'Live to fight another day': Milwaukee Council advances city sales tax, possible lawsuit challenging restrictions
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Milwaukee alders moved one step closer Monday to enacting a new city sales tax.
The Common Council's Steering and Rules Committee voted to advance a 2% municipal sales tax. The full council is set to vote on whether to approve the tax on July 11.
While Monday's meeting was only at the committee level, 14 of the city's 15 alders squeezed around the hearing room table -- an unusual sight for a Common Council committee meeting.
The committee itself, which includes eight alders, voted 6-0 to advance the sales tax measure. Alds. Milele Coggs and Russell Stamper voted to abstain.
Under a new state law overhauling how Wisconsin funds its local governments, Milwaukee and Milwaukee County can implement and increase their own local sales taxes, respectively.
In a presentation to the committee Monday, Milwaukee Budget Director Nik Kovac estimated a city sales tax would bring in about $190 million each year.
Kovac added updated financial forecasts showed the city was currently on pace to have a $183 million budget gap in 2024 and a $193 million deficit by 2025.
Through the city's remaining $93 million in federal pandemic aid and its $80 million pension reserve, Kovac said Milwaukee could survive 2024 without a sales tax.
He said once those options are exhausted, the city would have no choice but to make drastic cuts to every department in 2025.
Kovac estimated those cuts would include 700 of about 1,600 police officer positions being eliminated, 250 out of 700 firefighter jobs cut and another 400 general city positions being slashed.
This isn't how @MKE_CC committee meetings usually look.
— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) June 26, 2023
With Steering & Rules taking up the 2% city sales tax today, 14 of the council's 15 alders have squeezed in around the hearing room table.
The full council will vote on the tax July 11. Two-thirds support needed to pass. pic.twitter.com/XJCJilFCR7
There was disagreement on the committee as to just how devastating those cuts would be.
Ald. Milele Coggs suggested the city could find ways to become more efficient, noting how large corporations have become less reliant on labor.
"When we go to Walmart now, it's more self-checkouts than it is people at the register," Coggs said. "I don't feel any less served. I buy the same stuff I bought when it was somebody sitting there. I just check myself out."
Ald. Scott Spiker said he was confident voters would understand that principal couldn't completely be applied to city services.
"I'm in a district where taxes are a bad word, and even there, I have people who totally understand, what's the alternative?" he said. "Is the alternative that you're gonna wait two hours for the police to show up, if they ever do?"
The local sales tax language is part of a sweeping state law the Legislature approved earlier this month with bipartisan support. Gov. Tony Evers signed the bill into law last week.
The bill increases state aid to municipalities and counties, known as shared revenue, but also places series of conditions on Milwaukee. Those conditions were a priority for the Republican-controlled Legislature.
The city's sales tax revenue could only go toward paying off pension debt and public safety positions.
Some of the other restrictions include:
- Two of the city's nine Fire and Police Commission members must be picked from a list submitted by Milwaukee's fire and police unions
- The commission could no longer set police department policy, which is currently a level of power rarely seen in the U.S. for civilian oversight boards
- Milwaukee must reinstate school resource officers, and deploy 25 of them across the school district
- The city cannot use any tax revenue (sales or property) to fund diversity, equity and inclusion positions, nor can it spend tax dollars on the streetcar, known as "The Hop"
Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski told the committee he understood any frustrations they might have with the city-specific provisions, but urged them to set those feelings aside and vote for the sales tax.
"This feels all a little bit dirty, how this is presented to the city of Milwaukee, and I get it, but we have got to live to fight another day," Lipski said. "This turns into mid-'80s Detroit inside of a year if we do not live to fight another day."
On Monday, the committee also advanced a measure directing the city attorney's office to work with outside lawyers on a possible lawsuit challenging whether the Milwaukee-specific restrictions are constitutional.
Council President Jose Perez said he didn't know if two-thirds of the full council was on board with the sales tax, and he downplayed the role a possible lawsuit could play in ensuring at least 10 alders would be on board with the sales tax.
"I just think it's part of the process." Perez said. "Whether they want to be a yes or not on those potential legalities, that's up to them."
Perez added his main focus was on the sales tax vote, which he said could be pushed back to the July 31 meeting, but added his preference was to keep it on the 11th.
He added constituents he's heard from understand the budget crisis Milwaukee faces without new sources of income.
"I'm hearing support for the sales tax. And I'm hearing they don't like the policy provisions," Perez said. "But the box we've been put in, there's no other choice."
The committee also advanced a motion to seek about $150 million in federal grant money to extend the streetcar to Fiserv Forum and Brady Street. The motion also directs the Department of Public Works to study future extensions to the Bronzeville and Walker's Point neighborhoods.