County, clerk at odds over benefits
Milwaukee County Clerk of Circuit Court John Barrett announced Wednesday that he planned to retire after decades with the county — but not before returning to a former position in another county department for one day in an effort to qualify for free retiree health insurance and to receive sick time and vacation day payouts.
Barrett, 64, said his last day as clerk would be Jan. 23. He said he would be returning to the Department of Child Support Services, where he began his county career as an attorney in 1995, before retiring from the county altogether on Jan. 24.
In moving back to the department, he is seeking the fully county-paid health care benefits available under county ordinance to certain members of the union representing county attorneys.
The county has determined he is not eligible for that health care benefit.
Barrett told the Journal Sentinel he had assumed he would be grandfathered in to the health care benefit, which he said was important to him given his and his family’s circumstances.
“My wife has Alzheimer’s, I have heart disease, and I would like to have the health insurance, especially because it was something that I thought was there the whole time that I’ve been working at the county,” he said.
Barrett also said he needed to “preserve my right to get it if I’m going to file any litigation,” though he said he had not decided whether to sue.
County officials called Barrett’s plan unprecedented.
They also said they did not believe the state statute permitting county employees to take a “leave of absence” from their jobs when they are elected to county or state office was intended to allow someone to take a leave of two decades.
Barrett has been on leave from the county Department of Child Support Services since he was first elected clerk in 1998. He makes $125,000 annually as clerk of circuit court.
“In terms of other elected officials that might have sought or done something similar, I am aware of no precedent for this at all, and I would also add from the perspective of the child support agency, based on the statute, we have no choice in this at all,” Jim Sullivan, director of Milwaukee County Child Support Services, said of Barrett’s brief return to the department.
‘A circular, bootstrapped argument’
Barrett’s monthly retiree premium to insure himself and his wife until he becomes eligible for Medicare in March would be either $1,558 or
$1,690. After March, when they are both Medicare-eligible, that monthly premium would drop to $576 or $840, according to the county.
A Sept. 9 opinion from the Milwaukee County Corporation Counsel’s Office said Barrett was using a “circular, bootstrapped argument.” It found that he was not eligible for the fully countypaid health care benefit because the benefit only accrues for those who were members of the county attorneys’ union on Dec. 31, 2011, which Barrett was not as an elected official.
A footnote in the opinion states that Barrett had waived his right to a backdrop payment, potentially lucrative bonuses to county workers who agree to work past their retirement dates. The payments were initially expected to cost little or nothing but resulted in a public furor and the ousting of a series of elected officials.
Sullivan said a current vacancy in his department means Barrett’s return will not result in any employees being “bumped” from their positions.
However, it does mean that the department will have to foot the approximately $14,000 bill for the vacation and sick time payouts while not getting the work that it would normally receive from a child support attorney in that position, Sullivan said.
The department’s responsibilities include establishing paternities and enforcing child support orders. Its 2021 budget was about $18 million, according to Sullivan.
Barrett is eligible for a payout of 99 hours of sick time from before he was clerk of court and about 51⁄2 weeks of vacation time he becomes eligible for by returning to the department this year, according to Milwaukee County Chief Human Resources Officer Margo Franklin.
Elected officials can take time off but do not receive a specific amount of vacation time, Franklin said.
County employees today are not generally eligible to have sick time paid out, but Barrett is an exception because his sick time was accrued before the county changed its policy.
Barrett said decided to retire now to spend time with his wife, whose Alzheimer’s disease is progressing.
The Clerk of Court’s Office facilitates the operations of the Milwaukee County court system, including record keeping. It has nearly 300 staff members and processes more than 150,000 case files each year, according to its website.
Barrett praises modernization of court system during his tenure
Barrett said a highlight of the job was helping people navigate the court system. And he cited as a success the modernization of the office over his tenure, making it more user-friendly and accessible.
“In the old days, the people in the press would live in our offices, and now they can look on their own computers and see — almost simultaneous to the filing — information that comes in,” Barrett
said.
He anticipated a future with advancements such as putting court documents online instead of requiring those seeking records to go to the courthouse to request them.
The work has gotten more challenging with the pandemic and staff shortages, Barrett said.
Barrett said he had been amazed at how hard his staff had worked to keep business moving as they provided public-facing services in the pandemic. That included transitioning to video conferencing when in-person court hearings ceased because of the virus.
The majority of the county’s 47 judges are expected to appoint someone to fill the remaining months of Barrett’s term. An election is scheduled for November for the next four-year term, with the winner taking over the position in January 2023.
Barrett’s brother, Tom Barrett, resigned from the city last month after serving as mayor for more than 17 years to become the U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg.