'Double dipping': Retired Milwaukee police captain will return to old job, collect pension and salary

The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission unanimously approved the appointment of a retired police captain to her old job — now a civilian position — on Thursday.

Once on the job, Regina Howard will collect her pension and her new salary. She receives about $6,800 in monthly pension payments, or about $81,600 annually, according to city records.

The salary range for her new job, police planning and policy director, is $80,000 to $112,000 annually. She will not accrue a second pension.

Interim Police Chief Alfonso Morales nominated and appointed Howard to the post, effective March 26, pending commission approval. The new chief is working to put his command staff in place as he makes major changes to the department.

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Mayor Tom Barrett said he does not support bringing a retired city employee back to fill a similar job because of concerns about "double dipping." He said he faced the same issue when Edward Flynn was police chief.

Flynn had floated the idea of hiring a retired assistant chief as his chief of staff, a civilian position that no longer exists after funding cuts.

"My position remains the same," Barrett said. "It's a taxpayer fairness issue."

Howard will report directly to the chief and run the Office of Management, Analysis and Planning, which is responsible for crime analysis, policy and research and managing grants the department receives.

The office is staffed with 12 sworn officers, six crime analysts, and a crime and intelligence manager.

Howard was commander of that office for several years as a captain. The department made the job a civilian position and posted it in the fall of 2016 in a nationwide search.

Howard, who had announced her upcoming retirement, applied for it then but lost out to Leslie Silletti. Howard retired about a year ago.

Silletti spent much of last year coordinating with U.S. Department of Justice officials and federal consultants on a review of the agency known as "collaborative reform." She left the department when Flynn retired in February.

Morales said he went back to the same applicant pool from the 2016 search and four candidates agreed to interviews before a panel of three sworn officers, one civilian and two representatives from Human Resources.

The panel unanimously selected Howard, who had "stood out above" the others and had presented a 90-day plan for the office, Morales said.

After her retirement, Howard sharply criticized Flynn's administration and said at a public meeting in January that the department had a discriminatory culture.

“I think that certainly racism does exist within the Milwaukee Police Department,” she said at the time. “As an African-American officer, I’ve experienced it."

“We get fired, we get removed from our assignments and yet we still stand and we still fight,” she said.