Monday, July 21, 2008

Coggs Is Spinning Her Wheels

Another thing I missed while the old computer was acting up, was Milwaukee County Board Supervisor Elizabeth Coggs coming out with the plan of giving members of the County Board a $300 per month travel allowance.

That is a very bad idea that couldn't come at a more ridiculous time. Even when one takes into consideration that the federal mileage reimbursement rate was increased to 58.5 cents per mile, effective July 1, that would mean that each Supervisor would be traveling 513 miles per month. Considering most of their work is done at the courthouse, I have a hard time imagining how each of them would be putting on that many miles in a month.

If Supervisor Coggs feels strongly enough that they deserve reimbursement for mileage, I would suggest that they do as any other county employee would have to do. Itemize each trip with destinations, purpose of the trip and the number of miles. Nor does travel from home to work or from work to home count. Then, if there is any discrepancies or suspicious entries, they can try to justify that trip, or have it taken off their reimbursement.

7 comments:

  1. Maybe all citizens should get a travel stipend? Or at least, all travel-related deities.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yea this is really a bad proposal. Just recently the Common Council went through the trouble of paying Mcgee his transportation stipend while he sat in jail. And as we are trying to encourage encourage mass transit use to basically subsidize auto use even further is just bad policy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Instead of a travel allowance lets just give them a bus pass. This is the COUNTY bus system that the supervisors have oversight of.

    In today's economic times any politician who suggestss more for themselves should never be re-elected. Let's be real though this is the county that has no clue how to make goverment accountable.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cap, are you really against paying a public servant more money?

    There's hope for you, yet!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yeah, this is a bad idea on many levels, and her justification is absolutely horrible.

    Why should County supervisors get what would be the equivalent of a 7% pay raise over the roughly $50,000 a year they already make?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Uhhhnnnhhh...Sam: County Supervisors ALREADY have free-bus-ride passes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You're right dad, but the problem is there is only one bus left, and it doesn't go into her district.

    Elliot, do I come to your site and pick on you? Oh, wait, don't answer that. :)

    ReplyDelete