Mayor Ponto Urges Changes to Budget Repair Bill

Brookfield Mayor Steve Ponto is urging state lawmakers to ease the cuts to local governments, saying the losses are not offset by savings through the budget repair bill that a .

Brookfield will save about $500,000 by requiring employees to make pension contributions that the city historically has made, but Brookfield will lose about $600,000 in state shared revenue and transportation aids, Ponto said in a letter Wednesday to state legislators who represent parts of the city.

"The benefits to be derived from the 'tools' do not coincide with the loss of state aid and other financial disadvantages that will be realized in Brookfield," Ponto wrote.

To offset proposed cuts of more than $90 million to local governments and more than $800 million to school districts, Gov. Scott Walker proposed requiring public employees — except unionized public safety workers — to contribute 5.8 percent toward their pensions and 12.6 percent of their state health insurance plan premiums.

Walker drew a firestorm of state and national controversy when he also proposed limiting public employee union contracts to one issue: wage increases capped by the consumer price index. That so-called budget repair bill or Act 10 — passed by Republican lawmakers while Senate Democrats fled the state in protest — was struck down by a Dane County judge who said the law was passed without required public notice under the state Open Meetings laws.

Mayor Ponto said while he "generally supports" Act 10, the city can not shift pension costs to union-represented employees. The contracts were negotiated and approved in 2010 before Walker was elected as governor.

"There is a timing problem associated with the 'tools' because the 'tools' will not be readily available," Ponto wrote.

Only one of the city's five union contracts expires earlier — the firefighters' contract which expires Dec. 31. 

But the budget repair bill exempts firefighters and police officers from the pension and health requirements and allows them to continue negotiating future contracts over all economic and non-economic working conditions.

Ponto said exempting police and fire "reduces the benefit of those (collective bargaining) changes by approximately 36 percent" for Brookfield.

He reiterated his concern that the exemption also creates inequities with non-represented fire and police command staff, who could end up making less than the unionized staff they supervise.

Ponto again urged the state to add police and fire to the budget repair provisions, as he did .

State Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer, an independent from Manitowoc, is trying to add police, fire and other public safety workers, but has said he faces an uphill battle. JSOnline.com columnist Daniel Bice reported the head of the Milwaukee firefighters union assured his members Ziegelbauer's plan was dead on arrival.

Ponto said the city already requires its employees to pay 10 percent to 20 percent toward their health premium contributions, depending on their participation in a city wellness initiative, and therefore does not plan to shift the minimum premium share to the 12.6 percent recommended by Walker.

Brookfield therefore will not see health savings to offset the state aid cuts, the mayor said.

The state Legislature hopes to pass a 2011-13 state budget next month.