Milwaukee Alders Proud of New Budget That Hikes Costs, Fees, Parking Tickets

The people of Milwaukee will pay to balance the city’s new $2 billion city budget.

Milwaukee’s Common Council okayed the 2025 city budget on Friday. In addition to spending about 2% more than the current budget, the new spending plan includes a number of cost and fee increases, as well as a plan to write a lot of parking tickets to cover the cost of Milwaukee’s streetcar.

City council members say the new budget reflects the priorities of the city, and makes key investments.

“We have spent the last several weeks hearing from our constituents, City departments, and other stakeholders about what issues are important to them, and we took that feedback to adopt a budget that reflects the priorities of the people,” Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic said in a statement. “We can be extremely proud of what we have accomplished with this budget that re-invests in crucial areas of city services that will positively impact quality of life throughout the city.”

Those services include pay raises for city employees, a new round of road projects, and even a commitment to hire new police officers.

But the new Milwaukee budget is silent about the return of Milwaukee Police to the city’s public schools.

MPS was supposed to have school resource officers back in its buildings in January. The school district, however, has balked at the state law that requires their return. MPS has said it is waiting for funding from either the city or the state to finalize the officer’s return.

Milwaukee’s budget is not silent, however, when it comes to fee increases.

The 2025 spending plan looks to:

• Raise parking fines by $12 on average, and write at least 400,000 tickets to generate $2 million in new revenue.

• Increase the cost of Milwaukee’s snow and ice removal fee.

• Increase the fee for garbage service in Milwaukee.

• Increase property taxes citywide.

Those tax and fee increases come on top of Milwaukee’s new sales tax, which went into effect January 1st of 2024. And the new statewide shared revenue agreement that sent nearly $5 million to the city.

Still, the Wisconsin Policy Forum wrote last month that all that new money is only a Band-Aid for Milwaukee.

“When we look beyond next year, a more foreboding picture emerges. Both future sales tax and shared revenue increases will be dependent on the national economy, and on that front growth has slowed. Health care savings – which were instrumental in building reserve capacity and balancing the 2025 budget – likely will be short-lived,” the report notes. “Meanwhile, increases in Act 12-related costs appear inevitable as the city responds to its mandate to increase police and fire staffing levels and as ongoing labor negotiations with the Milwaukee police and fire unions are resolved.”

Mayor Cavalier Johnson has until November 19 to sign or veto the new spending plan.