Walker's Furlough Campaign Stunt To Stick It To Taxpayers. Again.

In each of the Milwaukee County budgets for 2010 and 2011, then County Executive Scott Walker had put in nearly $20 million worth of concessions from the AFSCME and the other unions.

The problem was that he never sat down at the bargaining table to negotiate those concession.  So even if the unions were willing to make those concessions, they were never given the chance.  Walker wanted to use this as a campaign talking point as he was running for governor.  Walker had made the unions the boogeyman for his base to hate and fear and help carry him to being elected.

To make a long story short, the furloughs were taken to arbitration and found to be illegal.  The County took this finding to court to have it overturned, but each time their claims were denied.

Earlier this year, after racking up $829,000 in interest, the county finally decided to pay the workers the money due to them for the 2010 furloughs.  The bill for those day came to $4.5 million.

But that left the 2011 furlough days to yet be paid.  The interest for these days were accruing at about $10,000 a month.

After dragging their feet for five more months, the County Board has voted 15-3 to pay off the 2011 furlough days:

Approved, 15-3, a $1.2 million payment to employees for unpaid furloughs in 2011 that were found excessive by the state Employment Relations Commission. The payouts would average $1,100 each to 897 employees. The county previously paid $4.5 million to settle a similar claim for 2010 furloughs.

Someone really needs to ask Supervisors Joe Sanfelippo, Steve Taylor and Patricia Jursik why they voted to waste more taxpayer dollars by delaying the payout and whether they would have been willing to fund the interest that was accrued.

Even after this payment is made, presuming that Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele signs off on it, there is still one more bill coming due.

Because the work did not subside even though workers hours did, the county had to approve overtime to make sure the work got done (which cut deeply into any savings Walker claimed to make from the furloughs).  But due to new county rules, any work put in during the week of a furlough was paid as straight time instead of time and a half.  The county will owe these workers that did put in overtime the balance due to them since they were wrongly forced off the job.

As with the backdrop, this is something that might be negotiated down, except that Abele won't come to the negotiating table as he should.  So much for his claims of being interested in saving money or wanting more efficiency.

I am still of the opinion that the county could and should seek recompense from Scott Walker and his campaign since the damage done to the county was the result of one of his campaign stunts.  Likewise, the county could and should sue Walker and his campaign for all the hours that Walker and his staff spent doing campaign related activities during work hours as shown in the Walkergate investigation and subsequent trials.

But don't hold your breath for this.  Abele often boasts of his good "working relationship" with Walker and his staff.

Abele should be much more careful of the company he keeps.  But then again, Abele and Walker do seem so much alike already...

And Now For The Rest Of The Furlough Story

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that the illegal furloughs Scott Walker unilaterally imposed on Milwaukee County employees has a tab of $4.5 million. But there are some serious omissions and inaccuracies in their report.

You can find the full story, including the much higher price tag as well as the name of the culprits, at Milwaukee County First.

The fact that the newspaper chose to write the story as they have, as well as the story itself, raises a number of immediate questions in my mind:

1. Why did the newspaper omit the fact that Walker's original claim of a budget crisis in 2009 was found to be a lie?
2. Why did the newspaper omit the fact that the second budget crisis in 2010 was self-imposed?
3. Why did the newspaper omit the fact that the ruling by WERC was based on bad faith bargaining?
4. What if Abele hadn't stalled on the payout until after the recall election? 
5. Would that have affected the outcome of the election?
6. Why did the newspaper omit the name of Supervisor Joe Sanfelippo, who cost the taxpayers nearly $20 million in lost savings when the unions offered to forgive more than half of the payout as well as give concessions on health care and pension costs?  Related: Does the omission of Sanfelippo's name have to do with the fact that Sanfelippo, a teahadist, is running for the state assembly?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Tea Party Heroes

I've written a few times about the illegal furlough days that Scott Walker foisted upon Milwaukee County employees during his last years as county executive.

In a nutshell, Walker put a $20 million hole in the middle of his budgets, and would claim that he would have it covered by concessions by the unions, even though he refused to sit down at the negotiations table to even ask for said concessions, much less get them. In order to maintain the guise that he had crafted a balanced budget, Walker decided to impose furlough days on the workers, even though he knew that was in violation of an arbitration ruling. Some workers, such as yours truly, had to take a full 26 furlough days in 2010. That's one every two weeks.

The unions, of course, filed a complaint about the illegal furlough days, and prevailed. And the unions prevailed at every occasion and at every level the county tried to fight it.

After long last, the county recognized that they were going to have to take their lumps and pay the workers for the money that was illegally taken from them.

On Thursday, the County Board voted, for the second time, to pay back the workers for the number of hours they were illegally docked in 2010. On top of the back pay, the county also has to pay a 12% interest, compounded daily. They had approved the payment in June, but thanks to some poison pill language inserted by Supervisor Pat Jursik, they had to redo it in July.

Technically speaking, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did report on the vote on Thursday.  However, as one who is paying attention might expect, they buried the story at the bottom of a column that was focused on another issue. And as the gentle reader might also expect, they were inaccurate in their reporting.

Here is what they wrote:

On other matters Thursday, the board:

Authorized payment of $4.1 million to reimburse 1,800 county employees for unpaid furlough days in 2010 found illegal by an arbitrator, a decision upheld in court. The figure includes $3.5 million in lost wages, plus $620,000 in interest costs. The furloughs were ordered by then-County Executive Scott Walker as an emergency budget measure. The workers, members of District Council 48 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, also are claiming about $1 million for 2011 furlough days, but county lawyers are reviewing the issue to determine whether the court ruling applies.

Now, the $4.1 million might be a smidgen below the actual cost. The county provided the breakdown of the payment to the unions, and there's already been a number of calculations that have been found to be faulty, mostly due to using inaccurate wage amounts. But for the sake of discussion, we will o with these numbers.

The bulk of the money, the $3.5 million is the responsibility of Scott Walker. What the paper doesn't tell its readers is that there was no fiscal emergency, as that that the county had a surplus that year, meaning that they could have foregone the furloughs and still came out ahead. And many workers, again, such as myself, were able to dodge the financial bite of the furloughs by getting overtime to make up on the work lost because of the furloughs.

Now thanks to Scott Walker, Milwaukee County employees will be getting paid the equivalent of four weeks of pay, even though they didn't have to put in the time. It's like getting four weeks of vacation pay, but with the pay deferred for a couple of years, and gaining interest much higher than offered by any bank.

That's a mighty costly way of saving taxpayers money, isn't it?

But lets not forget the more than $600,000 in interest that was added to the county's tab.

The blame for that extra payout charged to the Milwaukee County taxpayers falls on Supervisors Pat Jursik and Joe Sanfelippo.

Jursik can be credited for wasting $35,000, the amount of interest accrued each and every month the county did not pay its debt, because of her poison pill language she had inserted the first time the county tried to pay the workers. The Board had to wait another month to correct her attempt to sabotage the payment.

The rest of the interest accrued, nearly half a million dollars worth, can be directly attributed to Sanfelippo, a teahadist who thinks he should be sent to Madison this fall.

Ironically, one of the reasons Sanfelippo thinks he should be a state assemblyman is this:

Streamline governments at all levels and increase accountability to taxpayers by making sure programs and services are achieving good results not just good intentions.

What an interesting point for Sanfelippo to make.

Being the good teahadist that he is, he wants to save money for the taxpayers by not avoiding doing anything which might be construed as being good for the workers.

Joe Sanfelippo

But when Sanfelippo, who was Chairman of the Personnel Committee at the time, refused to accept repeated contract offers from the unions, each time claiming the union's concessions was enough. Keep in mind that the union's last ditch effort to reach a contract last year included all of the contributions towards health care and pension costs that the county was seeking. It also included giving up half of the furlough money, and taking part of what the payback in the form of vacation time spread out.

Sanfelippo refused to even look at the union's offer and dismissed it out of hand. By doing so, he set the county on a course in which it accrued more than a half a million dollars in interest, gave up more than $2 million in concessions on furloughs and gave up even more millions of dollars in lost savings.

In other words, as egregious as Walker's wasting taxpayer money, for no other reason than to gain a political talking point, was, Sanfelippo was able to single handedly squander three to four times as much taxpayer money for no other reason that a teahadist's "good intentions."

Sanfelippo then went to the press and cried that the county didn't have the money to pay the bill he racked up. This was just another hypocritical stunt by Sanfelippo. Even when it was shown that the county had more than enough cash, he still voted against paying their debt off and would rather accrue more cost for the taxpayers.

But then again, we already know that Sanfelippo has no qualms of sticking it to the taxpayers, despite his teahadists chanting:

In the most recent issue of Milwaukee Magazine, there is an investigative report by Marie Rohde that shows that Sanfelippo’s taxi cab company, along with all sorts of unethical treatment of his drivers, made $1.2 million from a contract with the county. It should be noted that it was only in the 2012 budget adoption hearing that Sanfelippo abstained from voting on these contracts, and for a while was even the chair of the committee that made these policy decisions.

Sanfelippo's disregard for the working class in favor of the 1% is well documented.

The sad part is that the people that attend tea parties, listens to squawk radio or relies on Faux News for their information are so deluded that they think that people like Walker, Jursik and Sanfelippo are looking out for them. In reality, these teahadists are only looking for the next way to exploit them.

The Furlough Fiasco Follies Continue

Last month, I reported on how the Milwaukee County Board and Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele finally figured out that they weren't going to win an ongoing series of court hearing and decided to pay out the illegal furloughs that Scott Walker had imposed on county employees.  It only took them a year too!

The total bill for just the furloughs for just 2010 came to be over $4 million.  The bulk of that bill lands at the feet of Scott Walker. He used the county budget as a political tool to be manipulated to give the voters the false impression that he was a fiscal conservative.

However, the current county government also have a certain responsibility.  First for going along with Walker's illegal activity and secondly for squandering a year's worth of interest, totally about a half a million dollars, while they tried to squirm out of their responsibility.

The County Board passed the resolution to pay the workers back for 2010, leaving 2011 to be resolved at a different time when they "had the money."  (That story is a little hard to believe since Abele was just bragging about an $11.5 million surplus and that's after he pays the workers for 2010.)  Abele then signed the bill.

However, there was a catch added to the resolution before it was passed.

Supervisor Patricia Jursik added a poison pill to the resolution before it was passed.  She amended the resolution thus (CB Amendment #1):

On the Be It Resolved Clause, revise as follows:

BE IT RESOLVED, that Milwaukee County approves the payment of the award by the WERC to affected employees for 2010 furlough days and approves the dismissal of the appeal in the Court of Appeals in this matter. shall pay the 2010 furlough days awarded by the WERC to the affected employees in the above litigation, with interest, in return for a dismissal of all appeals and cross-appeals by all parties in the litigation related to 2010; and

Add the following Be It Further Resolved Clause:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that in the event the other parties to the litigation will not agree to dismissal of all appeals and cross-appeals in the litigation as set forth in the preceding paragraph, Milwaukee County shall seek permission from the court to pay the total amount of the WERC award, plus interest to the date of payment, into court until the resolution of all appeals and cross-appeals in the litigation related to 2010 and shall do so upon receipt of the court’s approval.

By adding this language, she was changing the resolution from a simple agreement to pay the workers their back pay plus interest from 2010 with 2011 to be determined later to paying them for the furloughs of 2010 only and then trying to extort the workers to give up on the 2011 furloughs, by threatening the interest they were penalized.

Needless to say, this was a deal killer and the unions got ready to take the county back to court. I'd imagine the court might be willing to add another penalty for the contempt that Jursik showed by trying to circumvent the court order.

The good news is that I have learned that some of the more honest supervisors have learned of this and are going to present  a resolution later this week to remove the poison pill language from the originally passed one so that good faith can be restored again.

I would humbly suggest to those supervisors that they also include language to pay the workers for 2011 to avoid further interest and penalties.

I would also strongly urge them to add the amendment for Supervisor Jursik to pay the last month's interest of about $35,000 out of her own pocket. I know that between her salary and her income from her private law practice that she's got enough to cover it. Then maybe, just maybe, she will start being more careful with the taxpayers money.

Robbing Peter To Pay Peter

I've covered the whole issue of Scott Walker, while Milwaukee County Executive, making use of illegal furlough days against county employees, such as myself, in order to cement his image as an anti-union, anti-worker teahadist and as a dress rehearsal for Act 10.

But now I will flesh it out a little more and give the gentle reader an update which really shows Walker's depravity.

To make a long story short, while crafting the 2010 county budget, Walker illegally installed concessions from workers for higher contributions to health care costs and to start paying twice for pension benefits.  It was repeatedly pointed out by county board members and staff that this was illegal, since he never even sat down to try to reach these concessions, much less actually achieve them.  Inexplicably, even though they knew it to be illegal, the county board went along with the illegal budget.

Before people were even recovered from their 2010 New Year's hangovers, Walker then used this artificially constructed budget hole to declare a fiscal emergency and implemented 12 furlough days for all workers except for deputies.  A few months later, he said it was not enough, and jumped it up to 26 days for some workers, including myself.  Due to his ineptness, he even ended up giving the previously spared deputies eight days of furlough.

But Walker's furloughs had unintended consequences.

One was that many county workers would have to put in overtime to make up for the work missed during their furloughs and/or to cover for coworkers who were on furlough.  Thus any savings Walker might have claimed from his attack on workers were negated by the skyrocketing amounts of overtime.  Many county workers were able to work enough overtime to make up for the lost day of pay and then some.  It was more like working a 4-40 schedule (40 hours in 4 days).

Furthermore, when the unions grieved the excessive furlough days, it was found that there wasn't really a deficit at all, or at least not one which required emergency actions.

The unions ended up taking their complaint to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC), which ruled in favor of the unions.  They said the county needed to immediately cease and desist from the implementing the illegal furlough days and to repay the workers.  To give the county incentive to address this issue sooner rather than later, WERC also ordered the county pay 12% interest, compounded daily.

Despite the high interest, the county chose to appeal the decision.  And appeal it some more.  And then one more time.

After losing in court hearing after court hearing, the county finally conceded that they will need to pay the workers back for Walker's campaign stunt.

But then came a twist to the story:

It wasn't all bad budget news for the county. Supervisors found out they had an $11.5 million surplus from 2011 and - even more surprising - county Comptroller Scott Manske had stashed away millions more in case the county lost a case over back pay.

"I'm glad you squirreled away $4.1 million, but there should have been some disclosure of it," said Supervisor Theo Lipscomb.

Manske said he quietly accounted for the payment, informing his bosses but making no public statement because the county hadn't yet decided whether to appeal an arbitrator's ruling, upheld in circuit court. The ruling said the county had to pay workers $4.1 million for furlough days illegally imposed as an emergency measure in 2010 by then-County Executive Scott Walker.

Having suddenly found this "windfall" the Milwaukee County Board voted on Thursday to pay back the workers for the illegal furloughs from 2010.  The estimated cost is over $4 million.  Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele has already issued a statement saying that he believes this should be paid out and is expected to sign it.


The only thing left is for the county comptroller to get direction from the court on what date the interest should be considered to start accruing so he can figure out the payments.  Reports say that the average payout will be $2,600 per worker, plus interest.

So all is good, right?

Wrong.

There are a few issues still at hand.  One is that this pay out is only for 2010.  Workers still had to take another 13 furlough days in 2011.  The cost of that pay out is over $1 million plus interest.  There has been mixed messages on whether the county has any intention of paying these days out.  This will probably result in yet another series of court cases adding even more cost to Walker's folly.

The other issue is that the surplus money which the county had suddenly found came from the county imposing the pay cuts allowed by Act 10 and then some.  (These pay cuts are so severe that they have made some Milwaukee County workers eligible for financial support from the government.  So much for the Republican meme that government workers are living high on the hog.)

In other words, the county is using the workers' own money to pay them back for the money which was illegally taken in 2010.  How lovely of them!

I still think they should go after the person who caused the mess they're left to clean up and sue Walker, his campaign and all of his henchmen who were campaigning on county time.  But that would require political courage, something which is very scarce in Milwaukee lately.

And to top it all off, some of the extra money that is being taken from the workers is going to pay off some of the debt that Walker racked up in order to present the misleading image of being a fiscal genius.  We get to pay for Walker's campaign many times over!  Funny, but I don't recall offering to make any donations.

And before any conservatives think that this is a good deal, remember, your taxes still went up and you're getting less bang for your buck.  On top of that, this whole sordid affair is having the same effect on a local level that Act 10 is having on the state level.  The reduced money being injected into the local economy is only serving to keep unemployment higher than it should be and causing businesses to falter.

To sum it all up, Walker's "money saving" furloughs didn't save any money, since the workers earned it all back and then some in the form of overtime.  But because of the illegality of Walker's actions, the county taxpayers accrued additional costs in the form of repeated court costs and the interest which was accumulating at a rate of about $35,000 per month.  Walker's fiscal "frugality" turns out to be more expensive than if he didn't do anything.

Meanwhile, workers were put unnecessarily into dire fiscal straits, some losing their homes and some facing bankruptcy.  The kicker is that the money was there all along. Walker just didn't want to allow the workers to have it and so he basically stole it.

Yet people bought into Walker's antics and thought that, even as they are being driven into the poor house, they were coming out ahead.  Go figure.

And for all the bellyaching the county board did about Walker's maleficent behaviors and current Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele's grandiose statements and campaign promises saying he wasn't going to be like Walker, they sure are acting a lot like him.

Expensive Austerity

While Milwaukee County Executive, Scott Walker tried to do a prototypical form of Act 10.

In 2009, Walker claimed that Milwaukee County was in the midst of a fiscal crisis and thus wanted to impose a reduced work week, where workers would lose five hours of pay each week.  Walker wanted to make this work reduction indefinite in length, claiming it necessary to fill the supposed hole in his budget.  The unions grieved this illegal decision, as they should, and won in arbitration.  It was ruled that per a previous arbitration ruling, the County could only impose 45 hours of reduced work time.  Not only that, it was discovered during the proceedings that there was actually no crisis and that there might not even have been a deficit.

While crafting his 2010 Milwaukee County Budget, Walker decided to include a money saving provision of nearly $20 million in concessions from the unions, even though he never sat down and asked the unions to make the concessions, even though he was supposed to be negotiating a new contract with the unions at the time.

Since he never came to the bargaining table much less made a proposal for the concessions, the unions were unable to reject or accept the wanted concessions.  Despite this fact, and with the aid of the corporate media, most significantly the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Walker waged a publicity war with the unions, claiming that the "greedy unions" wouldn't make the concessions he needed from them.

To make up for the hole in his illegal budget, but unable to used the reduced work week like he wanted to, Walker decided to impose furlough days on the workers.  What Walker apparently didn't understand, or just didn't care about, is that reduced work time is reduced work time, no matter what form it took.

Many workers got 12 days of furlough, while many more, including yours truly, got pinched for 26 days.  That's one every pay period or 10% of my pay being cut, not to mention the mayhem it's played with pensions, seniority and other issues, just so Walker could have a campaign talking point.  Even public safety workers, like Sheriff's deputies, weren't immune and were given eight furlough days.

To show his "fiscal conservatism" Walker illegally imposed another round of furlough days in his 2011 Milwaukee County budget as well.

The ironic thing is that any surplus Walker might have claimed from these stunts were made up in overtime to make up for all the missed work due to the furloughs and compounded by severe staffing shortages.

The unions grieved the excessive furloughs to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC).  Walker had the County stall this long enough to keep it from becoming a campaign issue.  Then, just a couple of months after he was sworn in as governor, WERC ruled in favor of the unions, stating that anything above the 45 hours was illegal.

The County has since tried to appeal this decision two more times, once back in front of WERC and once in circuit court.  Both times they came away with rulings against them.  Meanwhile, the back pay owed to the workers was accumulating interest at 12%, compounded daily.  This means that the bill was growing by about $35,000 a month.  Again, just to give Walker a campaign talking point.

On Wednesday, Corporation Counsel sent out a proposed resolution to the appropriate County Board committees, stating that their recommendation is to just pay the workers the money Walker illegally took from them.  From their report on the matter:

The decisions of the WERC and affirmed by the Circuit Court placed a limit of 45 hours on the number of annual furlough hours that could be imposed on AFSCME DC-48.  Based on the timing of the WERC decision in May 2011, an accrual of $2.0 million was made at the end of County’s 2010’s fiscal year.  The affirmation by the Circuit Court of the WERC decision in February 2012, required an additional accrual of $1.5 million in 2011 for costs associated with the furlough decision, including the accrual of interest costs, and no offset for outside revenue.  An additional accrual of $584,000 associated with employees of the Airport and the Department of Family Care were charged to those departments.   

The total accrued liability is $4.1 million for the payout of furlough hours that exceeded a 45 hour annual furlough limit as determined by the WERC.  These charges reduced the available surplus in 2010 by $2.0 million and in 2011 by $1.516 million.  The reported surplus for 2011 of $11.5 million has already been reduced by the furlough hours accrued cost of $1.5 million for 2011.

And that $4.1 million is just for the 2010 furloughs.  There is the issue of the furloughs in 2011, which jumps the bill up to over $6 million.

And who is going to pay the restitution for Walker's illegal politicking at the workers' expense?

Well, despite my semi-serious suggestion to sue Walker's campaign, Walker isn't go to part with a dime to pay restitution for his illegal activities.

And don't look at Walker's cheerleaders and apologists, like Owen Robinson or James Wigderson, to put their money where their mouths are.  Much like their hero, Walker, they like to bluster about but don't like to take responsibility for their choices.

No, it will be the taxpayers of Milwaukee County that will end up footing the bill for Walker's escapades.  It's just a shame that they can't have just the Walker supporters in Milwaukee County pay for it.  Since this is what they wanted, they should feel the full impact of their folly.

This turn of events also shows that the current Milwaukee County Executive, Chris Abele - who's now making himself look like a Democratic version of Walker by claiming to have an $11.5 million surplus, also balanced on the back of the workers - isn't any better than Walker was.  

But all of this should also make one pause to wonder about Walker's claims that the state running a surplus.  I, for one, don't believe it for a second.  But Walker is willing to bet your money that it is.

Most of all, if you take nothing else away from this story, it does show why the unions are so sorely needed.  It would have been impossible for most workers, acting on an individual basis, to try to take the legal actions necessary to protect their right.

It's no wonder why Walker and his corporate backers want to bust the unions once and for all.  The unions are the only thing keeping them from exploiting workers completely.

Milwaukee County's Furlough Debts Doubles, As Does Sanfelippo's Hypocrisy

In 2009 and 2010, Scott Walker illegally ordered Milwaukee County employees, such as yours truly, to take an excessive amount of furlough days.  He issued this order on a falsely assumed fiscal emergency, claiming that  there was a $15 million deficit when the truth was there was no deficit. In fact, that year ended up with a surplus.

Due to his lying and his illegal actions and bad faith bargaining with the unions, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) ordered Milwaukee County to make the county employees whole for the excessive amount of furlough time they were forced to take.  Not only did the county get ordered to pay all the money back, but were also ordered to pay 12% interest, compounded daily.

JSOnline is reporting that Milwaukee County, who has been appealing and appealing the decision for the last year, has lost yet another appeal.  The sickening part is that the county could have negotiated down this bill by sitting down and working out a contract with the unions.

Instead, the teahadist and corrupt Supervisor Joe Sanfelippo refused to meet with the unions.

Now he is quoted in the article, squawking that the county can't afford to pay the bill he racked up.  Funny, but he doesn't seem to think the county is in such dire straits that they can't pay his full salary even though he spends most of his time at his taxi cab company, even to the point of delaying county business so he can county his money.  Nor does he believe that the county is such dire straits that he couldn't vote for giving his cab company a fare hike from the money he collects from the county:

In the most recent issue of Milwaukee Magazine, there is an investigative report by Marie Rohde that shows that Sanfelippo’s taxi cab company, along with all sorts of unethical treatment of his drivers,  made $1.2 million from a contract with the county.  It should be noted that it was only in the 2012 budget adoption hearing that Sanfelippo abstained from voting on these contracts, and for a while was even the chair of the committee that made these policy decisions.

But to answer the hypocritical Sanfelippo, I've already gave the solution to this dilemma: Sue Walker and his campaign, since it was obviously and provably a campaign stunt.

The Solution To Milwaukee County's Furlough Problem

Milwaukee County has a big problem thanks to Scott Walker.  One that could cause real fiscal mayhem to the county.

But first, for those that haven't been following the goings on in Milwaukee County under the Walker regime, some background.  And for those that have been following, please consider it a refresher.

In 2009, from the onset of the fiscal year, then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker was claiming that the county was in a fiscal crises due to his budget.  The problem was that he was demanding a lot of concessions from county workers, but refused to sit down and negotiate said concessions with the unions.

Reports at the time calculated that Walker was squandering anywhere from a third to half a million dollars a month due to unseen savings because of his posturing.

In other words, he constructed his own artificial crisis and now was running around crying that the sky was falling.

At midyear, Walker said that the only way to resolve the supposed fiscal crisis was to put all county workers on an indefinite five-hour a week work reduction.

As one might imagine, the unions protested this and took it to arbitration, claiming Walker violated good faith bargaining and that this stunt was a violation of the contract.

The arbitrator heard the case and ruled in favor of the unions and then some.  During the hearing it came out that Walker exceeded his authority in trying to impose an indefinite reduction of pay, that he acted illegally when he made this unilateral decision, and that it was indeed in violation of previous arbitration decisions which limited the reduced work time by 45 hours.

The real kicker was when it was also revealed that Walker was lying through his teeth when he claimed there was a $15 million deficit.  His own fiscal guy, Steve Kreklow, said that it was $5 million and the County Auditor, Jerome Heer, found it to be under a million dollars.  Neither of those numbers would qualify as a crisis in a budget of more than $1.5 billion.

Unthwarted, Walker took the ruling to circuit court, where a Republican judge ruled in his favor and voided the finding of the arbitrator.  The union responded by appealing this ruling.  In a ruling written by the Honorable Ralph Adam Fine, the appellate court ruled that according to the law, the arbitrator's decision was final unless fraud could be proven and thereby voided the lower court's ruling.

During all of these court hearings, Walker devised his 2010 budget and guess what, did the same illegal thing.  This time, instead of shortened work weeks, he decided to just implement full day furloughs.

And not only did he follow the same illegal actions, he doubled down by implementing them illegally.  Besides just exceeding the allowed amount of time, he treated various employees differently.  He gave deputies eight days of furlough, some other workers like the staff at the mental health complex 12 days and others, such as myself, a full 26 days.  Sometimes, people in the same Local were getting the different treatment.

(Ironically, the money that Walker claimed would be saved by this illegal action was eaten up by having to pay other workers overtime to make up for the loss of work hours.  Some workers were able to actually come ahead on this deal, making more money than they lost due to the overtime and still getting days off.)

So the unions took their complaint to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC), and well, as I told it at the time:

Walker and the County Board continued to pass budgets that presumed these savings despite the fact these concessions were never negotiated.  Milwaukee County First warned at the time that the budgets were illegal and that the tax payers would be on the hook for them. 

The unions would in turn file complaints with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC).  The county asked WERC to drop the complaints saying that it belonged in arbitration.  The unions agreed and dropped the complaints.  However, Walker then backstabbed the unions by refusing to go to arbitration. 

So the unions, with no other alternative, went back to WERC and refiled their complaint.
Last Friday, WERC handed out there ruling regarding the complaint about furloughs and about whether the county was participating in bad faith bargaining. 

In a nutshell, the furloughs were done illegally and the county was found to be guilty of bad faith bargaining.

WERC ruled that the county had to pay the workers back pay for all the furlough time in excess of the 45 hours allowed through arbitration.  Not only did they have to pay it back, but WERC also imposed a penalty of 12% interest, compounded daily, for every day until they do pay it back.

And that is where the problem comes in.  The ruling means that the county owes the workers millions in back pay. With the interest figured in, it's probably about $5 or $6 million by now, maybe even higher.

But thanks to Walker's dishonest budgeting as county executive and his slashing funding to the county as governor, Milwaukee County just doesn't have the money to pay this debt.

Over a year ago, I had written something that seems rather prophetic today, suggesting a way for current Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and the Milwaukee County Board could meet its obligation without sticking it to the taxpayers or endangering our most vulnerable citizens by cutting services even further:

This means that the original arbitration is indeed to be held up.  This could the cost the County millions of dollars in back pay for excessive furloughs given to county workers. 

Because the County cannot afford such a large payout, it is possible that this will instead weaken the County’s position in contract negotiations, with the unions holding it as a bargaining chip. This, of course, could end up costing the tax payers dearly. 

Using the Mercer trial as a precedent, where Mercer had to pay the county for giving bad advice regarding the pension scandal, Scott Walker’s campaign should have to pay the county back for the damages it occurred directly due to Walker’s campaign stunt.  As further evidence that this was nothing more than a political stunt, Walker’s campaign regularly touted his use of these furlough days to gain the supposed surplus for that year.

The Mercer decision was one where the county sued Mercer for giving bad advice regarding Tom Ament's pension scandal.  Worth noting is the fact that Walker, who has spent years badmouthing his predecessor and the County Board for "their greed," changed his tune for this and blamed everything on this company, thereby, in effect, declaring his predecessor and the board innocent.  (Of course, like all things Walker, even this has a scandal involved with it.)

When I wrote the above passage, I didn't really think that the county would proceed with suing Walker and/or his campaign.  After all, even though Walker's actions were obviously a campaign stunt, there was no proof of it.

Until now.

Cory Liebmann, one of the most knowledgeable people in all things Walker, put up a post regarding some of Walker's emails from 2009.  Most notable of these was this one which Liebmann accurately describes (emphasis his):

An email that appears to be from Cynthia Archer to Walker at his campaign email address (and copying other staff...including Walker campaign consultant RJ Johnson). In that email she spells out their various "options" after a greatly anticipated arbitration hearing. It looks like Walker then takes that Archer email and forwards it from his campaign account to his county account.

You can see the actual email (starting on page 5) in a Scribd format, again thanks to Liebmann.

In summary, Walker imposed these excessive furlough days despite having a ruling deeming them illegal and despite refusing to negotiate with the unions creating an artificially constructed fiscal emergency.  And Walker did these things knowingly and what is obvious from the above email, as I had correctly stated all that time ago, he did so not for the purposes of saving the county taxpayers any money nor to fix any fiscal crisis, but he did this only to enhance his image as a candidate for governor. This is shown in the concerns expressed by Archer in her email and the fact that it was sent to his campaign email and included a campaign consultant.

I once again urge County Executive Abele and the County Board to look into this and consider trying to recoup the losses Walker forced onto Walker for illegal purposes. They could do so by suing Walker and the Friends of Scott Walker, which has ample funds to pay the bill.

Granted, they probably couldn't get everything they owe the workers, due to the interest accrued as they stalled paying what they were ordered to pay, but it would still be a large chunk of it.  It would be worth at least looking into.

Happy Furlough Friday!

What A Humanitarian He Is!

The mayor of New Berlin, Jack Chiovatera, is as clueless as they come.

Chiovatera is in a spitting match with the city's Common Council over their 2011 budget. The council has recommended that each employees take 7.5 days furlough for the next year to keep the tax levy at the same level as this year. The mayor disagrees with this approach. He uses the most inane and insane logic I've ever heard to argue his point (emphasis mine):

The 7.5 furlough days will save the city nearly $424,000 if all are used.

In 2009, the city required employees to take four furlough days to avoid a budget deficit. That measure was not needed this year.

Under the mayor's budget and the budget approved by the council, the tax rate would be just under $4.98 per $1,000 of assessed value, unchanged from last year's rate.

The $34.3 million budget for 2011 is down about 1% compared with this year's $34.6 million budget.

The tax levy would rise to slightly more than $23.7 million from nearly $23.5 million. Ament said the increase reflects growth in the tax base from construction.

Ament said it is important to keep the tax rate flat because residents and businesses are suffering because of the recession.

"We've got residents and businesses hanging on by their fingernails," he said.

The austerity budgeting, Ament said, also is a reflection that "city employees are not insulated from the effects of the economy anymore."

Chiovatero said his budget, which included layoffs, also reflected that fact. But he considers 7.5 furlough days to be excessive, saying the plan "balances the budget on the backs of the employees."

Um, yeah.

So, in Mayor Chiovatero's world, 7.5 days of furloughs is excessive, but 365 days of unemployment isn't?

Where do the conservatives come up with these people?

Extending Summer For One More (Furlough) Day

Today is number 16. Another $700 of squandered revenue, plus now the mandatory time reporting doesn't recognize furloughs, so there will be added administrative costs as the County tries to explain the excessive furlough times.

The total hit to the tax payers is at least $11,200 on me alone. Multiply that by all the workers in the county effected by Walker's now augmented furlough days, making him more than three times worse than Doyle.

On another note, I'm thinking I may have to start claiming unemployment, since our savings is all but gone. I know several other people who have done so as well, which further puts the county behind in their budgeting. That's because when a government has to pay unemployment, they pay it on demand, as opposed to the insurance type of system that companies follow.

Oh well, if you don't like it, don't vote for Walker.

Furlo-ugh #15

You know the routine.

Another $700 lost to the county.

A total of $10,500 squandered by Scott Walker.

Leadership you can't believe in.

Furlough The Thirteenth

I was so busy today, I forgot to mention that today is furlough day number 13.

As with the previous twelve, this means that Scott Walker has squandered another $700 of revenue, for a total of $9,100 for the year so far.

But that is not the most significant about this furlough day.

What makes it more interesting is that not every county worker has to take the 22 days that I do. Many stop at twelve days. And I'm not referring to the ones in other unions, like the ones that the County was willing to negotiate with. I am referring to other workers in the same union, and even in the same local.

This violates labor laws and the contract, which specify that the county cannot treat workers from the same union differently.

The union, of course, is fighting this violation of the law. If successful in their arguments, it will be up to the arbitrator (presuming it goes that far) as to what the remedy is. Based on the indefinite reduced work week that Walker tried to pull that year, that means the county will have to reimburse me, and all the other workers that take more than twelve days of furlough for the lost time.

I'm not saying this to boast. I'd rather be working. But the tax payers should be aware of what Walker's grandstanding and political game playing could end up costing them.

Flooded Furlough Friday

Just a quick note to point out that today is my twelfth furlough day. It's not so bad since the OT projects are still going on for those that want to participate.

The tax payers are the ones that are really losing out on Scott Walker's phony posturing as being fiscally conservative. Not only is it costing tax payers another $700 of their tax dollars not going for services ($8400 for the year to date), but they are having to shill out extra for all of the overtime, since Walker is decimating the work force.

And just imagine, he wants to do the same as governor, just in a grander scale.

We really can't keep affording his political aspirations anymore.

Drinking Liberally Tomorrow With Tim John

Ah, yes, it's that favorite time of the month, when progressives (and the occasional Libertarian) gather together in good cheer and discuss the current events of the day. And these days, it's what else, but the political races which are current.

Well, the races and the birth of the next generation of liberals (Hi, Ellison!)

From proud papa and gracious host of DL, Jason Haas:

Hi folks,

Ever have one of those days where you're hanging around in the hospital room with your wife and newborn son, when someone says to you, "Hey, uh, you know, you should probably post something about Drinking Liberally..."&@#$@!!! Yes! DL meets tomorrow!

And I'm excited to report to you that two exciting events are happening in DL-MKE land. First, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tim John will be coming to Drinking Liberally tomorrow night! Please come out to see what Tim John has to say, and why he thinks you should vote for him.

No matter who you voted for, I will thank Tim for upholding the democratic principles that our country was founded on.

The second exciting event is Living Liberally co-founder Justin Krebs coming to Milwaukee on his book tour! Krebs has written "538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal." It's Krebs's personal and practical guide to embracing your progressive values everyday life -- I'm looking at you, Nick -- as well as the big ideas of what it means to be a "liberal" in America today.

Come meet Justin Krebs at 7:00PM on Wednesday the 28th at Sugar Maple. His book will be available for purchase there, and you can meet one of the folks that helped make Drinking Liberally possible. Here we've started conversations while we shared a drink and engaged with our neighbors. We've helped good candidates win their races, and we're going to do even more of that this year. Thank you, Justin, for helping bring this rag-tag band of lefties and liberals together.

As always, Drinking Liberally-Milwaukee happens at Sugar Maple, 441 E. Lincoln Ave., Milwaukee, at 7 PM.

Oh, and that stuff I said about newborns at the top? Yeah. Ellison Henry Haas joined us this past Sunday the 18th! As I probably will be absent tomorrow, my good friend Zach "Dubya" Wisniewski will be your cordial host for the evening. Do a heckuva job, Zach!

So put your DL pins and come on out! I'll see if you I can.

best,
Jason & the Milwaukee DL crew

Holy cow! Two events in one month! Don't these people realize I have to make my mandatory contributions to Walker's campaign?!Anyway, come out and enjoy the good things in life, liberally.

Furlo-ugh, Day 11, The Halfway Point

Yes, you lucky devils, today is my eleventh furlo-ugh day of the year. After this one, I am halfway to meeting the arbitrary quota set forth by Scott Walker in order to fill some of the hole in his illegal budget and to bolster his campaign.

As those at home who are keeping score are well aware, instead of filling the hole, he is only deepening it. For every day that I am forced off, the county loses about $700 in revenue since they cannot bill for hours I am not working.

Delaying services and deepening the debt...that's the Walker plan for you.

On the bright side of things, my wife starts her new job today. To make it even sweeter, it's an union job.

The Longest (Furlo-ugh) Day

Today was furlough day #10. It is kind of ironic that it also happens to be the summer solstice, making today the longest day of the year.

I got a lot done. I got my haircut and ran some errands, including the much-dreaded grocery shopping. Although I have found that the shopping isn't nearly as bad when you go during the day on a weekday. It's not nearly as crowded, the lines at the checkout are shorter, and people are less crabby since they are not in a hurry. My wife and I also got some bigger projects out of the way.

The only thing I missed doing was my afternoon nap. Oh well.

Anyway, just to keep track, under the new numbers, this has meant that Milwaukee County missed out on another $700 of revenue, bring the year to date total to an even $7,000. And keep in mind, that is just me. There are many more people taking furloughs during the year, each racking up the same losses in revenue.

As for the week ahead, well, the rest of the week is the usual day to day, with some overtime to boot. Not too bad, considering that this was a furlough day.

Yoo Hoo, AFSCME!

The Governor of New York tried to impose mandatory furloughs on all the workers due to their fiscal situation. However, he went about it all wrong, and the unions sued for an injunction.

Sounds familiar, no?

Anyway, the unions prevailed. The Court ruled that government can't just impose changes that would cause irreparable harm without proving the need and that all other options had been exhausted.

While the circumstances are a bit different from New York and Milwaukee County, there may be something of use in the ruling, I would think.

Furlo-Ugh Day 9

Today is my ninth day of involuntarily contributing to Scott Walker's gubernatorial campaign. This is the day that I go beyond any city worker or state worker, who only have four or eight days of furlough per year, respectively. And I still have 13 more to go. And he still has a deficit to boot.

If that doesn't give you an idea of what an inept and ineffective administration Walker has, I don't know what will.

Anyway, I'm up north relaxing by the river as you read this. How's your day going?

Wait, before you answer, let me remind you that today, with the corrected numbers, means the county is out another $700 of revenue for a total of $6,300. Next time some bad news comes out of BHD, the courthouse, or the parks, remember how he is squandering resources, running for governor on your back.

As for me, well this is the day after Thanksgiving, since I worked that day and kept the holiday. So I am losing no money at all.

Remind me again, how is this being fiscally responsible?

Furlo-ugh Day 8: With A Correction

Today is the second mandatory furlough day set by Scott Walker, and the eighth day of his arbitrarily making me donate to his campaign.

The City of Milwaukee and the State of Wisconsin are also on mandatory furlough days today as well, so if you had any plans of getting business done with any of the governmental bodies, you may as well forget it.

However, I do have a correction to make. I had previously noted that Milwaukee County is losing $600 per day for every day that I am on a furlough. I regret to say that number is inaccurate.

The amount of money that Milwaukee County bills for each hour of my service was not what I thought it was. The actual rate of billing is $17 per hour higher. That means for every day Walker has me on furlough is not $600. It really is more than $700. That means after today, the county will be out $5600 on just me alone.

But no, I am not really angry, since his refusal to fill empty positions has allowed almost anyone who wants it to get overtime. So I am not losing any real money this time around, although Walker is really screwing over the tax payers.

Enjoy your day. The weather is supposed to be beautiful.