Milwaukee County Supervisor Johnny L. Thomas released the following statement regarding employee benefit costs in Milwaukee County:
“It’s great to see that Board Chairman Lee Holloway is taking the lead on partnering with the Milwaukee Public Schools and neighboring municipalities to lower employee and retiree health care costs. I was the author of an amendment to the 2011 County Budget that called for us to explore partnerships with other local governments to help control employee health care and retirement costs.
“Yesterday, at the Committee of the Whole meeting, Supervisors met with the Superintendent of the Milwaukee Public Schools, Dr. Gregory Thornton, to discuss a potential Memorandum of Understanding to partner on employee and retiree health care. We need to continue to explore opportunities to achieve savings at all levels of government.”
“The potential agreement with MPS allows us to leverage our buying power and provide a greater return on the scarce resources available to all governments, including Milwaukee County. If we can make this happen, we’ll make the quality of life better for our employees and our taxpayers. This can also be used as a template to explore partnerships with the City of Milwaukee and surrounding municipalities. The County is taking the lead on this, and taxpayers stand to benefit.
“Last night, we learned of major cuts in State support for local governments including Milwaukee County. In light of that, we need to take every opportunity to reduce our costs while maintaining the services that citizens depend on. We can’t depend on the State to do it for us.”
