasVegas loophole, which would allow multi-state corporations to avoid paying $187million in taxes during the biennium; cut capital gains taxes by $243 million;and end taxes on retirement income, regardless of income level, which wouldreduce the state’s coffers by a whopping $920 million over the course of twoyears.
And whatprograms would Walkercut to allow the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share in taxes? Walker has already saidhe’d cut the wildly popular BadgerCare, which provides health insurance tolow-wage workers who can’t afford their employers’ insurance, or whoseemployers don’t offer insurance. (Who are these employers? Wal-Mart, McDonald’sfranchisees and Aurora Health Care have the most employees on BadgerCare.)
Walker has also targeted state employees’ wages andbenefits for cuts, a tactic he’s used repeatedly while at the county.
Barrett, onthe other hand, has offered up a detailed plan to “put the state budget on adiet” by cutting $1.1 billion a year in state spending. Some of those ideasinclude pooling local employees together with state employees so they canbargain for better health insurance rates (an idea so good that Walker hasswiped it and is promoting it as his own); eliminating the offices of secretaryof state and state treasurer; technology upgrades; greater Medicaid frauddetection; and reducing the state workforce, primarily targeting middlemanagers.
