During Milwaukee County’s 2010 budget process, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker used his veto pen to shape the county’s budget as he saw fit, and in doing so, Walker imposed eight unpaid furlough days on sheriff’s deputies and corrections officers. When asked about the furloughs for deputies and corrections officers, Walker said he didn’t mean to subject sheriff’s deputies and jailers to eight unpaid furlough days next year, however county Corporation Counsel William Domina has issued an opinion indicating deputies and corrections officers would be subject to the extra furloughs:
Domina’s opinion flatly states deputies fall under the budget’s furlough mandate.
“The floating furlough days imposed under the adopted 2010 Milwaukee County budget apply to employees in all departments . . . including, in particular, deputy sheriffs,” Domina wrote in his opinion.
The issue arose shortly after the budget was approved last month and Walker said he hadn’t intended his budget veto on furloughs to subject deputies to the eight floater furlough days. The budget also included four fixed-date furloughs that excluded deputies and jailers.
The fact that Scott Walker furloughed sheriff’s deputies and corrections officers for 8 days in 2010 should surely negate attacks Walker’s gubernatorial campaign had leveled against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett after Barrett’s decision to furlough Milwaukee police officers:
the eight budgets that Scott Walker presented have not raised the property tax levy and have reduced debt through creative solutions without cutting essential services, like firefighters and police officers.
Scott Walker won’t be able to say his budgets never cut essential services like law enforcement, because that’s exactly what his 2010 budget did.
Capper has more.
I always thought that “Scott Walker” and “Epic Fail” was a bit redundant.
I guess it all depends on your perspective, capper.
I’ve been following Scott Walker for a while. Frankly because I didn’t want to see Doyle pick up another term (he may be a great attorney, but lousy at running a state budget). I confronted Mr. Walker and pointedly asked what his strategy is to off-set lost revenue by reducing taxes. Unfortunately for him, his answer was no better than his “we need to lower taxes” speech.
Fact is, I won’t vote Democrat again because we’re dealing with idiots like Gwen Moore and Jim Doyle, who don’t do much for the party except making themselves look bad. However, the flip side in 2010 is someone who is a lifetime politician (Walker) and has no understanding of creating jobs in the private sector. He can argue tax cuts are good (and don’t get me wrong I’m all for taking home more in the pay envelope and paying less in property taxes on the house) but if there are no incentives for a business to move here or existing ones to create new jobs rather than outsource, he doesn’t have to worry about failing as a governor because his campaign will fail before he gets to the primary.
Mike, I think Walker is extremely likely to end up as the Republican gubernatorial nominee, but I think ultimately he’ll lose the general election once statewide voters come to understand his brand of “borrow and spend” convervatism.