County Board Invoices Taxpayers for Living Wage Ordinance
Taxpayers deserve an explanation from Rep. Bowen
MILWAUKEE—The Milwaukee County Board has passed a resolution allocating over a half of a million taxpayer dollars to deal with the effects of the Living Wage Ordinance (LWO), touted by former County Supervisor, current State Representative David Bowen as an initiative that would cost the county nothing.
“We know now that was either a purposeful lie repeated over and over again, or an example of leftist economic ignorance that should go down in the history books,” said Supervisor Deanna Alexander.
“This $500,000 was the price tag for bringing a single vendor into compliance for a single contract. I can hardly believe that the Board approved writing the check and I dread to see what other surprises the LWO holds for taxpayers down the line,” she continued.
Then-Supervisor Bowen promised taxpayers that they would not pay any of the added costs—he alleged that businesses would pay instead.
“Representative Bowen and every other County Supervisor that co-sponsored the Living Wage Ordinance under the notion that it would not cost the county anything, owe the public an explanation,” said Alexander.
The board approved taking the money from the county’s contingency funds on a 13-5 (No: Alexander, Borkowski, Schmitt, Staskunas, Taylor) vote.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.
Mentioned in This Press Release
Recent Press Releases by Sup. Deanna Alexander
Whenever a politician says it won’t cost the taxpayers a cent, you should automatically know that’s a false statement. Taxpayers on the hook for $500,000 to bail out a company for what they forgot to compensate for, County hires an accounting company out of Illinois who doesn’t figure in cost of living increase for County pensions so we taxpayers now get to pay $20 million difference between the $38 million allocated and the $58 million it will actually cost. Now we taxpayers get to pay for the Bucks arena where the owners are BILLIONAIRES let alone we continue to pay for the Brewers stadium that was suppose to be paid off years ago. We need new politicians in this city who know how to say the word “NO”.
How about some real economic analysis? It’s one thing to point out inconsistent statements, another entirely to evaluate whether a policy will have economic benefits. Avoid talking points. Instead, crunch numbers in an honest and transparent manner.