Ted Chisholm
By Ted Chisholm
I am running for Milwaukee County Treasurer with the vision and qualifications to provide stronger leadership. As the former Senior Administrator for Management, Finance, and Strategy under Clerk of Circuit Court Anna Maria Hodges, I oversaw a $42 million budget, accounting services, and reforms to protect taxpayer dollars while increasing annual return rates on court investments. As the Chief of Staff to former Sheriff Earnell Lucas, I oversaw a $49 million budget process and key policy reforms. Endorsed by over six dozen community leaders and organizations, I am ready to apply my experience and record of community engagement to improve how the Treasurer’s Office serves our county.
Our community deserves support from the Treasurer’s Office, which manages county banking and cash services, makes investments, and collects delinquent property taxes in 18 of 19 Milwaukee County municipalities. As Treasurer, I will intervene when homeowners fall behind on property taxes, doing everything possible to make personalized outreach and craft payment plans that prevent tax foreclosures. We must do everything possible to help Milwaukee County residents remain in their homes.
We deserve a Treasurer who will work more proactively to foreclose on vacant and abandoned industrial and commercial sites that have not paid taxes in years, restoring them from tax delinquency to the tax base. The office requires modernization and improved customer service. Greater transparency is also in order – if elected, I will ensure that Milwaukee County’s investment information is accessible on the Treasurer’s website and at the front entrance to the Treasurer’s Office so that members of the public can review their taxpayer investments.
The lackluster tenure of my opponent, career politician David Cullen, has not provided the kind of engaged and visible leadership we deserve. Even my opponent’s purported achievements have more to them than first meets the eye. He suggests his “prudent investing” led to increased returns in 2023, but his own office cites factors outside his control, namely short-term “[federal aid dollars] that the County has received, but not yet spent and […] an increase in the County’s Debt Service Reserve that is available for investing” while noting that as federal aid funding winds down and “the market cools,” these earnings will again decrease!
We deserve a Treasurer who truly believes in community investment, not just when it’s politically beneficial. I fully support recent steps to invest county funds in Columbia Savings and Loan, a respected financial institution, but am astonished that my opponent failed to invest in Columbia in the first nine years during which he served as Treasurer. Now he often touts a belated 2024 investment in Columbia, made in an election year. We deserve a Treasurer who will invest in our community on Day One, not in Year Ten.
I am running for Treasurer with the vision and leadership experience to serve our community more effectively. It would be an honor to earn the support of Milwaukee County voters in the August 13 Democratic primary.