County Getting $4 Million Federal Funding for Transit, Parks

A Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) bus from Gillig. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Millions in federal funding for the Milwaukee area, including more than $4 million for county parks and the transit system, have made their way through Congress.

The House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate recently approved a new appropriations bill, which, thanks to the return of congressional earmarks, will provide funding to clean up the Veterans Park Lagoon, purchase new buses for the Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) and providing funding for major projects in Sherman and Washington Parks.

The technical term for these spending line items is congressionally directed spending. Sometimes these earmarks are derisively called “pork-barrel” spending. They are, essentially, federal funds for local projects and programs that are earmarked by local congressional representatives, circumventing the traditional or competitive process for receiving federal funding.

Earmarks only recently returned after a 10-year moratorium that began in 2011. There has long been a debate over earmarks, with critics arguing the practice allows for abuse and wasteful spending. But supporters say the practice allows local representatives to have greater discretion in the federal appropriations process, supporting important projects that may not otherwise receive federal funding.

In 2023, U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore and Sen. Tammy Baldwin added $5 million to an appropriations bill for a program rehabilitating tax-foreclosed homes to sell to first-time homebuyers.

Baldwin, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined county leaders in 2023 for a tour of a ramshackle foreclosed home in Wauwatosa to tout the new housing program. “I will say, from my perspective, that there’s no more being spent because we do some congressionally directed spending,” the senator said. “What’s happening is the decision and the direction is coming from me or one of my House counterparts, whose fingers are on the pulse of the needs of our communities.”

Both the House and the Senate passed the latest appropriations bill this week. Rep. Moore announced a list of projects within Wisconsin’s fourth congressional district, which includes most of Milwaukee County, totaling more than $13 million.

The spending items that will affect Milwaukee County assets directly include more than $4 million for transit and parks projects. The spending items were part of a list of projects that county officials submitted for consideration in the federal appropriations process.

One earmark will provide MCTS with approximately $1 million to purchase new clean-diesel buses. The transit system has watched its fleet shrink by nearly 100 buses in five years. For several years MCTS has had an aging fleet, with buses reaching the end of their lifecycle. But the transit system has also been using federal funds intended for expenses like bus purchases to backfill its annual operational budget deficits.

The parks system will see an infusion of more than $3 million through the appropriations bill, though most of the funding is headed for projects being undertaken by local non-profits in partnership with Milwaukee County Parks.

In Sherman Park, a park revitalization project being led by the Boys and Girls Club of Milwaukee will receive $724,834. The “Reimagining Sherman Park” project has already raised more than $2 million, and is financing more than a dozen individual improvements to amenities and infrastructure in the park. The first phase will begin construction this spring, as Urban Milwaukee previously reported.

The Urban Ecology Center is building a new two-story branch building in Washington Park and also investing in improvements to the surrounding park area. The appropriations bill included $2 million for the project.

Milwaukee County Parks will receive $500,000 to improve water quality in the 14-acre Veterans Park Lagoon and for stormwater projects in Washington Park.

“By working with Wisconsin’s Congressional Delegation, I am proud that we are deploying investments and opportunity throughout our community,” County Executive David Crowley said. “Thank you to U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, and our federal partners for delivering new federal dollars to Milwaukee County that will help us reinvest in public transit, enhance our parks, and move us forward.”