Yesterday 76 more people in Milwaukee County had to sit down at the kitchen table and tell their family something I can’t even begin to imagine: they’d been fired.
The Journal Sentinel has the breakdown, including a quote from the administration (though not the CE himself, he was apparently at a campaign rally in Racine yesterday when the news hit):
Those being laid off are 27 security guards at five major county buildings, 25 parks maintenance workers, nine Mitchell International Airport employees, five highway maintenance workers and 10 other Department of Transportation and Public Works staffers. They were given two weeks’ notice. – jsonline.com
My best goes out to all of them. I know a few who were maintenance workers for the parks and loved doing their jobs.
After this round of layoffs there will be no more “Parks Maintenance Worker I” positions anymore. There used to be 45 or so of these positions just a few years ago. Heading into spring, the impact on our parks will be immediate and noticeable. These are the people who, among other things, empty garbage cans, plow snow, fix swing sets and make sure parks are safe for families to enjoy.
There are now by my estimates fewer than 60 people now available to take care of the 15,000 acres of park land in 144 parks in our County. If you were planning on having a wedding reception at some place like South Shore Pavilion like Jenny and I did, you may literally be responsible for making sure the bathrooms have toilet paper for your guests and the trash has been emptied the day before. There just won’t be anyone left to do it anymore.
The move will save a less than impressive $1.8 million this year, and I’m left to wonder why those being asked to make the sacrifices and tighten their belts continue to be the blue collar workers who are more often than not the primary bread winners for their families?
If the administration in the County were serious about tackling the $10 million budget hole, why are they only going after blue collar workers? As I’ve pointed out several times, why does the County Executive have both a “Receptionist” and an “Executive secretary for scheduling“? Why both a “Director of Communications” and a “Deputy Director of Communications“? What is really the difference between the two positions (and handsome salaries that match) in the County Executive’s office for “Director of Community Relations” and “Constituent Services“?
If you’re going to get serious about fixing the budget deficit, why not start with your own office first? Surely, consolidating or eliminating some of those positions would put a dent in the $10 million deficit just as well as firing the people who keep the parks clean, right?
If you’re going to get serious about fixing the budget deficit, why not start with the boondoggle of a payroll system known as “Ceridian” that’s cost taxpayers over $20 million to develop and after five years still isn’t close to working? How about getting rid of the programs like Ceridian which are wasteful instead of the people who take out the waste?
I could go on, and a lot of people who know more than me about County Government could as well.
To those of you who had to have that gut wrenching conversation about “what do we do now?” with your wife or husband or children last night, my thoughts are with you.
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and son Carter.
Dan, this is exactly the problem with government. People with powers over spending like their perks and will bias their spending behavior to benefit themselves. People who work in government are just as evil as people in the private sectors. But because government just grows and rarely shrinks, and because there is no possibility of a competitor undercutting government, there is almost never a consequence for poor decisions. Even if this guy gets voted out of office for what he did, will the next guy fix it? That is doubtful.
Ceridian. Maybe somebody needs to explore that $20,000,000.00 mistake. Who has egg on their face for that cluster. I will bet none of the 76 folks who are hitting the street March 12th don’t.
Excellent points Dan, but I would go a little further. Look at who these staffers in Walker’s office really are. For example, Tim Russell, Walker’s ass’t chief of staff was his campaign manager the three times he ran for county exec.
The woman that his is Director of Constituent Services is also the co-vice-chair of the Milwaukee Chapter of WISGOP.
The list goes on and on like that, but I don’t want to give all of it away. I have to save something for my 3.4 readers.
Mwarden I don’t agree with your statement that all Gov does is grow. As Dan pointed out the park staff has been slashed over the past 8 years. Same for the rest of Milwaukee County Gov. It is in fact smaller than just a few years ago across the board, not just parks.
And it’s not “smaller” in a good way. The fat remains, yet those in charge are hell bent on making sure the people on the front lines are the ones paying the price.
It’s like firing all the astronauts yet keeping all the people in mission control on the payroll.
The federal budget today is twice what it was ten years ago, yet after factoring in inflation we’re all making much less than we did ten years ago and the stock market is much lower than it was ten years ago. Maybe the parks department in Milwaukee isn’t doing so well at the moment, but it seems more like a sacrificial lamb than any real shrinking of government.
This is the year the Parks pass the “tipping point” in their decline. The sales tax/Parks District will be too little too late.
After the “no bad news at all costs” months pass after the Gov. election, you will hear about demolishing park buildings because it has now become cheaper to bulldoze them than to fix them.
Ball/soccer fields will deteriorate and no wading pools for the hot days of summer.
Waker is taking a page from the Regan years and is now busting the union. The recession is a real gift for people of his ilk. And he has announced that he will not run in 2012.
The best description of Walker years as CE:
It is like having a Commissioner of Baseball who hates baseball.
It is a shame.
Wakler likes to talk about cutting the fat.
There were roughly 500 full time Park Maintenance workers in the 1980′s. 110 in 2003 and now there are none.
Is the fat gone now? Where does it stop.?
Our County Board passed a budget that was based on fiction. They have some accountability too. If I am correct the Board is obligated to bass a balanced budget.
Two Points.
If you want lots of fat in government, and plenty of government workers, then you need lots of evil private sector business to support it. Government does not create revenue for itself… it requires people to pay taxes to pay for it’s existence. The state has done it’s best to punish the evil greedy businesses and their awful windfall profits. Mission accomplished… we’ve run those carpet baggers out of town. This is the natural result. You want more government… you’ll need more business to support it.
Next, why is it that you folks are only howling about Scott Walker cutting jobs? I understand the parks jobs are a special area of concern for Dan C., but why only target Scott Walker? Mayor Tom has cut hundreds of jobs… yet not a peep from the usual suspects. Could it be that some of the outrage is really partisan propaganda? Perhaps I am wrong. Please explain to me why a county cut is evil, and a city cut is not?
Exactly. Big government requires a big private sector, and a big private sector requires the attraction of big profits. Who would risk their own wealth and creditworthiness by going into business for themselves if they will most likely earn a few tens of thousands more per year on a post-tax basis than someone who played it safe in W-2 employment? The same can be said about high-risk, high-accountability executive positions (yes, I know… execs and their bonuses are evil).
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