Meeting Per Diem Pay---My campaign promise was to reintroduce a proposed ordinance to end per diem pay for meetings. That proposed ordinance came up tonight. In order to pass, it would need a minimum of 18 votes (2/3rds of all Supervisors). Based on how people voted on this issue when it came up before, as well as a recent vote on this issue, it looked like it would be a close vote. On top of that, 2 supervisors were absent, which reduced the likelihood of getting the necessary 18 votes. After assessing that, I didn't think the votes were there to get this done.
When the issue came up, Supervisor Deiss quickly offered a compromise, which Supervisor Schleif gave a quick 2nd to. The compromise moved per diem payments to a heavily reduced flat rate of $20 per meeting. Besides saving the County money, this also removes a financial incentive to unnecessarily prolong meetings (the system we just voted out increased per diems if meetings ran longer, which hypothetically could be an incentive to stretch out meetings).
While my preference would be to eliminate per diem pay altogether, I recognize the value of getting 80% of what I want through compromise. This value is even greater when the alternative is seeing an issue fail for a 2nd time. We still have Obamacare because we couldn't get 52 Republican Senators to compromise, I wasn't going to repeat that mistake on this issue. I gave my support to this compromise, and got 80% of what I wanted.
By a vote of 21-3, the amended ordinance passed. This is undeniably significant progress on this issue.
I thank every County Board Supervisor for working together on this issue, to get it done, and I especially thank Supervisors Deiss and Schleif for proposing the compromise.
One additional note: The Washington County Daily News referred to this reduction as a "change in compensation." While a reduction is a type of change, so that technically is true, it doesn't tell the whole story. The fact that this is a reduction in pay is an important detail, and I am disappointed that the paper didn't highlight that. Had we voted to increase our pay (as if we would ever do that), I am certain they would have used the word "increase." Why hide the fact that we did something so good?
A proposed resolution would support ending levy limits. While I think the levy limits may be overly harsh for counties like ours, who would still be fiscally responsible and reduce taxes without levy limits, I can't support abolishing levy limits statewide. I was an absolute no vote.
Executive committee had originally voted this down unanimously (0-7), but wanted every Supervisor to have a chance to voice their opinion. In the end, this resolution failed a second time, with 6 yes votes and 18 no votes.
I thank every County Board Supervisor who joined me in opposing ann effort to end levy limits state-wide.
Milwaukee's Trolley
SEWRPC presented their annual report tonight. It included mention of the VISION 2050 plan, which included a regional tax for several rail-based projects for Milwaukee, including their trolley. I had led the effort to withhold out endorsement of any regional tax or rail-based passenger transportation (like the trolley). SEWRPC's proposal made no mention of that, instead referencing our approval of the plan.
I specifically queried the SEWRPC representative about that, and was assured on the record that Milwaukee fully understands that we have zero interest in any regional tax to fund their rail projects.
Darkstore Resolution
By a vote of 23-1, we passed an ordinance affirming our continued support of efforts to end the dark-store tax loophole, which allows national retailers to skirt their tax obligation by shifting their burden onto small businesses and homeowners.
I thank every County Board Supervisor for working together in support of this issue.
