Milwaukee is no longer on the brink of going broke after the Milwaukee Common Council said yes to a 2% city sales tax.
"We were able to tackle a more than four-decade-old problem with financial resources coming back to the city of Milwaukee being stagnant and not what they should be," said Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson.
Johnson called Tuesday's vote historic and said the new revenue will make sure that the city of Milwaukee stays "fiscally solvent."
Johnson was @TheTable Wednesday night to talk about the historic vote and what it means for city taxpayers. The new sales tax is projected to bring in $193 million a year.
"The tax will last roughly for 30 years," said Johnson. "These are all based on projections in order to meet our unfunded pension liabilities, clear those things and then start shifting new employees starting January one for the city of Milwaukee into the Wisconsin Retirement system."
The city now has to live up to the state's deal that also mandates increased staffing for fire and police.
"The increases that we received in state shared revenue, which again is the first time in decades the city has been able to get the state to present more money to us and shared revenue, the increases that we get there would go to support increases in service personnel, in the police department as well as in the fire department," said Johnson.
Police staffing will increase to 1,725, up from the current number of 1,618 officers and 218 firefighters daily, up from 192.
"We believe that we'll be able to meet those projections over the course of the next decade," Johnson said.
The state's deal also requires Milwaukee to pull back from using tax dollars for streetcar expansion and to give the police chief more oversight on department policies versus the appointed Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission. Plus, restrictions on city efforts for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Johnson was asked @TheTable if what he gained in negotiations with the state to end the fiscal crisis was worth what was stripped away from the city's control.
"It was important for us to build a relationship so that we can move something forward in Milwaukee so that we can keep our services running so we don't slash half of our police department so that we don't cut a quarter of our fire department and we keep our libraries open for our youngest learners."
Johnson says he's not going to abandon those DEI values and will make sure, "we continue to have strong efforts to support diversity, equity, and inclusion programs."
Watch the full conversation in the video at the top of this article.
Charles Benson and Shannon Sims interview key people in our community during TMJ4's @TheTable segment weeknights at 10 p.m.
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