By Ted Chisholm
Over the past several weeks, I have been privileged by the opportunity to share information about the upcoming race for Milwaukee County Treasurer here in the Milwaukee Courier. As a candidate for Milwaukee County Treasurer in the August 13 Democratic primary, I firmly believe that our community deserves a treasurer who will be a community-minded innovator and a hands-on administrator – not an ineffectual politician.
I would like to take this opportunity to discuss my fiscal leadership experience in more detail, as I believe it underscores that I will be an engaged, effective, and highly informed Treasurer with the experience, knowledge, and competence to bring about much-needed reform and innovation in the Treasurer’s Office.
Before beginning my campaign, I served as the Senior Administrator for Management, Finance, and Strategy in the Milwaukee County Circuit Court’s Office and, concurrently, as an Assistant Chief Deputy Clerk of Circuit Court. This position was one of two senior managers reporting directly to Clerk of Circuit Court Anna Maria Hodges. In this role, I managed the $42 million budget supporting not just the Clerk of Circuit Court’s Office but the entire Milwaukee County court system. I also supervised three of the office’s six core units and divisions, providing oversight to the staff in each area: the Administrative Services Division, responsible for accounting, purchasing, contract management, and grant funding; the Jury Management section, responsible for managing Milwaukee County’s juror pool; and the Judicial Information Systems section, responsible for coordinating information technology services for the court system.
In essence, I served as the business manager for the 300-employee Clerk of Circuit Court’s Office, implementing new checks and balances to ensure accuracy in processing refunds, reducing backlogs of court payables, increasing efficiency and cross-training within the office’s central accounting and purchasing services, and leading key support services helping the department run smoothly and efficiently. I worked extensively within the software systems Sherpa and Infor, used to manage Milwaukee County budgeting and financial operations, respectively. Furthermore, I oversaw the court system’s investment of minor settlement accounts, ensuring that the annual return rates on these accounts were significantly increased. In addition to these responsibilities, I had a hands-on role working with Milwaukee County’s contract for court-ordered collections, closely examining the contract and preparing for a new “request for proposals” process that will seek new vendor proposals to manage this service effectively and with accountability.
Before serving in this position, I was the chief of staff to former Milwaukee County Sheriff Earnell Lucas from 2019 to 2022, overseeing a $49 million annual budget process and helping Sheriff Lucas implement critical reforms, including a new partnership that paired deputy sheriffs and mental health clinicians to respond to mental health emergencies safely and humanely. Furthermore, I assisted Sheriff Lucas in the administration of a 700-employee law enforcement and corrections agency. These experiences, in addition to my leadership in the court system, prepare me to serve, if elected, as an effective and engaged Treasurer leading a 10-employee office. That is why I ask for your vote on or before August 13th for Milwaukee County Treasurer.