Boss Abele Starts Early With Budget Games

Boss Abele is getting an early start in kicking off his budget shenanigans this year.

First he feeds the local corporate media a line of how great his budget is, raising the amount going to the Sheriff's Office (gee, you mean all those cuts which endangered public safety was just a political stunt? Whodathunk that?) and to the mental health system (gotta feed them  capital vultures!).  There was, however, no mention of how he was going to pay for his largess by taking yet even more money from county workers and retirees.  Doubling down on Scott Walker's malfeasance just isn't enough for Boss Abele!

It now appears that Abele's budget is full of Fudged numbers again because now he is trying to avoid presenting the budget publicly:

Abele was supposed to appear before the County Board at its meeting on Thursday to present his $1.3 billion spending plan for next year.

As usual, the invitation to address the board came from County Board Chairwoman Marina Dimitrijevic. Abele accepted.

But last week his office sent an email saying some "minor changes" were needed to the timeline.

While he "looks forward to speaking to you about his budget" more time was needed "to fully crunch the numbers and double check calculations and assumptions," chief of staff Raisa Koltun wrote.

So the the final recommended budget will be released no later than Oct. 1, she wrote.

In response, Dimitrijevic on Monday called a meeting of the County Board as a committee of the whole for 9:30 a.m. Oct. 1 so that Abele can present his final proposed budget.

Abele's spokesman, Brendan Conway, said initially that his boss was planning to present an overview of his budget on Thursday and didn't know about the date change.

Dimitrijevic wrote to Abele on Monday afternoon issuing a new invitation to appear on Oct. 1 "to preserve the long-standing tradition of the Executive presenting the annual budget for Milwaukee County at a formal meeting of the Board."

"We look forward to receiving your full budget message next week," she wrote.

But Conway said that date doesn't work for Abele. He has a long-standing invitation to speak at the opening of the new Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, he said. So maybe another time can be found, he said.

Once again, we see the arrogance and cowardice of Abele, the boy prince, who is afraid to face the public and even more afraid of his own employees yet treats both with utter disdain.

This game-playing with the budget is unacceptable.  Abele has had months to prepare his proposed budget.  It would not be surprising if this delay is intentional to prevent the county board from having adequate time to find and resolve all of the problems with the budget, whether they were intentional or not.