The Milwaukee Post

May 5, 2017 • Milwaukee County Post • 9 OPINION By OWEN B. ROBINSON Another battle in the long war to repeal Wisconsin's prevailing wage laws was launched last month when Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Brookfield, and Rep. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield, reintroduced a bill in the state Legislature to repeal the prevailing wage law for state projects. The bill faces an uncertain future in the face of massive opposition from powerful special interests. Wisconsin's prevailing wage "law" is actually a series of laws that were passed during the Great Depression with the goal of protecting local workers from losing their jobs to migrant workers who were willing to work for lower wages. The law essentially requires that any businesses that work on a public project of any size must pay the prevailing wages for the area in which the work takes place. The prevailing wage is determined by a flawed process by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development that heavily favors inflated union wages. The result is Wisconsin's prevailing wage law protects large, unionized contractors at the expense of inflated prices for taxpayers and nonunion contrac- tors. Intrepid conservative Wisconsin lawmakers fought hard to fully repeal the prevailing wage law in the 2015-'17 state budget. The result was a compromise that repealed the prevailing wage law for local gov- ernments and school districts, but left it in place for state projects. The bill from Vukmir and Hutton would finish the job by repealing it for state projects too. The reason the fight to repeal the prevail- ing wage law is so heated is quite simple: money. As it stands, Wisconsin's prevailing wage law props up the profits for some of Wisconsin's largest private contractors. Those contractors donate an extraordinary amount of money and support to politi- cians on both sides of the aisle who like to spend taxpayer dollars on big, expensive projects. In the 2015 battle over prevailing wage, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and other members of the Assembly leadership actively worked to thwart the repeal of pre- vailing wage. They could not resist the overwhelming public pressure and were forced into the compromise repeal. Last leg- islative session, Rep. Andre Jacque had the temerity to hold a hearing on prevailing wage reform in his role as the chairman of the Assembly Labor Committee. Jacque's fellow Republican, Vos, punished Jacque by stripping him of his chairmanship for the current session. The reason to repeal the prevailing wage law is one of conservative principle, or of laissez-faire economics, if you prefer. The government should not enforce artificial labor prices or meddle in the free market. Wisconsin's prevailing wage law does just that and it results in the government dis- torting the market and encouraging crony capitalism. While one would like to think that our state lawmakers would consistently act on principle, repealing the prevailing wage law would also be in their self-interest. There is another war being waged in the Legislature over transportation spending. The prevailing wage law aggravates that issue by inflating spending on state trans- portation projects. A 2015 study by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance showed the state's prevailing wage law was responsible for up to $300 million per year in unneces- sary costs. In terms of Wisconsin's bienni- al budget, that is potentially $600 million that could be used for additional trans- portation spending without borrowing or raising taxes. Such a windfall would release a lot of the political steam that is heating up the debate over transportation spending. While it was disappointing that Wisconsin's prevailing wage law was not fully repealed in 2015, state lawmakers now have the opportunity to finish the job for the benefit of state taxpayers. They should quickly pass Vukmir and Hutton's bill and put it on Governor Walker's desk — prefer- ably before the state budget so that law- makers can include the potential windfall savings into their budget calculations. (Owen B. Robinson is a West Bend resident whose column appears occasionally in The Milwaukee County Post. He can be reached at owen@bootsandsabers.com.) Repeal prevailing wage and shift savings to transportation Robinson Policing concerns will rise with warmer temperatures By BOB DONOVAN I have good reason to be fearful of what this summer could have in store for us, Milwaukee. I feel obligated as a public official to be forthright and honest with my con- stituents, and the citizens of Milwaukee, and from what I am seeing come across my desk — and in what I am hearing daily from constituents — I have great concern for public safety in the coming months. We all know the challenges warm weather brings us. As a public official, it's frustrating to me that we are not able to respond to many of the calls for police service we receive on a daily basis. The bottom line is we are inun- dated with calls and requests for police service, and it will be very difficult for city leaders to be able to deliver on promises to our residents given the current staffing sit- uation with the Milwaukee Police Department. The cold hard fact is this: The demands for police service in Milwaukee far out- weigh our ability to deliver those services. Please consider the following: ■ As of today, we have 120 fewer officers responding to calls for service than we did at this time last year. That is in addition to the fact that as of last year, we had roughly 200 fewer officers than we did in 2008. This steady decline in staffing has conse- quences. ■ Calls for police service are increasing significantly, and priority 3 calls (vehicle crash with damage, unlawful entry, battery, violation of restraining order, just to name a few) were up more than 50 percent in April since March alone. The MPD simply does not have the resources to keep up, and this has resulted in many waiting several hours for a police response. ■ Both the MPD and elected officials have received a growing number of requests from all across Milwaukee (and rightfully so) for increased traffic enforce- ment, for more foot and bike patrol officers and for a police response to prostitution and drug dealing. All of these requests, although necessary, continue to burden a short-staffed and overwhelmed depart- ment. ■ It is also my understanding that the Neighborhood Task Force is at its lowest staffing level since its inception. The num- ber of detectives has also declined, and at a time when they are experiencing an increased demand for their investigation of violent crimes, arson and other criminal activity. This has also resulted in a serious decline in our homicide clearance rate. ■ For a variety of rea- sons, officers are retir- ing in droves and at a much higher rate than had been anticipated. In the last 18 months alone, we have lost over 3,100 years of law enforcement experience and it is being replaced by rookies. This too, has consequences. Something else to consider: with the con- tinued challenges we face regarding vio- lent crime, it's not uncommon to tie up a dozen officers or more at one crime scene, (immediate search for suspects, crowd con- trol, traffic control, evidence gathering, door-to-door interviews, etc.). Those offi- cers are simply not available to respond to other calls for service or to proactively patrol our neighborhoods. Much of the same holds true with fatal auto accidents. No matter how hard some may try to dance around the issue, we simply no longer have the police resources to combat the public safety challenges here in Milwaukee, and although the MPD is not the only answer to our many public safety challenges, the reality is this — police offi- cers are necessary and irreplaceable when it comes to order maintenance, neighbor- hood stability, and law enforcement. I understand that turning this around will take a monumental effort on the part of many. But the near future does not appear too rosy. In this year's coming budget, the city will probably have to contribute upward of $50 million into the employee pension system, which is at least $40 million more than last year. In addition, we can expect to incur up to $25 million in damages from pending lawsuits. My intent here is not to place blame or point fingers. My only interest is in level- ing with the citizens of Milwaukee. We all live in this city and we all deserve to know the truth when it comes to the ability of the police to respond when we need their help. As for our summer? I suggest we fasten our seatbelts — it's going to be a bumpy ride. (Alderman Bob Donovan represents Milwaukee's 8th District.) Donovan

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