Posts Tagged ‘Scott Walker’

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County pension obligation bonds: too risky?

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

The county’s pension obligation bond work group is holding an informational session today (at 9:30 a.m. in room 203-R of the courthouse).  It would be fun to attend just to see if there is a quorum of any County Board committee and then to ask if the meeting has been noticed as a potential County Board committee meeting. It would also be interesting, if there is not a quorum of any committee, to wonder why the hell not and why there is so little interest on the part of supervisors.

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.

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Posted in County Board, Milwaukee County, News, Scott Walker | 4 Comments »

Walker can’t be serious, can he?

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Didn’t anyone provide County Executive Scott Walker with a copy of the federal stimulus legislation? Is he pretending to be totally unfamiliar with it? Or is he really such a dolt he hasn’t bothered to become at all informed about what is in it?

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.

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Posted in Commentary, Milwaukee County, Scott Walker | 2 Comments »

Scott Walker, pretzel man

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

County Executive Scott Walker is twisting himself all around trying to get away from his own stupid statements regarding the federal stimulus package.

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.

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Posted in Commentary, Milwaukee County, Scott Walker | 2 Comments »

Has Walker totally lost his mind??

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

County Executive Scott Walker is not going to take any stimulus money because tax cuts are the only stimulus he likes, according to the JS.

Wow. That’s dumb. County facilities and even the county workforce are in shambles because of Walker’s policies.  Walker has been a joke of an administrator; now he is proving himself to be a buffoon. Thank goodness the major workforce training entity was moved from the county to the city because surely Walker would rather see an even more obscenely astronomical unemployment rate in the central city than accept stimulus money.

There are a lot of questions about what the stimulus package will contain and whether it will do any good. Here’s hoping that congress critters actually know what they are voting on this time around before they approve it. But to simply reject, in advance, any funding from the package is just plain crazy stupid.

Questions:

Can the County Board override Walker’s bone-headed stance?

If he runs for governor and due to some obscene twist of fate actually is elected, will Walker refuse stimulus money for the entire state?

Will he reject any stimulus money that flows through the state to the county?

Walker says he won’t rule out stimulus money for local infrastructure projects (a rather large exception to his general stance). So stimulus money used to fund WisDOT’s freeway expansion concrete-a-thon might be OK, but stimulus money meant to pay for transit operating costs somehow would not be OK.  Isn’t much of transit funding on the local property tax? So Walker would rather maintain a higher property tax burden for county residents than take stimulus money? Is he nuts?

Will he refuse to contract with private agencies that receive stimulus money either directly or through other levels of government?

Shouldn’t Walker, to be ideologically consistent, reject all state and federal funding, since all that funding requires some sort of taxes to be levied (and increased) and all that funding has the indirect effect of stimulating the economy and creating jobs?

Hasn’t he spent a lot of time complaining that the state does not give the county enough money?

Who the heck is advising him on this stuff?

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Posted in Commentary, Milwaukee County | 8 Comments »

Of transit, safety, cities and SEWRPC

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

Congratulations to the Regional Transit Authority for doing what’s needed and recommending a 0.5% sales tax to fund transit in Milwaukee, Kenosha and eastern Racine counties. Scott Walker’s representative, George Torres, cast the lone vote against the proposal, demonstrating again that the Milwaukee County executive’s office is clueless about the needs of anything beyond Scott Walkers right-wing-based political aspirations.

The RTA also recommended giving municipalities the power to levy a 0.15% sales tax to fund public safety services, but that recommendation — a Milwaukee appeasement — is so far beyond the RTA’s charge that it may well die before it gets very far. Mayor Tom Barrett really wants to get public safety services off the property tax. While that is a worthy goal, public safety funding is not really any of the RTA’s business. 

The RTA also voted to recommend maintaining its current board structure, with one member each named by the Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha county executives and mayors and the governor. While it’s politically expedient not to change the structure, why should Racine County get a full vote when half of it is missing in action and revenue contribution? If all of Milwaukee County were to drop out except Shorewood, would the county get a full vote?

Finally, the RTA should hire its own staff sooner, rather than later. It now is staffed by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, which has repeatedly broken faith with Milwaukee residents and cannot be trusted to serve them well in any significant (or even minor) capacity.

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Posted in Commentary, SEWRPC, Transit | No Comments »

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