Milwaukee County Board approves cutting pay for top department heads
In its continuing feud with County Executive Chris Abele, the Milwaukee County Board on Thursday approved placing five top department heads into a lower pay grade that would slash their salaries by thousands of dollars.
The five administrators are Administrative Services Director Teig Whaley-Smith, Transportation Department Executive Director Brian Dranzik, Human Resources Chief Kerry Mitchell, Budget Director Steve Kreklow and the director of Health and Human Services, a job that is vacant pending a nationwide search.
Milwaukee County Board Chairman Theodore Lipscomb Sr. has argued that Abele improperly protected unauthorized salaries of the department heads and other appointees at a cost to taxpayers of tens of thousands of dollars.
Before Thursday's board meeting, the Personnel Committee recommended approval of Lipscomb's plan to shift the five Abele appointees into a pay grade assigned to those jobs in 2014, rather than a higher pay range given to them this year by the administration.
Supervisors were animated while discussing the proposal Thursday morning, with some expressing frustration over the amount of time the pay policy has been in contention.
Supervisor Jim Luigi Schmitt said Abele overstepped his authority with the pay increases. The board's move to apply the salary limits helps restore a balance between the county's three branches of government, he said.
"We're following the law," he said. "We're not picking on anybody."
Supervisor Deanna Alexander asked that the board wait to approve the measure. She said the public is tired of the tension between the County Board and the county executive.
"We're in this state of constantly vilifying," she said.
Once the decision is finalized, the board and the executive administration will need to find common ground to implement the changes, she said.
"I think it's prudent of us to hold off on moving forward on changing salaries when there's talks of mediation and how to do it in a ... a respectful way," she said.
Alexander cast the only vote in opposition, with the board approving the measure 16-1.
The resolution requires Mitchell and Comptroller Scott Manske to place Mitchell and the other four department heads into a pay grade capped at an adjusted maximum salary of $126,111. The cap had been $124,883 in 2014 but was increased by a cost-of-living adjustment authorized in the 2017 budget.
Kreklow currently is paid $146,106, or $19,995 more than the maximum salary in the pay grade preferred by Lipscomb. Mitchell is paid $136,621, or $10,510 above that cap. Whaley-Smith is paid $133,269, or $7,158 over the cap. Dranzik is paid $131,366, or $5,255 above the cap.
Former Health and Human Services Director Hector Colón was paid $175,000 — $48,889 above the maximum in the lower pay grade — before he resigned in June to take the job of president and CEO of Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin.
"Think of the number of households that don't make even $50,000, and one individual thinks they have the right to give someone that type of raise?" Supervisor Steve Taylor said.
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Lipscomb last week accused Abele of protecting what he contends are unauthorized salaries paid to those department heads.
Administration officials denied the charge and said the five appointees recently had been placed in a higher board-authorized pay range in compliance with an April 26 Milwaukee County Circuit Court order.
At issue before the court were pay ranges created by Abele after 2014 over the objection of the County Board.
Judge John DiMotto ruled that the County Board, not Abele, has the authority to set pay ranges for appointees and other employees not covered by civil service rules.
At the same time, DiMotto found that the board is prohibited under state law from infringing on administrative functions, specifically increasing an employee's pay within a range and promotions to higher job classifications.
Lipscomb claims moving the five appointees to the lower pay range is mandated under DiMotto's court order.
But the board does not have the authority to select which board-approved pay ranges the department heads and other appointees are placed in, according to administration officials.
DiMotto ruled that the act of moving appointees between salary ranges, known as reclassification, is an administrative function and not a board policy decision.