Risk manager proposed for Fire, Police Commission

In an effort to curb the number of civil lawsuits filed against the city, five Milwaukee aldermen are sponsoring budget amendments that would create risk management positions within the Fire and Police Commission.

The commission is tasked with overseeing the Police and Fire Departments, and the risk manager would be responsible for reviewing policies, training, complaints and other areas that can be grounds for civil lawsuits.

The moves come a week after the Journal Sentinel published a report detailing how recent police misconduct lawsuits have cost the city at least $21.4 million.

“One of the ways to be able to save money is to reduce the number of incidents that put us into these types of situations,” said Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton, who has sponsored one of the budget amendments.

The five separate amendments are among 64 total that aldermen have put forward to make changes to the budget. The finance and personnel committee will take up the amendments Friday, after which they’ll be voted on next week by the whole Common Council. Mayor Tom Barrett then has seven working days to veto anything in the budget, including the amendments.

Ald. Michael Murphy said he has researched what other cities are doing to review and manage the practices and incidents that can be grounds for costly civil lawsuits. He’s sponsoring two budget amendments, each of which would create a risk manager position on the commission.

“People are investing a lot more money than we are in their (commission),” Murphy said of other cities.

Both Murphy and Hamilton said the commission needs more staff to be able to properly oversee both the Police and Fire Departments.

“You have a very small staff which is overseeing nearly two-thirds of the operational budget of the City of Milwaukee,” Murphy said.

During recent budget hearings, MPD command staff outlined a number of steps the department has taken to increase training, monitoring and wellness of its officers, including creating a Risk Management Bureau. They pointed out many of the events leading to the lawsuits settled in 2015 through 2017 occurred before the bureau was created.

However, during the budget hearings and since, council members have said they would like to see an independent risk manager position created.

Alds. Milele Coggs, Russell Stamper III and Khalif Rainey are sponsoring the amendment with Hamilton. Both Coggs and Stamper have sponsored amendments of their own that would also create risk management positions within the commission.

Murphy said the number of amendments proposing this position be created shows the broad support it has among council members.

“I’m hopeful that my amendment or any other amendment will get through the budget process,” he said.