Who should be laughing now?

An opulent $800 million MGM Grand Hotel and Casino recently opened in downtown Detroit. While Milwaukee leaders continually like to poke fun at Detroit, when was the last time any developer thought that highly of downtown Milwaukee? The only Milwaukee project of that magnitude was the deep tunnel sewer. But that was built with taxpayer dollars. I can't think of any private sector development in Milwaukee as large as the one in Detroit. So who should be laughing at whom?

Public-sector salary scam

While Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines, Jr. is seeking a cap on police overtime, he ought to also throw in an overtime cap for janitors (Building Maintenance Mechanics) at the Department of City Development (DCD). Either that or someone ought to teach DCD employees how to be more cleanly. Perhaps a “trash sensitivity course” would do the trick. In many cases, janitors make more in total pay than DCD planners. From the jsonline.com list of annual and total salaries paid to city employees, I counted 11 janitors who made more than $10,000 in overtime last year. One made over $20,000! And DCD is located in a relatively small four-story building. I remember a summer job I had with the county 40 years ago in which I was charged with keeping a one-story park building clean. It took me three hours a day to make the place spotless, and even that was stretching it.

And Milwaukee’s mayor wants to raise taxes by how much next year?

The bigger picture, of course, is that the list of city of Milwaukee employee salaries is testimony to the con job the public sector has done in convincing people that public-sector employees are so woefully underpaid, particularly compared to their private-sector peers. Add in the princely benefits and pensions that public sector employees enjoy compared to what’s available in the private sector and the argument about poorly compensated public employees becomes even more ridiculous. To a certain degree I don’t deny public employees their largesse because that’s what they negotiated, but to listen to them whine when asked to pay something for their benefits or moan about their sad situations is just insufferable and disingenuous.

They should shut up and thank their lucky stars they don’t have to compete in the private sector.