Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker invokes authority to lay off workers

Jake Miller FOX 6 Reporter

10:49 p.m. CST, March 3, 2010

 

WITI-TV, MILWAUKEE —

Layoffs, furloughs, employee concessions, and cuts in Milwaukee County services may not be enough to get the county's budget in line. Deeper cuts and more layoffs could be in the near future. The Milwaukee County Executive enacted emergency budget powers to save the county some money during the county's budget crisis, but some lawmakers don't agree with his choices and say deeper cuts now appear to be unavoidable.

By the end of March 2010 Milwaukee County security guards will be out of a job. Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker enacted emergency budget powers and laid off 27 guards.

They will be replaced with guards from the private security firm G4S Wakenhut, which has offices in Milwaukee. It's a move that some county board supervisors don't agree with. County Supervisor John Weishan says, "Will we be getting the same quality security at the courthouse with an unknown private vendor that we would get from a known quantity of the county employee."

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Walker rebuts, "While it's gotten a lot of attention from some county employees and some on the board, the bottom line is there'll still be security here, it will just save us money."

49 other employees, were also given their two week notices. These layoffs along with extra furlough days, and concessions from county union employees will not solve all the county's ills.

The budget would still be a little more than $6M in the red according to Supervisor Weishan, "I think you'll see the deficit grow larger as the year goes on with sales tax revenue decreasing. The $6M was just a starting point not an ending point."

Walker believes that if the unionized employees take the wage and benefit reform, the budget gap would be closed. "We're optimistic that if they came forward and accepted those changes that all the other employees have, we wouldn't have a gap."

Weishan believes layoff are unavoidable, and by June or July 200 Milwaukee County employees could be out of a job.

Supervisor Weishan says layoffs of office personnel, cut backs in the parks department, bus routes, and we could see different services in the county only available a few days a week could all be apart of getting the budget in line later this year.