Board overrides Abele veto of lower pay

5 department heads will see their salaries cut

The Milwaukee County Board on Thursday overrode County Executive Chris Abele’s veto of a resolution that drops five top department heads into a lower pay grade and cuts their salaries by thousands of dollars.

On a vote of 13-1, supervisors reaffirmed their support of the measure that shifts the five Abele appointees into a pay grade assigned to those jobs in 2014. The administration had placed them in a higher range this year.

The measure was approved July 27 on a vote of 16-1. Supervisor Deanna Alexander cast the only vote in opposition that day, and she was the lone vote in support of the veto at Thursday’s meeting.

In his veto message to the board, Abele warned supervisors that cutting salaries of top officials will result in “an exodus” of employees from county departments and create “a difficult hiring environment.”

Supervisor Jim Schmitt, chairman of the personnel committee, said he was frustrated by the ongoing dispute between the administration and the board. “This has been a very difficult situation,” he said.

County Board Chairman Theodore Lipscomb Sr. has said the reasons that Abele gave for unilaterally awarding higher salaries to the five department heads — an effort to compete with other potential employers and retain them as county employees — required a reallocation of budget dollars. That is the responsibility of the board, said Lipscomb.

Abele and his staff say the jobs of the five appointees were reclassified and placed in a higher pay range previously established by the board. The board does not have the authority to select which board-approved pay ranges the department heads and other appointees are placed in, according to administration officials.

A judge’s ruling this year in a related dispute has not settled the argument.

On April 26, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge John DiMotto ruled that the County Board, not Abele, has the authority to set pay ranges for appointees and other employees not covered by civil service rules.

At issue before the court were pay ranges created by Abele after 2014 over the objection of the County Board. The ranges set by Abele have since been abolished.

Lipscomb claims moving the five appointees back into the lower pay range assigned to the jobs in 2014 is mandated under DiMotto’s court order.

But the judge also ruled that the board is prohibited by state law from infringing on administrative functions, specifically increasing an employee’s pay within a range, and promotions to higher job classifications.

DiMotto said that the act of moving appointees between salary ranges, known as reclassification, is an administrative function and not a board policy decision.

The five officials are Administrative Services Director Teig WhaleySmith, Transportation Department Executive Director Brian Dranzik, Human Resources Chief Kerry Mitchell, Budget Director Steve Kreklow and the director of Health and Human Services, a job that is vacant.

The board resolution requires Mitchell and Comptroller Scott Manske to place Mitchell and the other four department heads into a pay grade capped at a maximum salary of $126,111. Their current salaries: Kreklow, $147,567; Mitchell, $137,987; WhaleySmith, $134,602; and Dranzik, $134,577.