Supervisors want control of county board's destiny
MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- While state legislators consider a bill that would alter the Milwaukee County Board's structure, a county board committee voted on Friday, March 15th to ask for permission to make changes on its own.
By state law, the Milwaukee County Board can only redistrict once every ten years. On Friday, county board supervisors passed a resolution seeking permission from the state to redistrict in a non-census year.
"This is just our way of saying 'hey listen, I think there's other options that we would like to have considered,'" said Supervisor Mark Borkowski.
The resolution is in response to a bill sponsored by State Representative and former County Board Supervisor Joe Sanfelippo. The bill would make the role of county supervisor a part-time job and slash pay roughly in half.
Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele praised the bill and says it makes the board resolution unnecessary since there's plenty the board can do without the state's consent.
"The board has always had the power to control the size of its budget and the size of its staff for 40 years. And for 40 years, its staff and budget have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger," said Abele.
Although Abele is skeptical, board supervisors insist they can enact reforms without interfering with changes made in Madison.
"This would be putting another tool in the toolbox for reform but these don't have to be viewed as competing plans or competing views, this simply saying 'please give us the power to participate in whatever changes are going to happen," said Supervisor Deanna Alexander.
"We're just looking at this as an option. This is not an end-all, be-all but it's something that maybe, just maybe we can use," said Borkowski.
Borkowski has suggested reducing the board from 18 to 13 supervisors. The resolution does not say anything about downsizing the board specifically. The full county board will vote on the resolution next week.