Public Statement from Josh Zepnick, Candidate for Alderman, 11th District, Milwaukee’s Southwest Side

The recent bipartisan compromise to increase shared revenue and the city sales tax to hire more police and backfill a failing pension system involved specific benchmarks and outcomes with consequences if results are not delivered. That’s accountability to taxpayers and it’s not in the tax hike proposal sent to voters for the April 2nd election.

MPS has not delivered a clear plan to show results from this tax hike
Instead what we see is:

• Declining enrollment
• Chronic Absenteeism: More than half of MPS students are over the state definition of missing 10% or more of classroom attendance.
• Empty and half-used school buildings still being funded

Everyone in my family went to Milwaukee Public Schools, including my disabled sister who graduated from Hamilton HS, which is in the center of the 11th district where I’m running for Alderman.

MPS has a taxpayer accountability problem. After millions of dollars in tax increases just 4 years ago along with over $500 million in Federal Pandemic Relief funding, the MPS School Board has not made the case for this huge tax hike.

MPS needs to deal with its bloated bureaucracy and spending on things that do not improve classroom performance. Our schools are filled with bright kids and hard-working teachers and staff, it is the Central Office mismanagement and dysfunctional School Board that have work to do.

On top of recent City Hall moves to increase the property tax and nearly double the sales tax for city residents, and higher sewer/water bill charges, this MPS tax increase will lead to:

• Strained budgets for seniors, people on fixed incomes
• Higher apartment rents
• More families moving out of Milwaukee due to housing costs, higher taxes

The 11th District is sandwiched in between Greenfield and West Allis. People will vote with their feet. This District has seen hundreds of active police and fire employees leave the City once “residency requirements” were lifted. We cannot accept more instability to our neighborhoods, which also happens to impact schools.

Joshua Zepnick 4 Alder

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.