You could make an argument that there’s no bigger local governmental failure than the county bus system. Sure, the county parks have declined, and the potholes in the city are an ugly mess, but the parks and roads are still providing basic service (albeit degraded) for most people. Not so the county transit system: It has slashed services for countless citizens.
From 2000 to 2009, according to figures published last week by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, ridership on Milwaukee County buses declined by 25 percent, dropping from 52.8 million to 39.4 million rides. The story headlined the year’s decline in 2009, but the figures showed an almost consistent decline since 2000. Most of this has occurred on Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker’s watch, who oversaw the elimination of 13 routes and reductions in 27 routes.
It’s one thing to push for government furloughs, privatizing and other measures to save on taxes, as Walker has, but the bus system is a basic service that is essential to poor people. A study by the UW-Milwaukee Employment and Training Institute found 248,000 people aged 18 and above lack a valid driver’s license in Milwaukee County. Some of these may be elderly people who no longer drive. But many are people without a license or car who depend on public transit. The UWM Center for Economic Development estimated that 40,000 jobs became inaccessible by public transit between 2001 and 2007.
To Walker’s credit, he has pushed to make the bus system more of a priority than light rail or commuter rail. Liberal rail fans can’t seem to get excited about preserving the bus system. But nice as it might be to have a Downtown trolley or a commuter rail to Kenosha, many of those riders may simply be switching from their car to a train. For those taking the county bus system, there may be no other transportation option.
Walker has made some attempts to grab other funding for the bus system, which is admirable. But in the meantime, he has staunchly opposed the county board’s push for a sales tax add-on to support the county transit system. He has presided over the decline of a system that was once among the nation’s best.
Legislators are now debating a bill to fund a regional transportation authority that could provide more funding options for the county bus system. If the legislation is not passed, the county’s Transit Services Advisory Committee declared in a recent JS op-ed, the county transit system “faces certain devastation and possibly total dissolution.” The group estimated that the system will face another 30 percent cutback in services in next year’s budget if no funding alternative is found. That would be a disaster for an awful lot of Milwaukee citizens.
State Employee Salaries Too High?
Two weeks ago, USA Today did a news story that concluded federal employees earn higher salaries than private sector workers “in more than eight out of 10 occupations.” On average, a federal employee earned about $7,000 more in annual salary and had benefits worth $30,000 more than the average private sector worker. Wow.
Except that the story was a tad simplistic, merely comparing occupational titles: budget analyst, landscape architect, civil engineer, janitor, cook, etc. But all budget analysts aren’t doing the same thing: The degree of difficulty of the job could vary enormously. Even a cook’s job can be very different, if it’s a fast food cook versus one at a high-end restaurant. (And the job of editor? Don’t get me started on that one.) A more exacting study would contrast compensation at strictly comparable jobs. It’s also worth noting that many federal employees probably live in Washington, D.C., which has a much higher cost of living, and where all salaries in the marketplace may skew higher than average.
Still, I think stories like this will fuel continued debate on the subject of public sector pay. USA Today also looked at state employee salaries (5 percent lower than in the private sector) and city and county salaries (2 percent lower). But both state and local workers earned more total compensation because their benefits were higher. However, the newspaper offered no breakdown whatsoever by occupation, so it was hard to take the state/local analysis seriously.
My own suspicion has always been that lower-level employees earn more compensation in the public sector and higher-level employees earn less than their counterparts in the private sector. Compensation in the private sector is far more stratified, trickling down from the stratospheric pay given to CEOs.
Unionized state employees earn, on average, about $38,500 a year. This figure comes from Marty Beil, the union leader for the five units (some 21,000 employees) of state workers. Beal and other union leaders have long argued that they often forgo wage hikes to get better pensions. Until recently, pensions and other benefits have flown below the radar, so any sweeteners were easier for governors to give away. This salary average, however, is something critics (like, say, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute) would have to consider before they demand (based only on looking at pensions) that state benefits must be trimmed.
Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance has done a timely study on what we spend on our government workers versus other states. The alliance has done this study many times and result is always the same: Wisconsin has fewer (8.2 percent less in 2008) State and local employees per capita than other states but tends to pays its employees more: state employees earned 5.9 percent more in total salaries and benefits than the national average in 2008. But local government employees actually earned 2.6 percent less in total compensation than their counterparts nationally.
On balance, the higher salaries and benefits seem more than offset by the far lower number of employees, yielding less cost for taxpayers than in other states. That’s rather surprising. (And for those who’ve contended the Alliance is an anti-government, Republican front, this study doesn’t fit so neatly into that theory.) The report has no answers for those focused on comparing state and private sector compensation, but it provides a little more context for these debates.
The Buzz
-The staff and board of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute includes several ex-members of the administration of former Gov. Tommy Thompson. And last week, the think tank released a poll showing Tommy beating Democratic U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold. The result, of course, is irrelevant to people in this state unless and until Thompson decides to run. And given how often Tommy has threatened to run for various offices, pollsters could be awful busy if they measured him against every possible opponent. Nope, this poll was not about informing the citizenry, but was a valentine from Tommy’s ex-aides with a heart-shaped message: Please, we need you, get in the race.
-The poll also showed a result that might just chill Scott Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Mark Neumann was well behind in the Republican gubernatorial primary because Walker had such a big lead in Milwaukee County. But Neumann led everywhere else in the state. I doubt anyone has ever won the governorship and only carried Milwaukee County, no matter how big the margin. Neumann is going to make Walker a poster child for the big-city ills of Milwaukee. And if the approach succeeds against Walker, it’s likely to work just as well against Barrett. It’s way too early to count Neumann out in this race.
-Our new Web site, milwaukeenewsbuzz.com, was launched yesterday. Among today’s stories, you’ll find a juicy controversy involving Sean Duffy, the Republican challenger to incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. David Obey. And among yesterday’s stories is a harrowing look at why Milwaukee has three times more hit-and-run accidents than the rest of the state.
-And Pressroom Buzz had a ringside seat to watch how new Archbishop Jerome Listecki handled those not-so-tough members of the media.
