Supervisors Want Climate Consultant

Milwaukee County Courthouse. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

In recent years Milwaukee County officials have worked on a plan to lower the government’s carbon footprint, making it carbon neutral by 2050.

Two supervisors are now pushing to have the county expand its climate planning beyond county government and increase its cooperation with other local municipalities.

Supervisors Anne O’Connor and Jack Eckblad worked with County Executive David Crowley‘s administration to include $100,000 in the 2025 recommended budget for an environmental consultant to focus on coordinating with other public and private institutions and finding grant funding.

“Climate does not know municipal boundaries,” said Sup. O’Connor. “So if we’re going to be doing these things, we have to be doing them together.”

The consultant would support the work of the county’s Office of Sustainability, which has two full time employees and is leading the county’s effort to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

In July, O’Connor authored a resolution asking the county to work with the City of Milwaukee on federal grant applications for climate-related funding, and to collaborate more in the future. By the time supervisors considered the resolition the grant program had issued awards and the city did not receive funding.

Stuart Carron, the county’s director of facilities management, oversees the Office of Sustainability and told supervisors the county and city already collaborate on climate related issues, including the federal grant application.

The two local governments previously partnered on the City-County Task Force on Climate and Economic Equity. The task force worked for three years and developed the Milwaukee Climate and Equity Plan, which includes proposals designed to help the community reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% from emission levels in 2005.

The grant was part of the 2022 federal Inflation Reduction Act, which has allocated billions for climate and environmental projects. The county needs a specialist to go after the IRA funding and coordination with local governments and other non-governmental entitites will be critical to secure funding for climate projects, O’Connor said.

Successful grant applications for climate related IRA funding will likely involve regional collaboration, as Erick Shambarger, director of environmental sustainability for the city, has previously noted.

Placing greater focus on going after funding for projects that may involve other partners will expand the county’s existing climate planning. Currently the focus is on infrastructure the county directly controls. “We felt that we needed an expanded mission, an expanded vision for sustainability of the county that included cooperation with the City of Milwaukee, surrounding counties and municipalities, and it opened up the door to going after more federal money for the county,” Eckblad said.

Revenue limitations construct the county’s ability to fund current operations. The climate consultant should help the county bring in more money than the position costs, Eckblad said.

“In these budget circumstances, we need to make sure that we’re investing the dollars that we do have in things that, one, reflect our values, two, are really good policy, and, three, open up other lines of revenue to the county,” Eckblad said.

And the climate consultant, he believes, hits all three.