David Crowley told Milwaukee County he closed a $50 million gap and saved the buses. The recommended budget he announced on October 1 does it with a tax increase and a one-time withdrawal.
The 2027 plan totals $1.508 billion, up $86.6 million, or 6.1 percent, from the adopted 2026 budget. The property-tax levy rises from $309.0 million to $316.9 million, an increase of $7.87 million, or 2.5 percent. The rate falls from $2.92 to $2.80 per $1,000 only because equalized value jumped from about $105.9 billion to $113.3 billion. A lower rate on a higher base is still a larger bill. Crowley would not say whether a tax increase was coming when WISN’s Matt Smith asked him on Sept. 22. He ducked the question because he knew a tax hike was coming.
Sales-tax collections are budgeted at $202.4 million, up $6.8 million. That is the tax Crowley nearly doubled under Act 12 and then celebrated with cake. The comptroller’s April forecast says the extra 0.4 percent throws off about $88.6 million in 2027, and almost all of it is already spoken for: pension liability, pension-obligation bonds, and normal pension cost. It does not close the operating gap.
The patch is a $12.1 million draw on the debt-service reserve, plus a $5 million prior-year surplus. The comptroller warned that last year’s budget used about $9.2 million in one-time money and that this alone added $9.2 million to this year’s structural hole. Crowley is at it again with his fantasy budgeting, just larger. Federal revenue is projected to be up 39.8 percent, to $135.1 million. If those grants do not arrive, the balance disappears.
Transit is another tell. Stimulus money runs out at the end of 2026. MCTS faces a $15.7 million hole, and transit officials had already floated a 25 percent service cut to reach a level they can sustain. Crowley plugs the hole for one year and calls it preservation. But his budget forecast tells a different tale, a $50.8 million structural deficit in 2027, $75.8 million in 2028, and $168.7 million by 2031, over triple the current structural deficit in the next 5 years.
Debt service in the operating budget jumps 19.5 percent to $60.1 million before the new criminal courthouse is financed. The administration says the project will cost $858 million, the largest in county history, to be paid with a later levy. Public safety operating spending rises 0.4 percent. That is a cut after inflation.
Crowley delivered the address at the courthouse today, five weeks before he asks the voters for a promotion. Call the document what it is: budget gimmicks and wishful thinking. A lower rate that collects more money is a gimmick. A reserve raid that reopens the hole next year is a gimmick. Booking a 40 percent jump in federal cash, and calling a postponed bus cut “preservation,” is a fantasy. The county’s own forecast says the gap returns in 2028 and reaches $168.7 million by 2031. This is not a balanced budget, no matter how the left wants to spin it. It is a one-year scheme to give his campaign new talking points.
