Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett threatened to cut police positions if the sales tax increase for the city does not get passed within his budget at an Intergovernmental Cooperation Council meeting Monday.
Last month, Sen. LaTonya Johnson, D-Milwaukee, and Rep. Evan Goyke, D-Milwaukee, proposed a sales tax increase of one percent to the current 5.5 percent, and put the expected $160 million proceeds toward public services like the police force and fire department.
Barrett said the city would be forced to remove about three percent of jobs in the police force — via retirement — should the tax not be passed.
“For the fifth consecutive year, the budget for the Milwaukee police department is larger than the entire property tax levy for the city of Milwaukee, I don’t know another city in the state where that occurs,” Barrett said.
He encouraged cooperation between the state and city in order to put forward a referendum to pass the tax increase and save the positions.
However, Barrett has not seen support from his colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Republican representatives sent a letter to Barett voicing their concerns about the potential cuts to the positions negatively impacting Milwaukee residents.
“In 2017, the Milwaukee Police Department's average response time to a violent crime was 24 minutes; our brave police officers already suffer from a lack of resources and this proposal will only make their life saving work more difficult,” the representatives wrote.
They claimed they were “shocked” by the possibility, and urged him to amend his budget since the police already suffer the effect of budget cuts. The letter also stated the Legislature is in more of a position of power to increase the tax than the city of Milwaukee’s elected leaders.
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