City Copies County Budgeting Rule

Milwaukee City Hall. Building photo by Jeramey Jannene, background photo by Jericho.

Former County Supervisor Peter Burgelis is bringing a piece of Milwaukee County government to his role as alderman at the City of Milwaukee.

A pending ordinance would require departments to notify the council if any department account is expected to have a deficit or surplus of more than $100,000.

Burgelis first floated the concept as a policy footnote in the 2026 budget.

“This copies a very good policy we have at the county where the departments get to alert the Finance Committee,” said Burgelis in October when it was first discussed.

Now he’s moving to make it official city policy.

“This was modified with input from the comptroller and Budget Office to make sure smaller departments don’t get ignored,” said Burgelis to the Finance & Personnel Committee on Wednesday.

As a result of input, an additional trigger would fire if an account is trending 5% above or below its expected balance. A department would be required to abide by whichever value is greater, $100,000 or 5%.

“Good work moving it forward,” said Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic, the committee chair.

The committee unanimously endorsed the policy. The full council is slated to consider it at its Feb. 10 meeting.

The county’s notification requirement became a key point in the Milwaukee County Transit System‘s 2025 financial issues. The system presented a surprise $10 million deficit and internal emails, obtained by Urban Milwaukee, later revealed a deliberate attempt to conceal the size of the deficit in violation of the ordinance.

Fund balance policy

A budget footnote from Ald. Milele A. Coggs would involve creation of a “fund balance policy,” but Ald. Scott Spiker warned that doing so could cause unexpected compliance issues in the future.

“That’s still a concern,” said Comptroller Bill Christianson.

The policy is expected to be monitored by bond-rating agencies, whose input heavily influences interest rates paid by the city. “Once we have a fund balance policy, the most important thing is to abide by it … it’s probably worse to have one and not abide by it,” said Christianson. But despite the concerns, the comptroller said the end result should be a policy, and that he would recommend changes to what has previously been discussed.

The Comptroller’s Office is to draft a policy within 30 days.

The Finance & Personnel Committee would review it at a future meeting.

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