Last year County Executive Scott Walker delivered a budget to the Milwaukee County Board that used land sales for operating expenses and relied on good weather to reduce costs for snow plowing and grass cutting. This year expect more of the same.

Normally the County Board would step up and take on the Exec over items that hurt our community. Sadly, the Chairman of the County Board, Lee Holloway, faces over 90 ethics charges and is in no position to take on Walker. Selfishly, Holloway has refused to step down and let a more capable Supervisor take his place.

This year, Walker is running for Governor so he’s used his old standby, blame, to aid him in his quest for power. Last year, Walker delivered a budget address that ripped his predecessor for all of the budget woes. Now mind you, that was Walker’s third budget—he’s had three years to fix any problems that happened in the past. He’s used that time to drive up the county’s debt, shift sales tax from debt service to operating, sold county land for day to day expenses and underfunded the pension system.

Now forgive me if I’m overly critical, but am I the only one that believes that if the guy has been in charge for this long that he should be held accountable for his own fiscal mismanagement?

He’s talking about cutting healthcare for the poor and earlier in the summer complained that the county was having problems due to things like having to cut the grass in the summer and plow the snow in the winter.

But blame he will.
Blame Tom Ament.
Blame bad weather.
Blame Jim Doyle.
Blame the County Board.
Blame anyone but himself.

Like a rat on a sinking boat, Walker wants to jump ship before 2008 because that’s when his sales tax scheme will really become apparent. Since he is no longer using sales tax revenues to pay for debt service on County infrastructure, and is instead using it for operating expenses, the principal continues to grow. If you lay it out on a graph, you would see the minimum debt service payment in 2008 grow to equal the amount the county gets from their 0.5% sales tax revenue. At that point there will be no excess that can be funneled away for operating expenses. Taxes will need to be raised to pay for Walker’s scheme but by then Walker hopes to be in the Governors mansion.

Why the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel isn’t covering that scandal in the making is beyond the constraints of logic.