Contact:
Brian Rothgery, Public Information Manager
414-278-4230 or brian.rothgery@
MILWAUKEE – The Board of Supervisors voted 13 – 1 (Alexander) to override the County Executive’s veto of a resolution that limits excessive pay for highly compensated political appointees and returns the directors of five major County departments or divisions to their approved pay grades.
“With this veto, the County Executive remains focused on maintaining excessive salaries for his political appointees while neglecting other important duties of his office,” said Board Chairman Theodore Lipscomb, Sr. “It’s striking that he found time to veto an item that eliminates a potential $750,000 in salary expenses, but he couldn’t find time to approve various projects and new staff position that are important to ensuring continued delivery of important public services.”
In an unprecedented move, County Executive Abele’s veto of the executive pay provision was the only item out of 25 resolutions adopted at the July meeting of the Board of Supervisors that he took any action on in the week between Board meetings.
Among the 24 legislative items that the County Executive neither signed nor vetoed was a resolution allocating $5 million to complete construction of the new Africa Plains Exhibit at the Milwaukee County Zoo, and a resolution authorizing a new full time investigator with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Crisis Assessment Response Team.
Also returned to the Board with no action by the County Executive was a resolution authorizing the continuation of the Free Birth Certificate Program, which removes an impediment to voting and helps Milwaukee County youth gain access to jobs.
In sum, the County Executive failed to act on more than $21 million in allocations authorized by the Board of Supervisors during their July meeting.
Although the County Executive failed to act on 96% of the items adopted by the Board at their July meeting, all the items that were not returned to the County Clerk went into effect per state statute.
