Common Council Has 7 Times The Ideas As It Has Funding

There is no shortage of ideas from the Milwaukee Common Council on how to spend the remaining $179.7 million first allocation from the city’s federal American Rescue Plan Act grant. The City Clerk‘s office published the council’s 82 proposals representing $1.41 billion in spending (and 366 pages of documentation).

The ideas are both old and new, big and small. Some are new and flashy, like creating an indoor soccer complex. Others are the basics of government, like buying new police squad cars or garbage carts.

Now all the council has to do is figure out which ones to advance, and find agreement with Mayor Tom Barrett. A special meeting is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 15, to review the proposals.

The plans were intended to address the city’s first tranche of its $394.2 million ARPA allocation, but many of the proposals would last through the whole grant period (2026). Barrett also has his own administration proposals to spend some of the money, including replacing lost revenue and to hiring 195 police officers in three training classes. The council has already allocated approximately $18 million from what was a $197 million allocation, with funding going towards addressing an ambulance shortage ($4.7 million), hiring attorneys for those being evicted ($1.8 million), combating reckless driving ($7.15 million) and the city’s Earn and Learn high school employment and training program ($3.8 million).

Five proposals, totaling $484 million, attempt to do what is effectively the same thing: rehabilitate city-owned homes and get them into the hands of residents. But each one includes a nuanced take, be it a different scale or a different combination of funding allocations to city programs. Council members Robert Bauman and JoCasta Zamarripa are the lead sponsors on the proposals. Bauman has advocated for similar proposals since the city first learned it would be getting the funding.

Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic has a $13.3 million, multi-faceted proposal aimed at expanding the number of childcare providers by focusing on training young men of color for the work and providing grants and support other providers. She also has a $10 million proposal to expand and restore the city’s urban tree canopy, a $500,000 parklet grant program, a $2.7 million bicycle infrastructure proposal, a $3.2 million lead safe proposal and a $1.4 million energy efficiency proposal.

Ald. Jose G. Perez is advancing a previously introduced $97.7 million plan to address childhood lead poisoning. It mirrors a request from the Coalition on Lead Emergency (COLE). He is also packing a $500,000 proposal for skateboard parks, a $26 million lead abatement program and a $500,000 food center grant program.

Ald. Milele A. Coggs is proposing to allocate $15 million to a participatory budgeting initiative, which would in effect allow citizens to make direct choices on how that pot of money is spent.

Ald. Nik Kovac is advancing portions of the Environmental Collaboration Office‘s plan to build a house factory in Century City.

Council President Cavalier Johnson has two proposals to allocate money to the Westlawn Gardens affordable housing redevelopment ($12 million total) and another to allocate $1.3 million to the Earn and Learn high school employment program. But that’s not all, Johnson has the greatest number of proposals. In fact, more than 25% of the amendments have the council president listed as the lead sponsor. But half of the proposals are items that were in Barrett’s $93 million Stronger Summer plan that the council held off acting on.

Council members Scott Spiker and Michael Murphy each have a series of smaller proposals aimed at everything from buying garbage carts to software to improve the productivity of the Assessor’s Office.

Proposals from Ald. Chantia Lewis would fund the administrative costs of establishing a universal basic income pilot proposal and the startup costs of the Office of Veterans Affairs.

The award for the smallest proposal, $18,171, goes to Ald. Khalif Rainey. The money would be used to survey residents of the 53206 ZIP Code, which has the highest incarceration rate of any Wisconsin ZIP code and is among the city’s most impoverished, to determine what they want the money spent on. The city would mail physical copies of the June 2021 online survey.

The 53206 proposal narrowly beats out a $20,000 proposal from Alderwoman Nikiya Dodd to study the wages of sanitation workers so that the city can better recruit and retain vehicle drivers. But Dodd would spend plenty more on sanitation. She has a $6.5 million proposal to remove all fees from the self-help centers for five years and a $700,000 “weekend box” program to fund dumpsters being placed in neighborhoods.

Ald. Russell W. Stamper, II has a series of proposals aimed at everything from city beautification to traffic calming.

Other proposals target improving street lighting reliability ($10 million), violence prevention ($16.8 million), restoring and expanding the urban tree canopy ($10 million) and funding the administrative costs of a universal basic income program ($400,000). One reflects why the federal government created the program in the first place: a $10 million allocation to continue to address the city’s COVID-19 response.

There are four proposed omnibus proposals, representing $459.9 million of the proposed total. Each has the backing of different council members and includes some of the proposals also proposed individually.

Council Mark Borkowski and Ashanti Hamilton are the only council members not to be listed as a lead sponsor of an amendment. But Hamilton appears as a co-sponsor on a handful of amendments, while Borkowski’s name does not appear in the 366-page document.

The city’s Department of Administration, in a letter sent Oct. 11, is encouraging each proposal to be resubmitted using the administration-approved ARP Request Form. The form was used by city department heads to submit requests to the mayor. “The ARP Request Form was created to ensure that city departments follow the rules promulgates by the federal government at every step including when making ARP requests. The questions included int he form largely align with ARP compliance and reporting requirements,” wrote department director Sharon Robinson, budget director Dennis Yaccarino and chief equity officer Nikki Purvis. “Because the scale of the ARP is enormous – and not simply because of the amount of money involved – it is important that every decision maker within City government exercise great diligence when making ARP requests.”

A full copy of each proposal is available on Urban Milwaukee.

Proposal List

Full details on each proposal can be found in the above-linked PDF.

1	Omnibus – Johnson/Murphy	Johnson	DOA; DCD; City Clerk; Fire; Health; Library; Mayor; DNS; Police; DPW	$171,117,670
2	Omnibus – Zamarripa	Zamarripa	DOA;DCD; Fire; Health; Mayor; DNS; DPW	$124,550,477
3	Omnibus – Perez	Perez	DOA-CDGA; DCD; DNS; Mayor; Health	$96,859,478
4	Omnibus – Stamper	Stamper	DOA; City Clerk; DCD; Mayor	$67,360,000
5	Continued Response to COVID	Murphy	DOA-OAAA; Fire; Health; Library	$10,000,000
6	Fiscal Sustainability	Johnson	DOA-OAAA; ITMD; DPW; City Clerk; Fire; DNS; Mayor; Health; Library	$83,367,193
7	Century City Clean Energy Jobs	Kovac	DOA-ECO	$2,700,000
8	ECO Green Lot Pilot Program	Kovac	DOA-ECO	$100,000
9	Modular Home Manufacturing	Kovac	DOA-ECO	$1,000,000
10	GHHI Initiative	Kovac/Perez	DOA-ECO; Health	$28,050,477
11	Energy Efficiency Upgrades	Dimitrijevic	DOA-ECO	$1,400,000
12	Urban Tree Canopy	Dimitrijevic	DOA-ECO; DPW Ops	$10,760,000
13	Community Excellence Beautification	Stamper	DOA-ECO	$350,000
14	Affordable Housing	Zamarripa	DOA-CDGA; DCD; DNS	$180,000,000
15	Affordable Housing	Zamarripa	DOA-CDGA; DCD; DNS	$40,000,000
16	Affordable Housing	Bauman	DOA-CDGA; DCD; DNS	$77,500,000
17	Affordable Housing	Bauman	DOA-CDGA; DCD; DNS	$150,000,000
18	Affordable Housing	Bauman	DOA-CDGA; DCD; DNS	$36,500,000
19	Translation Services	Zamarripa	DOA-ITMD; City Clerk	$1,000,000
20	Language Translation Services	Johnson	DOA-ITMD; City Clerk	$600,000
21	Broadband Feasibility	Johnson	DOA-ITMD	$100,000
22	Skillful Transitions Job Training	Kovac	DOA	$3,000,000
23	Employment & Job Training	Johnson	DOA	$4,775,000
24	Home Security Cameras	Zamarripa	DOA; Police	$1,000,000
25	Food Center Grants	Perez	DOA	$500,000
26	Spatialest Software	Spiker	Assessor	$807,715
27	Spatialest Sub A	Spiker	Assessor	$141,000
28	Spatialest Sub B	Spiker	Assessor	$666,715
29	Healing Spaces	Coggs	DCD	$100,000
30	Alert Neighbor	Coggs	DCD	$150,000
31	Indoor Soccer Complex	Perez	DCD	$1,000,000
32	Partnerships in Affordable Housing	Stamper	DCD	$3,000,000
33	Affordable and Sustainable Housing	Johnson	DCD; HACM	$4,400,000
34	Rental Housing Resource Center	Johnson	DCD	$1,200,000
35	Westlawn	Johnson	DCD	$7,000,000
36	Westlawn	Johnson	DCD	$5,000,000
37	Earn and Learn	Johnson	DCD	$1,300,000
38	Business Cooperative	Rainey	DCD	$5,000,000
39	Parklet Construction Grants	Dimitrijevic	DCD	$500,000
40	Child Care	Dimitrijevic	DCD; Mayor	$13,309,001
41	Direct Connect	Coggs	City Clerk	$4,026,669
42	Participatory Budgeting	Coggs	City Clerk	$15,000,000
43	Universal Basic Income	Lewis	City Clerk	$400,000
44	Office of Veterans’ Affairs	Lewis	City Clerk	$200,000
45	53206 ARPA Survey	Rainey	City Clerk	$18,171
46	Retroactive Hazard Pay	Spiker	DER	$2,571,741
47	Retroactive Hazard Pay	Johnson	DER	$2,571,740
48	Lost Revenue	Spiker	Fire; Library, Mayor, DNS; Police	$27,216,193
49	Cont’d COVID Response and Adaptation	Spiker	Health	$6,000,000
50	Violence Prevention Response	Coggs	Health	$16,800,000
51	House Call Emergency Mental Health Diversion	Kovac	Health	$1,080,000
52	COVID Mask Mandate Enforcement	Zamarripa	Health	$2,000,000
53	Reduce Childhood Lead Poisoning (COLE)	Perez	Health	$97,724,000
54	Lead Abatement	Perez	Health	$26,050,477
55	Mental Health Preventative Care and Crisis Intervention	Stamper	Health	$1,080,000
56	Positive Parenting Program (PPP)	Johnson	Health	$1,457,621
57	Lead Safe Program	Dimitrijevic	Health	$3,200,000
58	MLK Library	Coggs	Library	$4,200,000
59	Squad Cars	Spiker	Police	$600,000
60	MPD Non-Sworn Staff	Spiker	Police	$900,000
61	Traffic Calming	Stamper	Police; DPW-ISD	$350,000
62	Crime Stoppers	Lewis	Police	$25,000
63	Traffic Calming Special Assessments	Murphy	DPW	$1,000,000
64	Street Lighting Circuit Reliability Improvement	Johnson	DPW-ISD	$10,000,000
65	Skateboard Parks	Perez	DPW-ISD	$500,000
66	Bicycle Infrastructure	Dimitrijevic	DPW-ISD	$2,705,000
67	Garbage Carts	Murphy	DPW-Ops	$1,300,000
68	Self Help Fee Elimination	Dodd	DPW-Ops	$6,500,000
69	Weekend Box Program	Dodd	DPW-Ops	$700,000
70	Sanitation Wage Study	Dodd	DPW-Ops	$20,000
71	Family Food Access	Johnson	DOA	$2,000,000
72	Ethnic & Diverse Coalition 01	Johnson	DOA-OEI	$2,500,000
73	Racial Equity Training	Johnson	DOA-OEI	$1,000,000
74	Climate, Energy & Equity Upgrade	Johnson	DOA-ECO	$5,000,000
75	HOME GROWN Victory Over Violence Park	Johnson	DOA-ECO	$200,000
76	Business Restart 3.0	Johnson	DCD	$7,500,000
77	Westlawn	Johnson	DCD	$15,000,000
78	Violence Prevention – 414 Life	Johnson	Health	$3,000,000
79	Early Childhood Education – Dual Enrollment K12	Johnson	Mayor	$310,000
80	Early Childhood – Men of color Mentorship	Johnson	Mayor	$1,200,000
81	Compliance Loan Program	Johnson	DNS	$3,000,000
82	The Big Clean	Johnson	DPW-Ops	$2,310,000