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Milwaukee County budget passed with gap
A day after Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley won the race to be Wisconsin’s next governor, some county board supervisors learned of a budget gap on the eve the budget was set to be adopted, despite the funding discrepancy being known for more than two weeks.
MILWAUKEE COUNTY, Wis. - A day after Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley won the race to be Wisconsin’s next governor, some county board supervisors learned of a budget gap on the eve the budget was set to be adopted, despite the funding discrepancy being known for more than two weeks.
Budget gap
By the numbers:
"We literally have not gone one day into 2027, and we already have to solve a problem," said County Supervisor and Finance Committee Chairman Steve Taylor.
The gap totals more than $4.5 million of the roughly $1.5 billion budget, which was crafted together over the past month since Crowley’s budget proposal.
Milwaukee County $4.56 million budget error revealed
Just a day after winning the race for governor, David Crowley's staff says there is a surprise multi-million dollar hole in the Milwaukee County budget.
"This budget error is a major problem, loss of trust is worse," said supervisor Shawn Rolland.
Budget passes with gap
What To Know:
Ultimately, the board passed the budget – with the hole – by a 17 to 1 vote.
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"We were told that it was sound, then on the day we adopt this budget we learn the numbers were wrong?" said Supervisor LeeVan Roundtree, who voted against passing an unbalanced budget.
The county’s budget director, Nicholas Sinram, said automated calculations caused the gap, clarifying it was not the use of AI but a spreadsheet formula, discovered on October 20.
"So the County Executive's office did know that day," a reporter asked Sinram, after journalists ran outside of the county boardroom, to catch him in the hallway.
"Correct," said Sinram. "The conversation was had over the last couple of weeks as we worked to find solutions."
On October 30, Sinram went before the finance committee to make technical corrections – but no mention of the error.
"The decision was mine to work with the county chair of finance, and that's when the decision was made," said Sinram.
"The county chair of finance said he didn't learn about this until yesterday," said FOX6’s Bill Miston.
"That's correct."
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Budget gap revealed after the election
Big picture view:
The revelation to Taylor and some members of the finance committee came the day after Crowley won the election to be Wisconsin’s next governor. Other supervisors said Thursday they only learned of the budget gap while on the way to the county courthouse to cast their budget votes.
"The timing – you had to wait till less than 24 hours after an election to give the solutions. They found this out two weeks ago," said Taylor, noting that there would have been plenty of time to find a solution, while pushing back on suggested possible offsets involving drug rebates, remaining cash from finished projects, and department budget savings.
"Those are really not solutions. Those are hypotheticals."
"There's no cover up," said a spokesperson for County Executive David Crowley. "The budget process uncovered an error that affected less than 0.3% of the 2027 recommended budget, investigated the cause, corrected it, and identified and presented solutions ahead of the vote to adopt."
The Source: FOX6 obtained the memo from the