Reality is a Tad Different Off the AFSCME Protest Bus

Man­i­towoc has become some­thing of a poster-city for the Wis­con­sin Left recently for a num­ber of rea­sons.  The first is obvi­ous, the labor dis­pute between Man­i­towoc Crane Co. and its union.  Because the com­pany wants to cre­ate an open shop where new employ­ees get to choose if they join the union or not, the state AFL-CIO and AFSCME have turned the strug­gle into a proxy for the Walker Recall.

Because you know, allow­ing peo­ple a choice in who they asso­ciate with and pay money to is a crime against human­ity or something.

Now that the city of Man­i­towoc finally has a 2012 bud­get final­ized, the deci­sions made have been scooped up by everyone’s favorite AFSCME hack and DPW as a sign that the Walker Reform’s “aren’t working.”

Here’s the reality.

Manitowoc’s city bud­get has been, and will be a mess for quite a few years.  Some fear the city may even­tu­ally some­day end up in default since it holds some­thing akin to $75 mil­lion in debt.

How much is the annual city bud­get?  Oh, around $26 mil­lion dol­lars in oper­at­ing cost.  Some­thing, is going to have to give for the count­less bond­ing and other projects the city should have never agreed to in the 1990s and 2000s under the lead­er­ship of for­mer Mayor Kevin Crawford.

Everyone’s focus­ing on the recent news, but no one in Man­i­towoc is sur­prised by the mess, since it’s always been there.  Here’s what a Novem­ber 30th Her­ald Times-Reporter arti­cle had on the actual fis­cal sit­u­a­tion of the city.

[My Cousin, County Exec­u­tive, State Assem­bly­man, and for­mer City of Man­i­towoc Finan­cial Direc­tor from 1984–89 Bob] Ziegel­bauer said the biggest prob­lem con­fronting the city is its approx­i­mate $75 mil­lion debt, up from $10 mil­lion in 1990, accord­ing to data from Nickels.

“Yes, (the city’s) rev­enues and expenses are hor­ri­bly out of bal­ance but (city offi­cials) are hand­cuffed because they are swamped in this deep pile of debt,” said Ziegel­bauer, a mem­ber of the state Assem­bly since 1992.

He won­dered how the city might repay any short-term loan.

“I don’t know how you can look at what is hap­pen­ing and not think they are on the path to default … they bet­ter get off it,” said Ziegel­bauer, a Man­i­towoc native.

While acknowl­edg­ing there are “no easy answers,” Ziegel­bauer said addi­tional job cuts, beyond the 31 pro­posed in Nick­els’ orig­i­nal bud­get offered Oct. 17, must be considered.

Ziegel­bauer esti­mated that, at least, 100 of the city’s approx­i­mately 350 employ­ees cost $100,000 or more annu­ally when fac­tor­ing in pay, con­tri­bu­tions to their retire­ment fund, health insur­ance and other ben­e­fit costs.

He said no department’s staffing level should be con­sid­ered off-limits for pos­si­ble reduction.

Ziegel­bauer said the city’s taxes per capita is “pretty robust” and not the cause of the city’s fis­cal predicament.

Man­i­towoc has a spend­ing prob­lem.  It has for years, and you would think with the con­tin­ual eco­nomic shocks it takes from time to time, those in charge of the city would have fig­ured they can’t spend their way out of this mess any­time soon with­out dam­ag­ing the city long-term.

Even the local paper edi­to­ri­al­ized just yes­ter­day that it would be fool­ish to claim Manitowoc’s prob­lems are solely caused by the state bud­get of Scott Walker.  That they are instead the prod­uct of years and decades of mismanagement.

Man­i­towoc is not the only Wis­con­sin unit of gov­ern­ment to encounter bud­get­ing trou­bles this year. For every suc­cess story the admin­is­tra­tion in Madi­son touts, there are hor­ror sto­ries like Manitowoc’s, though it may not be appro­pri­ate to blame the Walker camp for the city’s strug­gles that reflect years of ques­tion­able bud­get tactics.

While some unique fac­tors led to the cur­rent deba­cle, we are con­fi­dent that a com­bi­na­tion of sac­ri­fice, dili­gence and hard work can get the city’s bud­get house back in order.

Manitowoc’s answer for years was to bond itself today and pay for it in the future.  Well, a lot of that is com­ing due now, and it’s not going to be pretty.  It also would have hap­pened if Tom Bar­rett was Gov­er­nor or any­one else for that matter.

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