Category Archives: County Board

Clarke’s minions knowingly endanger staff, public

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Sheriff David Clarke got virtually a free ride from the media when conditions in the county jail — which he runs — were deemed so bad that the county was held in contempt of court.

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?

Parks Department budget cut slashes maintenance funding

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The Parks Department would slash its major maintenance funding by 72%, from $918,000 to $252,500, under the department’s budget request for 2009.

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.

House seeks to close fish hatchery, end job training pact

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Back in 2006, the county increased by as much as 68% the price inmates at the House of Correction and County Jail must pay to make collect phone calls from their places of incarceration. The rates rose to $5.55 per 15 minute collect call, up from $3.30. The rate remained at $3.30 for inmates who use debit cards to make their calls.

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.

More from Mercer: firm claims “sham” affidavits by county

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Affidavits by key county witnesses, including Supervisors Lynne DeBruin and Mark Borkowski, are “sham” documents that directly contradict earlier statements by the same people, according to the defendant in the county’s federal court pension lawsuit.

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.