Board Quickly Adopts 2025 Budget

Milwaukee County Courthouse. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors quickly, and unanimously, adopted a $1.4 billion budget for next year.

With federal funding released during the pandemic set to hit a year-end use-it-or-lose-it deadline, the county budget was developed with spending targets that limited new expenses for departments across the government. Supervisors’ work on the budget was characterized not by an attempt to redraw the county executive’s recommendation, but to achieve what they could with the county’s limited resources.

The 2025 budget includes a $298.6 million property levy, which represents a 2.5% increase over the 2024 budget. However, the 2024 budget included a historic $21.5 million property tax reduction. 

Supervisors adopted more than a dozen amendments to the 2025 budget, including a handful of items that rose to the top as priorities during the annual budget process: legal representation for persons facing eviction, emergency housing funding and a new plan for the Mitchell Park Domes.

Supervisors did not make any major alterations to the county executive’s recommended budget, and only two amendments were a source of friction between policymakers and the administration.

“This is, in my nine years, the easiest budget I’ve ever been a part of,” Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson told her colleagues. “So that’s all thanks to your leadership.”

“Madame Chair, I think you mean the quickest, not the easiest,” Sup. Steve Taylor said.

“Fair enough,” she replied. “Fair enough.”

Before the 2025 budget process kicked off, policymakers were faced with trying to close a $19 million budget shortfall for the existing year. A confluence of factors — lower than estimated sales tax collections, bigger-than-expected healthcare costs and heavy use of overtime in the Milwaukee County Sheriff‘s Office (MCSO) — created the sizable deficit.

Wisconsin Act 12, which reformed the county’s pension plan and provided the authority for a new 0.4% sales tax, provided significant funding to work with in 2024. But budget deficits were always expected to return, only in a diminished state given the additional sales tax revenue. They weren’t expected to return, however, in 2025. The county administration had to close a $14 million budget gap before presenting a recommended budget to county supervisors.

And with the majority of county departments closing small revenue gaps within their existing budgets, there wasn’t much for supervisors to work with.

Major Budget Items

• An approximately $13 million budget increase for the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office and the Community Reintegration Center (CRC) to fund increased overtime expenses, add deputies to the court system and cover increased costs for the food service in the jail and CRC.
• $26 million for bus purchases. The Milwaukee County Transit System‘s fleet is aging — and, in recent years, shrinking — and the agency is trying to keep up.
• $6 million to continue planning the new Criminal Courthouse, which will be the most expensive infrastructure project in county government history.

Omnibus Amendment

It’s common practice for supervisors to work together to bundle a handful of policy and spending priorities into a single amendment, called a super amendment or omnibus amendment. This strategy is employed to secure support from a majority of supervisors.

This year, Taylor sponsored the super amendment. He used approximately $2.25 million in unclaimed funds that the Treasurer’s Office had not previously identified.

The amendment eliminated increases to healthcare contributions for county employees; added funding for additional staff in a handful of departments including two victim witness advocates in the Office of the District Attorney; provided $250,000 for a fund that helps MATC students who are facing housing insecurity; $600,000 for park improvements and aquatics facility staffing; and an approximately $1.4 million reduction of the property tax levy increase.

Additional Amendments

The board unanimously adopted two amendments focused on an eviction program created during the pandemic. The Right to Counsel program provides residents facing eviction with free legal representation. Funding comes from American Rescue Plan Act funding that must be under contract or forfeited by the end of the year.

The board added $250,000 to the budget for the program, branded as Eviction Free MKE, and adopted another amendment directing the county administration to work on a solution to long-term funding with the two non-profits that administer the program: United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County and the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee.

An amendment sponsored by Sup. Juan Miguel Martinez added an ambitious plan to save the Mitchell Park Domes and redevelop a large portion of Mitchell Park. The board unanimously adopted it Thursday, committing the county to supporting the project with $30 million in the future.

The board also adopted an amendment that Sup. Shawn Rolland initially struggled to pass out of committee. The item provides approximately $500,000 for a program the Housing Division uses to move people quickly off the street and into apartments leased by the county. The funding comes out of a pot of money set aside in anticipation of the state raising intergovernmental charges for juvenile corrections. If the state increases its rate, the county’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) could end up in a budget deficit.

The amendment was passed by the full board, but supervisors Willie Johnson, Jr., Taylor, Deanna Alexander and Patti Logsdon voted against it.

Supervisors also adopted amendments that ask for a plan to prioritize future bus purchases; request a legal analysis for creating a civilian review board for the MCSO; officially add racial equity to the county ordinance governing criteria for infrastructure projects; expand an MCTS program that provides bus operators transportation back to a station when their shift ends and allocate $15,000 to the Sojourner Peace Family Center to provide support to victims of domestic violence..

More than one amendment was aimed at the MCTS driver pick-up program, but the board faced pushback from MCTS and the administration for their amendments, as it set the transit system on a path to pursue two separate policies for the same program: One amendment would lead to the purchase of additional vans for driver-pick ups, another would contract with companies like Uber and Lyft for transportation.

The budget, as amended by the board, goes the county executive for his signature and any potential vetoes. If vetoes are made, the board needs a two-thirds majority to override a veto.

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