County Software Error Creates $4.6 Million Budget Hole

Milwaukee County Courthouse. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Milwaukee County supervisors vented frustration Thursday, during their annual budget adoption meeting, that an administration mistake created a $4.55 million budget gap and that its disclosure could have been delayed as part of a political strategy.

The error was discovered by the Office of Strategy, Budget and Performance two weeks ago, according to a memo from the office. Supervisors were not notified until receiving the memo Wednesday, the day before their budget adoption meeting and one day after the midterm election, when Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley was on the ballot for governor.

It was the third time in less than two years that the board found itself blindsided by a major error of the county administration, after a surprise Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) budget deficit in 2025 and a snafu with the countywide health insurance contract earlier this year.

The error was reportedly caused by a newly automated budget process that miscalculated airport revenues and created the budget gap in a single line item.

“County Executive Crowley is aware of an error in an automated formula used to calculate one aspect of the budget, a process previously done manually,” according to a spokesperson for the county executive’s office. “Once identified, [SBP] acted immediately to create a solution and correct the formula to prevent a recurrence. The county executive is confident the issue is resolved and that Milwaukee County will end 2027 with a balanced budget.”

When the error was initially identified, the board’s Committee on Finance was still meeting to deliberate over budget amendments, but the administration did not inform supervisors until the day before the board was scheduled to meet and adopt a budget. Supervisors expressed frustration during their budget meeting Thursday that the board was once again left in the dark about a significant financial error.

Sup. Steve Taylor, chair of the county board’s budget committee, said the administration should have brought the error to the budget committee, noting that the board dedicates the entire month of October to working on the annual budget. “In the last year and a half, this is the third time we’ve been dealing with this stuff,” Taylor said.

Asked whether he thought the decision to withhold the information was political, Taylor responded, “We’re all politicians in this building.” He said he doesn’t know when Crowley was informed of the error and speculated that members of Crowley’s staff either kept him in the dark or made the decision to withhold the information from the board. He added that he didn’t think the information would have changed the outcome of the election had it been brought to the board last week.

Budget Director Nick Sinram said he notified the county executive’s office the day the error was discovered. But he also said the decision not to notify the board was his. He said he wanted to bring solutions to the board at the same time they were briefed on the error.

Taylor said the administration’s plan to address the error is aspirational and does not include concrete solutions. According to the SBP memo, the administration plans to offset the error through potential prescription drug rebates, using cash left over from infrastructure projects completed under budget next year and any savings or surpluses available from departments that finish 2027 under budget.

The county’s budget office has automated several previously manual calculations and processes. Despite this error, the office maintained that “automation has substantially improved the efficiency and accuracy of budget development overall,” according to the budget memo.

It is the first budget cycle for the new director of SBP, Nick Sinram, who came into the role in March this year. Sinram faced pushback from some members of the county board during confirmation hearings in June. Sinram came to the county after serving as the budget director for Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). Supervisors expressed concern that he was coming from an organization plagued by financial errors.

During their budget meeting Thursday, the board adopted an amendment sponsored by Sup. Jack Eckblad, who called the error and asked for a full accounting of what errors occurred and a plan for supervisors to balance the budget and end 2027 with a $5 million surplus by January next year. Eckblad called the error “disturbing” and noted that the size of the $4.6 million hole is roughly equivalent to the size of the county’s paratransit budget.

“The way that the budget director handled this is completely unacceptable and if the report in January does not have a full timeline of what happened and when, then the board will do a full audit, and that’s how he’s gonna spend his first calendar year in office,” Eckblad told Urban Milwaukee.

Other supervisors similarly expressed frustration with the administration waiting to inform the board of the error. Sup. Kathleen Vincent said that she did not learn of the error until Sup. Sky Capriolo texted her and directed her to a social media post by Taylor.

“We can’t do our job as supervisors if we’re not getting timely, accurate and complete information,” said Sup. Shawn Rolland, who sits on the budget committee. 

Sup. LeeVan Roundtree Jr. said the error would suggest no one checked the new formula against the previous budget to make sure it was calculating things correctly.

“That is the most basic step in changing any financial process,” Roundtree Jr. said. “This was preventable.”