So how long before she asks for her teaching job back? And could she be denied on the basis of her being a thief?

The one-hour show will be on at 9 p.m. on the first Sunday of every month.

“Inside the County Board is intended to give listeners a more in-depth analysis of actions taken by County Supervisors,” according to the press release announcing the show.

What a load of crap that is. The County Board has not shown much interest at all in making routine public information available to the public in a timely and easily accessible manner. The Board still does not make resolutions and reports available online with committee agendas. The Board is the worst local unit of government at making public information easily accessible for anyone wanting an “in-depth” understanding of just what it is the County Board is voting on and what impacts those votes will have on the public.

County officials each year, year after year after year, promise that soon, soon, soon all the reports and resolutions that supervisors will consider will be posted in advance. Still, they aren’t. Meeting audio now is streamed, but without the documents being discussed, they can be really hard to follow. Same with the County Board meetings themselves.

It’s hard to believe the County Board show will be anything more than big spin: “We won’t provide you with the data, but we’ll tell you what it means.”

The deal is to be considered by the County Board’s Economic and Community Development Committee during its March 9 meeting, scheduled at 9 a.m. in room 201-B of the courthouse.

Building an separate UWM engineering school when the research park already exists could create “two taxpayer-subsidized placed fighting over the same piece of meat,” he said. It might make more sense for the school to operate as part of the research park, which includes significant county involvement and land control, he said.

“Why are the taxpayers going to pay to put us in a bad competitive situation?” he said.

Weishan also said the proposed buyer of the property is a private foundation, not UWM itself, a public entity.  He said he wanted to know more about how the foundation would work with the county.

“If I have a problem with a real estate foundation, I don’t know what course of action I can take,” he said.

County Supervisor John Weishan is skeptical of the plan to issue $400 million in county pension obligation bonds. The county’s proposal is to issue the bonds at 6% and invest the proceeds to get an 8% return. That’s all fine and dandy as long as the county can get an 8% return, but the market hasn’t been kind to investors lately and yesterday fell to a 12-year low. Yes, the market will rise again some day, but when? And what risks should the county take until then?

Weishan’s concern is not only risk, but the county’s plan for the bonds — or more accurately, it’s lack of a plan. If a 95% funded plan is the goal, he said, “this isn’t going to do it.”

In addition, experts on this topic advise that “you have to make a commitment that you’re not going to allow another unfunded liability to develop,” he said. Can the county, with all its huge fiscal problems, actually do that?

Weishan believes that one reason the bond issuance looks so attractive right now is that the timing of the deal and the influx of bond funds, could allow the county to skip a pension payment next year — a payment, according to the JS, that could be as much as $80 million. That one-year break would give the county the illusion of a little bit of financial stability, which County Executive Scott Walker likely would appreciate as he runs for governor.

The proposal to include conservancy land is bound to infuriate environmental organizations and those who bargained in good faith to preserve the property for the public as a natural area.

“The negotiating team feels they are close to a final agreement and that a final proposed agreement will be available for public and county board review possibly by March or April for consideration in the April cycle,” DeBruin wrote in a memo obtained by Milwaukee Rising through other sources.

The land to be obtained by the college includes, DeBruin said:

• 51.6 acres in the county grounds development zone, inclusing the historic Eschweiler buildings and a grave of trees used by monarch butterflies that are prevalent on the grounds.
• About 6.6 acres that include the site of the Parks Department Administration building and surrounding parking land; and
• the conservancy land.

Another 17 or so acres between the development zone and US 45 would be set aside for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, which is planning to reconstruct and possibly expand the Zoo Interchange and surrounding freeway segments.

“The total amount of acreage set up for sale is 88-89 acres,” DeBruin said. “This footprint is much larger than the original 67 acres publicly set aside by county representatives, myself included, for the development zone. Proponents for the expanded footprint, including the County Executive, Sup. (Jim “Luigi”) Schmitt, and most of the county board, say the added land is necessary due to the state’s widening of the freeway.”

Proponents also argue that encroachment onto conservancy land will be limited to recreational use and for and storm water runoff, she said.

Because neither the WisDOT land nor the conservancy land would be building sites, “the total amount of land available for actual development shrinks significantly. It is likely tha the developed land will be densely developed as a result,” DeBruin said.

The development zone property to be sold includes a grove of trees used by the butterflies, and the deal is to include a UWM agreement not to disturb the trees, she said.  “Whether this is sufficient for the butterflies is unclear since we don’t have the final language or final sign-off  by naturalists,” DeBruin wrote.

The Parks Department also would be able to stay in its current headquarters as long as it wants to, she said.

“The 17 acres set aside for WisDOT may be eventually used by the state for the expansion of I-45 to eight lanes north and south,” DeBruin wrote. “The land could be used for storm water run off areas, relocation of Swan Boulevard and freeway.”

In addition, she said, “How well the Eschweiler buildings will be maintained and their ultimate use could be controversial.”

The City of Wauwatosa ultimately contols zoning of the property.

“The County’s amount of control could vary significantly based on how much or how little control the county wants,” DeBruin wrote. “At present, the negotiators are interested in the county keeping approval rights for any roadway changes for Swan Boulevard or Watertown Plank. The university would have substantial control of the land both in terms of development and re-sale; Milwaukee County’s control would be very limited.”

DeBruin said most of the issues between the parties are resolved. “The outstanding issue is price — how to establish a fair maket value for the land involved,” she said. “Both sides have had appraisals done — the primary differences between the appraisals are estimates of how much of the land will actually be developed.”

March 2 update — The Business Journal reports that the sales price will be about $11.8 million.

And God knows what the County Board was thinking when it took the messed-up House of Correction and gave it to Clarke to run. As bad as the previous House administration may have been, Clarke is bound to make matters worse. The man is a disaster.

Now comes the news that Clarke and team are refusing to release the autopsy report on Marshall Wilburn, a homeless man with tuberculosis who died in the Houe, for totally specious reasons. The death has not been ruled one of natural causes, according to Clarke spokeswoman Kim Brooks. Wilburn also may have died of something else, she said.

So what if either of those things were true? Let’s say Wilburn was murdered — do the investigators at the Sheriff’s Department think that making that information public will give secret information to the murderer that he (or she) can use to his advantage? And if Wilburn died of a heart attack instead of TB — why on earth wouldn’t you just say so?

Let’s hear it for Mayor Tom Barrett, who says the he will seek legal action to go after the records if Clarke doesn’t cough them up.

Meanwhile, there are 300 people wondering about their health who could potentially be reassured by a little information that Clarke doesn’t want to give them.

It is really surprising someone as small-minded as Clarke could have a brain cramp this large — it seems to defy the laws of nature.

Wilburn was sent to to the Housel to ensure he took his medication because he had contagious TB. The JS today  reported that he was in his isolation cell when he died, so at least he was not in the general population. He apparently required assistance with many tasks, though, like getting his own food. He had enough contact with enough people to require that 300(!) of them be kept under at least minimal medical observation. Isolating individuals with tuberculosis is not unusual and their are safety precautions that can be taken to minimize the risk to workers. Here’s a piece related to nursing precautions, but surely the basic precautions discussed in it should have been in place at the House.

But I’ll just betcha they weren’t.

Will Clarke skate again?

More here.

The department uses the fund to pay for small or mid-size unexpected repairs, said County Supervisor Lynne DeBruin, who represents Story Hill and other portions of the city’s west side on the County Board.

A good size for that budget is $400,000 to $500,000, though it has varied over the years.

“Every year you go on with less and less in there you end up with more of those (large repair) issues,” she said.

Cutting the budget by $665,500 would be a problem even if the Parks Department gets a generous capital budget.

“You can’t capitalize redoing a single window,” she said. There also are legal restrictions on using capital budgets for maintenance, she said. “You just can’t flip that money back and forth,” she said.

The requested maintenance budget would be a “true impact,” she said. “There’s still a hole and it’s not getting fixed.”

Conditions in the parks have been deteriorating for years as the
Parks Department budgets have been squeezed. This picture was taken
last week in a restroom along the Menomonee River Parkway.

The Parks Department’s request also includes:

• Closing the Martin Luther King and Kosciuszko Community Centers, which would save $735,000.
• Eliminating 50 park worker positions for salary savings of $2 million, and adding about $1 million in seasonal labor.
• Creating a Security, Safety and Training Section to oversee the Park Ranger program and coordinate with the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department, municipal police departments and internal staff. This section also would manage training.
• A proposal to contract out the parking concession at O’Donnell Park. “Based on similar parking structures in the area and on information provided by the Department ofAdministrative Services, this proposal could provide the Department approximately $200,000 in additional revenues that are built into the base budget,” according to the request.
• Additional proposals to privatize some golf course concession stands and to find businesses, such as day care centers, that may want to operate in Parks Department facilities.
• 10 new dog parks across the county. The sites of the dog parks are not identified.

County officials justified the high rates, in part, because the money would be used to support the fish hatchery at the House.

Fast forward a couple years the House of Correction is proposing to keep the money and kill the fish hatchery. It’s not just the telephone revenue the House wants to use — a small share of electronic surveillance and Huber fees charged to inmates promised to the fish hatchery in 2006 would be moved to support the general House operations. The total the House could divert by closing the fish hatchery is about $188,000.

The House, in another proposed budget cut, is proposing to end a contract for Job Development and Job Readiness with Wisconsin Community Services. The move would save $242,217.

And with less for the inmates to do, the House also is proposing in its 2009 budget request to crowd more of them into fewer dorms to save money. From the budget request:

The House of Correction anticipates operating with five dorms closed for the entire year in 2009 and one additional dorm closed for the final three months of the year when the population has historically declined. The 2008 Adopted Budget anticipated operating with two dorms closed. The closing of three additional dorms in 2009 results in savings of $1,017,965 and is due to the following:

o Increasing the number of beds in dorms from 60 to 64 where possible
o Placing any inmate within one month of release onto home detention
o A 9% decline in bookings over 2007 levels

Finally, in an era of significant food price inflation, the House of Correction is project a decline in per-inmate meal costs from the current level of $1.17.

The House of Correction has been plagued by bad management and operated by an exhausted staff.  A federal report released earlier this year said that ”the House of Correction is a seriously troubled institution” with a “bad history and a negative, counter-productive organizational culture.”

The budget does not address those findings or include funding to address them.

County Executive Scott Walker presents his 2009 proposed budget next month.

Mercer Human Resource Consulting Inc. filed a motion seeking dismissal of the case in June, arguing that “there is no evidence demonstrating that any County Board members relied on Mercer’s advice, much less a majority. Instead, the Plaintiffs’ case is an after-the-fact fabrication in an attempt to scapegoat Mercer and to shift blame away from the mistakes of County personnel like (former Director of Human Resources Gary) Dobbert and the County Board’s own lack of oversight in connection with the enactment of the 2001-2004 Wage and Benefit Package.”

In response, the county filed a series of affidavits from former members of the Pension Study Committee stating that they did indeed rely on Mercer’s advice. Those affidavits, Mercer argued in a new filing, directly contradict what the officials first said.

Borkowski, in his latest affidavit, according to Mercer, stated that “I received a package of information regarding the pension benefit enhancement package before the meeting. That packet . . . contained analysis by the actuaries from Mercer.”

In his earlier testimony, though, according to Mercer, Borkowski stated he  “never saw” Mercer’s October 3, 2000 letter. He testified that the “first time I’m seeing” the letter was during his 2003 deposition.He “did not see $7.6 million” referenced in Mercer’s October 3, 2000 letter, which was Mercer’s estimate for the cost of the pension package without including the BackDROP. Borkowski “would remember if I saw a $7 million price tag on something.”

In Borkowski’s new affidavit, according to Mercer, the supervisor said he voted in favor because “I was convinced by staff prior to the meeting and by Mercer actuaries at the Pension Study Commission meeting that the changes proposed were either cost neutral, meaning that they could be made with no increase in tax levy, or very affordable, meaning that they could be made with an insignificant tax levy increase. I relied upon those Mercer representations to cast my vote.”

Borkowski’s earlier testimony, according to Mercer, indicated that the only information Borkowski considered was the fiscal note, which did not include any reference to the BackDROP. He testified that “as far as county government is concerned, my costing out is the fiscal note” and “for me . . . the fiscal note on the resolution is what salted my vote.”

DeBruin’s affidavits similarly contradicted themselves, Mercer said.

In her new affidavit, Mercer said, DeBruin maintained she “received and reviewed” Mercer’s October 3, 2000 letter before the October 27, 2000 PSC meeting. She “reviewed that material” and “assumed it to be correct.”

In her previous affidavit, according to Mercer, DeBruin said she did not see Mercer’s October 3, 2000 letter until “after the scandal broke, sometime after.” In response to the question “you don’t recall seeing it at or about the time it was authored?” DeBruin responded “Oh, absolutely not.”

DeBruin, according to Mercer, said in her recent affidavit that if Mercer had told her “they had not done a study to analyze either the actuarial effect or cost implications of the backDROP,” DeBruin would have “raised red flags to County officials, including moving that the item be laid over so that a full actuarial study could be completed on the benefit and that the matter be referred to the Finance Committee for study of financial impact.”

In her earlier testimony, according to Mercer, DeBruin said that Dobbert told her an actuarial study had not been done prior to enactment of the BackDROP for the majority of the unions. “He told me it could not be done. He specifically said, you cannot do an actuarial report on the impact of the pension changes until after it’s adopted. That’s one of the reasons I voted against the package.”

Affidavits by Pension Study Committee members Derek Kenner and James McClutchy are contradictory as well, Mercer argues.  The county has not yet responded to Mercer’s allegations that they are “sham” documents.