Solving County’s Budget Gap Includes Study of Sheriff’s Spending

Milwaukee County Courthouse. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Funding for an outside review of the Milwaukee County Sheriff‘s Office’s operations and staffing was tacked onto a piece of legislation closing Milwaukee County’s 2024 budget gap.

The resolution, proffered by County Executive David Crowley‘s administration, included $300,000 for an independent study of the MCSO’s staffing and overtime. The sheriff’s office has substantially eclipsed its targeted overtime spending, becoming a significant driver of the $19 million budget deficit officials are trying to close.

The Milwaukee County Board’s Committee on Finance passed the resolution Thursday. It goes to the full board for a final vote later this month.

MCSO officials have told policymakers for years that the office was understaffed, driving up its use of overtime. The office recently announced it would stop using forced overtime to maintain staffing levels in the courts and give deputies a break from “unprecedented” levels of forced overtime, according to MCSO Chief Deputy Daniel Hughes.

However, Circuit Court Chief Judge Carl Ashley, concerned that low bailiff staffing would make the courts less safe and efficient, ordered Sheriff Denita Ball to maintain staffing levels.

The goal of the independent study is to collect hard data on the office staffing needs, as well identify any operational improvements or technological enhancements, according to a report from the office of Strategy, Budget and Performance.

The 2024 budget was sunk by more than the sheriff’s office. Higher than expected health care costs, lower than expected sales tax collections and an expensive contract for commissary services in the county’s jail and correctional facility are drove deficit projections as high as $19 million. The legislation scraped together funding from a number of projects and allocations across the county to close the gap.

“I am proud my administration and the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors are working together to close the projected budget gap without any additional costs for taxpayers,” Crowley said. “But we have more work to do to prevent future fiscal cliffs, increase recruitment and retention to avoid overtime costs, and obtain additional financial support for required state-mandated services.”

Bielinski Amendment

Sup. Justin Bielinski successfully amended the budget repairing resolution, altering the parties involved in the sheriff study, in a bid to strengthen public trust of the process.

The amendment places the money for the study in the county’s Department of Human Resources, looping in “a professional HR team” to oversee the contracting, Bielinski told Urban Milwaukee. “I just think that makes it so the public can trust it a little more,” he said.

The supervisor thinks the public will trust the results more if more independence is injected into the process.

The sheriff’s office has been clear about its staffing needs, and Bielinski wants the process to be open to differing opinions.

“What I hope to help direct in this process with the contractor, is, what are some ways we could sort of shrink the footprint of the department a little bit,” Bielinski said. “Maybe, is their interpretation of what the need is under statute, different than what the actual need is?”

Bielinski’s amendment also calls on the state to provide the county adequate funding for the services it mandates, like the sheriff’s freeway patrol; and for non-mandated services like transit and early childhood programming; and for the planned construction of a new criminal courthouse.

Related Legislation: Legislative file with resolution and amendment