Supervisors to finalize 2018 county budget

Board faces choice of higher wheel tax or service cuts

The Milwaukee County Board faces two budget choices — either a major revenue boost tied to a wheel tax increase or major spending cuts without it — when supervisors meet Monday to adopt a final 2018 county budget.

One option rejects a proposed $30 increase in the county vehicle registration fee while requiring service cuts and delays in rebuilding roads and buying buses to offset a drop in revenues.

That is the path to a balanced budget taken by Board Chairman Theodore Lipscomb Sr. and the board’s finance committee in keeping the wheel tax at $30.

A second option is approving a $30 boost in the wheel tax, to a total of $60, and using the revenue for transit and roads while avoiding spending cuts.

That is the path taken by County Executive Chris Abele in recommending a $1.165 billion budget for 2018 that includes a $60 vehicle registration fee

The extra $30 would generate about $13.4 million in additional revenue over 10 months next year to help pay for public transit operating costs, bus purchases and rebuilding of several county roads.

An earlier revenue forecast of $14.7 million from the fee increase that was included in Abele’s budget was based on 11 months of collections in 2018.

Since the state requires a threemonth delay in implementing a new or increased registration fee, that revenue estimate was possible only if the board had taken separate action to approve the $30 increase prior to Monday’s budget meeting.

In the last two weeks, the finance committee pieced together an amended budget without the wheel tax increase that spends $1.149 billion, fully $16 million less than the executive’s budget plan.

Abele’s recommended budget includes a county property tax levy of $294 million, up $2.9 million from 2017. A property tax rate of $5.05 per $1,000 of equalized valuation, down 2 cents from this year, would be needed to generate the levy.

The finance committee’s budget plan reduces the levy by more than $1.1 million to $292.9 million. A property tax rate needed to generate that levy amount was not available Friday.

Last week, the finance committee approved a Lipscomb amendment that eliminated the $30 wheel tax increase and the full $14.7 million in new revenue that Abele had included in his recommended budget.

Lipscomb’s amendment removed several major road construction and improvement projects and cut several new employee positions requested by Abele. The amendment also trimmed $1.5 million from scheduled transit bus replacements, cut $1.15 million from the county fleet vehicle replacement budget and delayed spending more than $600,000 next year to replace the county’s aging telephone and voicemail systems.

The board chairman also is asking department heads to trim other expenses by 0.75%. The proposal would reduce county spending by $3.7 million next year.

Among departments hardest hit by the across-the-board cuts: the Milwaukee County Transit System would be required to pare $882,000 out of its budget; the Department of Health and Human Services would need to come up with more than $614,000 in service cuts; the Sheriff’s Office faces $371,000 worth of trims; House of Corrections spending would drop $340,000.

While the finance committee rejected the wheel tax increase, it did not alter or remove other revenue increases recommended by Abele.

The executive’s budget generates $4.7 million from new parking fees at county parks, transit fare increases for regular users, increased Milwaukee County Zoo admission fees, and increased fees for phone calls made by jail and House of Correction inmates.