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 bill says what the stimulus money can be used for. Across-the-board tax cuts, such as Walker proposed yesterday, isn’t among the approved purposes.

Tax cuts also don’t fix the county roads that are falling apart, or the huge deferred maintenance backlog that has only grown worse since Walker took the helm.

It’s a shame that when the country, county and their citizens are bleeding, Walker is out there pandering to his ever-narrower base instead of working for the broadest common good.

Earlier this week he said he wasn’t interested in federal stimulus money except when it might magically be delivered, without his having to ask for it, for infrastructure projects.

In today’s JS he says he might be interested in federal stimulus money if it is for “programs where we have legitimate needs,” but only on certain conditions: the funding not require any unusual local match; that it not go for a service that would require county taxpayers to pick up the bill in the future; and that it not have hidden operating expenses.

He won’t help prepare a list of projects that could use the funding, though. That would be beneath him. Walker, then, will graciously take the cash that could help the county climb out of the deep hole he’s dug for it, but he will only take the money under certain conditions, and he won’t help identify the projects that meet those conditions.

What a doofus.

More here.

Bad idea.

The proposal, reported today in the JS, would require more work-release inmates to be held at the House of Correction in Franklin, according to Sheriff’s Inspector Kevin Carr,  That means they would either lose their work-release privileges or be housed where transit isn’t exactly plentiful, which would amount to pretty much the same thing as losing their work release privileges.

While the move could put the health and well-being of inmates at risk, it would benefit the one person County Executive Scott Walker cares about most: Scott Walker. The Community Correctional Center is a pit. Running it is a losing proposition. Simply running a work release program carries the risk that participants will do something bad while they are in the community, with great political consequences for any elected official standing nearby.

So why not dump the whole, entire steaming mess on some other independently elected official? Why not dump in on the sheriff?

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.

“The bad news is that Mr. Piltch’s doctor from the Harvard Medical School faculty has informed Mr. Piltch that his cancer condition is potentially life-threatening, prompting Mr. Piltch to withdraw as an expert in this case,” the county said in document filed Wednesday in federal court. It continued:

Mr. Piltch confidentially told the Plaintiffs he was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. Until he withdrew, Mr. Piltch told the Plaintiffs he would stay in the case and testify at trial so long as his health permitted. Unfortunately, Mr. Piltch’s health worsened to the point where he could not proceed. The County and the Pension System regret to report this situation, as Mr. Piltch’s testimony would have aided the jury’s understanding of Mercer’s failings in its communications with Milwaukee County and the Employee Retirement System.

Piltch’s doctor wrote a note saying that Piltch has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but did not identify the variety of the cancer. He also did not say whether Piltch currently was under treatment for the disease. The doctor, Kenneth Falchuk, did say that Piltch is being treated for chronic viral illness and cardiac disease.

The county is suing Mercer Human Resource Consulting Inc., a former pension adviser, for its role in creating hugely generous benefits that led to the pension scandal that ousted County Executive Tom Ament and several supervisors from office.

Mercer portrayed Piltch as a key county witness; the county denied that. Argued the county:

Mr. Piltch’s withdrawal does not diminish Plaintiffs’ ability to successfully try this case. Contrary to Mercer’s assertion that Mr. Piltch was “the key actuarial expert hired by the Plaintiffs”, the Plaintiffs key actuarial experts are now, and have always been, Kim Nicholl and Gene Kalwarski, both of whom submitted reports concerning Mercer’s failure to act as a reasonable actuary, calculated the Plaintiffs’ damages, and will testify at trial to the gross deficiencies in Mercer’s actuarial work and the harm it caused the Plaintiff.

Besides the ethical issue of stripping fringe benefits from people and the practical issue of a critical staffing shortage for much of the year if full-time staff is replaced with seasonals, there is the all-important issue of competence.

Seasonal staff knows much less than seasoned, full-time staff members do. Our little Story Hill neighborhood park gets maintained (or not) by a goodly number of seasonals. It’s not pretty watching these folks cut down the flowers they mistake for weeds. And whether it is through sheer incompetence, or just a matter of being very rushed because there isn’t enough staff to do everything that needs to be done, it’s becoming painfully clear that some parks workers are doing damage to the young trees that have had such a hard time staying alive in that park. (Click on the pictures for larger images.)

Who is the mad tree mangler?  It’s the parks worker, in the park, with the huge, improperly operated lawn mower.

The Parks Department need more people who know what they are doing, not more people just rushing to get it done.

Piltch has claimed he worked for the spy agency during and after his college years. Piltch said he received actuarial training at the CIA, but declined to show evidence of that employment on national security grounds.

The defendant in the case, Mercer Human Resource Consulting Inc., now wants US District Judge Charles Clevert to order Piltch to authorize the release of Social Security records that would show his actual employment history. Piltch has been paid $200,000 by the county for his work in the suit, according to Mercer.

Mercer, in court documents, said it specifically asked the CIA if it really had no documents regarding Piltch, or if it was withholding documents.

Mercer subpoenaed the CIA for Piltch’s employment records and evidence that he had taken actuarial examinations during his tenure at the agency. The response from the CIA has only served to heighten Mercer’s concerns about Piltch’s credentials and veracity.

The CIA first responded to Mercer’s subpoena via letter dated May 2, 2008, raising certain general objections. However, the CIA also stated that it had searched for and was unable to locate “any documents responsive to section A of your request for documents,” which had requested documents specific to Mr. Piltch.

On May 7, 2008, Mercer called the CIA for clarification. The CIA confirmed that it had searched for documents and had been unable to locate anything verifying Mr. Piltch’s sworn testimony that he had taken actuarial examinations while employed by the CIA. More significantly, the CIA also stated that it regularly maintains employment records, that it had searched these records, and that it had no record whatsoever that Mr. Piltch had ever been employed by the CIA. The CIA stated further that it was not withholding any documents relating to Mr. Piltch on the basis of any objection, but rather that no such documents existed within its files.

Mercer argued that Piltch should be compelled to turn over his employment records.

With regard to Piltch’s dubious claim that he obtained his actuarial training while employed at the CIA, Mercer has done precisely what the Court asked us to do, subpoenaing the CIA for his employment records. The CIA has now reported that it has no such documents, apparently because Piltch never even worked at the CIA. Unless the SSA (Social Security Administration) produces contrary evidence, the only reasonable conclusion is that Piltch perjured himself at least three times: in his sworn deposition, in his sworn Declaration, and in his testimony in open court on April 14th….Even the County should want to know whether its expert witness has testified falsely about his credentials. Piltch has charged well over $200,000 for his expert work in this litigation, and Piltch and his firm have been hired by the County on approximately seven additional projects.  Certainly the County should want to confirm or refute his testimony before trial.