Editorial: But, there is a wolf

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Milwaukee County still faces serious fiscal challenges that officials and employees will have to address in 2010.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker may have been crying wolf early last year when he was warning of the probability of layoffs and furloughs for county employees to help meet the county's budget challenges. People do that when there's a wolf at the door.

Walker and the County Board helped ease the fiscal crisis by making necessary adjustments in the county's 2010 budget, but that doesn't mean the wolf has gone away. Layoffs may not be necessary in 2010, as Walker explained recently to Journal Sentinel reporter Steve Schultze, but employees will be asked to make concessions and to take furlough days.

An improving economy and the 2010 budget make Walker more optimistic about the coming year, and although he hasn't ruled out layoffs, the county right now has no plans for any layoffs.

Richard Abelson, head of the county's largest union, wasn't buying "this new soft, gentle and fluffy Scott Walker," and said Walker was the one who "cried wolf" with talk of layoffs and furloughs in 2009.

Maybe. But Abelson and his union need to consider that the county's 2011 structural deficit was pegged at almost $110 million, according to a forecast made before the 2010 budget was adopted. Without changes, the figure leaps to $153 million by 2014.

Employee concessions would help whittle that 2011 deficit figure, but a substantial gap would remain, said John Ruggini, the county's assistant budget director. The biggest factors are mushrooming health and pension costs.

Maintaining county services without bankrupting taxpayers has to be the county's priority. If the wolf is still there, Walker and every other county official need to keep sounding warnings about it.