There’s a theory, albeit misguided, that says that if you reduce the size of a County Board, that government will be less expensive to run. These advocates claim that the salaries of elected officials are to blame for the problem. The truth is much more complicated.

But let’s look at the facts. Take a county like Milwaukee where there are 19 Supervisors each representing about 50,000 people. The size of the County Board was reduced based on urging from County Executive Scott Walker. At that time, Walker claimed that Supervisors missed the whole pension fiasco and should therefore be downsized. Logically one would think that if 25 Supervisors, the amount that there were at the time, would have missed writing that Walker implies was right out in the open, wouldn’t it make sense to have more people watching the farm and not less?

Walker’s motivation had more to do with consolidating power in the position of County Executive and less to do with what is logical or right.

The same is true with the current resolution that was before the Waukesha County Board. The more-Republican Waukesha County bought into the concept that the County Board should be reduced due in no small part to Republican talk radio show hosts on WTMJ and WISN.