Officials Need to Compromise to Fight Crime in Milwaukee

Last month, after police chased five armed youths from Milwaukee into Washington County, Republican state Representative Janel Brandtjen of Menomonee Falls argued that crime in Milwaukee is starting to spill out into the suburbs and that the state should cut funding to the City of Milwaukee until steps are taken to reduce crime.

While crime in Milwaukee is running rampant, city, county and state officials can’t seem to agree on how to solve the problem.  It seems like almost every other day in the news we read about name calling, blame placing and partisan division with no real solutions in the fight against Milwaukee’s growing crime problem.  Governor Scott Walker, Sheriff David Clarke, Chief Edward Flynn and County Executive Chris Abele are some of the key figures who are constantly making the news, but instead of doing what we’re paying them to do, come up with solutions, they’re resorting to name calling and blaming the other guys.

For instance, a Feb. 26, 2013 Journal Sentinel article reported that Clarke accused Abele of “penis envy” and called Flynn a “criminal loving elitist” while an April 30, 2013 article reported that Abele called the sheriff “a childish bully” in an email to a staff member and in a June 24, 2016 Fox 6 news report, Flynn said that Clarke’s proposal to hire 400 new police officers was “unrealistic.”  A May 28, 2013 Journal Sentinel article reported that Walker rejected Flynn’s assertions that his policies are “anti-urban” and are harming the city by saying they were “completely unsubstantiated”.

Clarke and Flynn can’t seem to agree on how to run the city police and county sheriff departments, and the main point of contention for both seems to be that there isn’t enough money to run their agencies effectively.  Clarke accuses Abele of cutting the sheriff’s budget because of personality differences, while Flynn blames Walker’s cuts to shared revenue to municipalities.  Shared revenue is used to fund essential public services like police and fire.  An April 25, 2015 Journal Sentinel editorial claimed that Milwaukee received $240 million in shared revenue and spent $179 million on police while in 2015 it received $227 million and spent $248 million.

Why would Walker cut funding for essential public services?  According to the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s website, Walker believes in moderation when it comes to government spending because he thinks that “citizens spend their own money more wisely than governments spend it for them, government spending is often wasteful and inefficient and if continued unabated, would cost taxpayers much more in the long run and putting structural reforms into place will save taxpayers’ money.”  Walker’s budget includes initiatives which aid in efforts “to improve efficiency and effectiveness of Wisconsin government and to eliminate waste, save time and cost across agencies and improve government services.”

Rather than public bickering that doesn’t solve problems and reduces public confidence, it would seem more reasonable for these officials to meet to discuss strategies, strive to overcome their differences and work to arrive at a reasonable compromise.  Hopefully, these officials can put aside their differences, be flexible enough to be able to make changes if necessary and refocus on the welfare of the community.

If Walker’s policies are negatively impacting public safety, they should certainly be changed no matter what his philosophy is about public finance.  Public safety should be the number one priority without question.  That being said, any inefficiencies and wasteful spending in Clarke’s and Flynn’s departments should be exposed and curtailed so that appropriate funding could be meted out as needed and the taxpayers aren’t spending unnecessary money.

Sometimes it takes active communication to reach a reasonable compromise.