President Pérez seeks truth in departmental budgeting

Today (Tuesday, October 14), the Common Council adopted file #250955 – an ordinance relating to the city’s accounting practices. The legislation, sponsored by Common Council President José G. Pérez, requires the city Comptroller to cease the use of the reimbursable fund for charging expenditures intended to be reimbursed by external entities no later than 2030, and to report progress toward that goal to the Common Council on an annual basis.

In a time of ever-tightening budgets and financial constraints, President Pérez believes the city must eventually phase out the practice of the City spending money on the front end in hopes of getting it back on the back end. “A department’s annual budget should truly be their annual budget, and they should be accountable to it,” he said. “Keeping money owed to departments, and thus the City, in separate accounts simply isn’t a good accounting practice. It creates a scenario in which funds owed to the City are not realized in an expeditious manner and hurts our balance sheet.”

“This process started with a review of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee, but it is clearly an unsustainable model across many departments. The process as it stands places an unnecessary burden on the Comptroller’s Office who must track and prompt departments to contact entities who owe the city money, while not having oversight of said departments, thus creating a structure that doesn’t offer effective results,” President Pérez said. “I will continue to leave no stone unturned in our efforts to make city government as innovative and efficient as possible.”

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.