Crowley Fires Contract Director Over Insurance Debacle

Milwaukee County Courthouse. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley‘s administration fired the human resources employee responsible for the $450 million health insurance contract debacle.

On Friday, Urban Milwaukee broke the news that the county’s Department of Human Resources (HR) finalized a contract with one of the largest private health insurance corporations in the country, UnitedHealthcare, without following county laws regarding procurement and waited until after the county’s existing health care contract had lapsed before bringing it to the Milwaukee County Board for approval.

HR Benefits Director Tony Maze submitted the contract to the County Board’s Committee on Finance on Thursday, Jan. 29, for approval, without mentioning any of the risks surrounding the lapsed contract or that the Office of the Comptroller, the county’s independent financial officer, was unable to verify some of the financial information in the five-year contract.

The county executive’s office confirmed Monday that Maze had been fired.

“I strongly believe in transparency and accountability. When mistakes are made, it’s important to seek out the facts and identify solutions to the problem at hand. We unfortunately find ourselves discussing a contract that expired at the end of 2025. This was an error by an employee in the Department of Human Resources, and as a result, that employee no longer works for Milwaukee County,” the county executive said in a statement.

Maze worked with Willis Towers Watson, a business management consultant, to solicit and negotiate a contract with UnitedHealthcare. Maze and the consultant reportedly failed to include audit language in the contract required by county ordinance, according to the county’s audit director. Maze admitted to supervisors on the County Board’s Committee on Finance that he did not follow county ordinance when soliciting the contract.

The contract Maze was working on was not actually a new contract. It was an amended version of a contract first inked in 2009. The contract expired in December 2025. On Jan. 15, UnitedHealthcare told HR it would not include the county’s legally required audit language. Maze brought the agreement to the County Board for approval two weeks later.

Despite open questions about the contract’s provenance, contractual language, and financial details, the county’s attorneys and the county executive’s administration are pushing the County Board to approve the contract.

A joint meeting of the Milwaukee County Board’s Committees on Finance and Personnel is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 2, to gather information on the contract as the Crowley administration continues to push for approval.