In first budget, Milwaukee Mayor Johnson reluctantly calls for cut in sworn police officers, fire engines, library hours

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson's first proposed city budget is the equivalent of a big wince, calling for cuts that he acknowledged he doesn't want to make in police, fire and library services.

The 2023 proposed budget, released Monday, calls for a 1% reduction in sworn police officers, the elimination of two fire engines, and substantial cuts in the hours and programming at five of the city's 12 neighborhood libraries.

"It's not that we don't want to fund them. It's that we don't have the resources to fund them or the resources to generate the revenue ourselves to fund them," Johnson told the Journal Sentinel.

Here are the numbers:

• Johnson has proposed a tax levy increase of 2% and an increase in most annual fees of 4%. 
• The tax levy of $311.2 million is $6.1 million higher than the 2022 levy.
• The property tax rate has decreased to $9.16 per $1,000 of assessed home value.
• The total budget is $1.7 billion — less than former Mayor Tom Barrett's adopted 2022 budget of $1.75 billion. The budget was higher last year in part because of federal pandemic aid.

As has become something of a budget tradition, the mayor's office blamed the state for some of its problems. On the first page of the proposal, it referenced 1995, when the Wisconsin state government stopped its tradition of shared revenue increases. Shared revenue is made up of sales, income and excise taxes paid in communities by residents, workers and visitors, and then distributed — or shared — back to those communities by the state.

The budget proposal said the city gets back less than it puts in, and that adjusted for inflation it receives $155 million less than in 2000.

"If the state doesn't fix the system, it seems like what you'll hear is this giant sucking sound of local government services that are being sucked out of not just Milwaukee, but communities all across the state," Johnson said.

Further, the proposal said the city continues to approach the brink of a fiscal cliff caused by the significant spike in the annual pension contribution. That is the second biggest driver of the city's structural budget gap — the difference between what city departments ask for, and what the administration believes the city can afford.

"I certainly don't want to see that, but those are the cards we're dealt right now," he added.

The mayor stressed that everything in the budget should be seen through this grim filter of limited shared revenue and perilous pension payments.

Reduction in sworn police officers

In the proposed budget, the average sworn strength in the police department would drop from 1,657 officers to 1,640. Two recruitment classes are set for for next year, one in the spring, one in the fall.

The reduction of fire engines would come in two stages, with one eliminated in January 2023 and one eliminated in July 2023. Milwaukee Budget Director Nik Kovac said the decision of which engines to cut will be decided by Milwaukee Fire Department Fire Chief Aaron Lipski.

The city divides its libraries into three geographic clusters — north, south and central.

Though city officials said they didn't know which specific branches would be targeted, it said four branch libraries — one each in the north and south clusters, two in the central — would remain at current service levels.

Four branches — two each in the north and south clusters — would reduce staffing and services. Computers and community rooms would be limited; programming would not be offered. 

One branch in the central cluster would be closed temporarily. 

The library system plans an expansion and redesign of its online and virtual resources as a means to continue reaching out to users, even as its physical operations are cut.

The budget proposal also included an item that is a high priority for the city, even though it doesn’t technically have a dollar amount attached. The Office of Equity and Inclusion, and the Budget Management Division, continue to discuss how to “develop a set of racial equity tools that will guide our future management strategies.”

It called advancing racial equity a moral priority, and a guiding principle for this and future budgets.

The mayor is set to present his budget to the Common Council on Tuesday. The Common Council's Finance and Personnel Committee will hold hearings on the new proposed budget in late September and into October.

Residents will be able to weigh in during the Joint Public Hearing on Oct. 3 at 6:30 p.m.

The committee's budget amendment days are scheduled for Oct. 27 and 28.

The Common Council is tentatively set to adopt the new budget on Nov. 4.

The mayor also painted a bleak picture of the years ahead, with locked-in state revenue, expiring federal grants, historically high inflation, and ever-higher pension costs.

"There's certainly a storm coming,” Johnson said in the interview.

Contact Vanessa Swales at 414-308-5881 or vswales@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Vanessa_Swales.