Saturday, November 28, 2009

Follow The Bouncing Furlough Day, Part Deux

It was announced today that Milwaukee County will be rescinding one of the mandatory furlough days. It was reported, off of a press release (I find it doubtful any of the supervisors were in today, and Walker already was tweeting from home), that this was due to previously unrecognized savings from health care costs.

The savings are in relation to the creation of the Employee Benefits Division, which was created due to a proposal by Board Chairman Lee Holloway.

Lack of oversight causing fiscal problems is not something new under Scott Walker's watch. In 2004, there was a justifiable uproar over the Department of Aging running consistently millions of dollars in the red. This was only resolved when Walker caved in and reinstated an accountant to the department, a position that he had previously eliminated.

And we are still waiting for Walker to do something about John Chianelli, whose ineptitude led to the deficit in the first place.

But the skeptical side of me wonders if there might be more to these furloughs than what is being reported. After all, Walker already admitted that the 200 lay offs he was about to do was nothing more than a publicity stunt. How can we trust that there is a real need now for these furloughs?

2 comments:

  1. there was no need for furloughs in the first place so recinding them is no big deal. scotty the clown is a joke and everyone that needs county services should wake up to his ineptitude.county employees are pawns in his political game and he laughs at the very people who work to provide those services.

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  2. If they did find extra money, they should have saved it and applied it somewhere else, or cancelled one of next year's furlough days. I know of many employees who are scheduled to work that day at their part time jobs (yes, most "high-paid" county employees I know have two jobs).

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