CRAZY FUNDING FOR POLICE UNION HEADS

THREE POLICE UNION OFFICIALS 

ON

CITY CLERK'S PAYROLL

*    *    *

With Balcerzak, Fischer Voted off Board, Who Will Replace Them?

*    *    *
Fischer's Seat as Chair of Golf Committee In Peril

Golf Outing Committee Seen as Rudderless Without His Steadying Hand

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne

And The Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team

The two top officials of the Milwaukee Police Association have been voted off the board of directors of the organization, and will have to relinquish their posts upon the expiration of their terms. President John Balcerzak, who earned $67,663 last year, and Vice-President Tom Fischer, who earned $74,692, got their clocks cleaned in the fall Trustee election by Rudolfo Gomez, Jr. and Dale Bormann, Jr., the top two vote-getters, who will serve four year terms on the board beginning January 1st, 2010.
The results:

Gomez, Jr., Rudolfo	441
Bormann Jr., Dale	435
Fischer, Thomas E.	280
Balcerzak, John A.	266

 
Only trustees are eligible for leadership positions in the union. Elections for President and Vice-President will be held on November 7th, for a two year term. The Secretary of the union (currently Mark A. Sikora, who earned $67,808) will be chosen by the members in January.

The President, Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer of the MPA attend to union business on a full-time basis. and have no other departmental responsibilities. They bear the job title, for work classification purposes, of MPA Liaison.


[Among other assignments, Fischer is chair of the police Golf Committee, and a member of the Golf Outing Committee. Yep, you can plan the annual MPA golf outing on company time at taxpayer expense as an MPA Liaison]

But don't look for liaison salaries to be charged against the Police Department budget. Instead, the MPA Liaisons get their paycheck from the budget of the Common Council / City Clerk, which allots $190,156 for the three positions for 2010.

Who came up with this?

The Milwaukeeworld Hound Dog barked out a request to City Clerk Ron Leonhardt asking him to explain this budgetary anomaly:

The attachment of these positions to our office was done a number of years ago as part of contract negotiations with the union.  Previously they had been attached to the Department of Employee Relations.  However, when the Fire and Police Commission staff was also put under DER, it was determined that it was inappropriate to also have these police liaison positions in the same department.  So it was determined to attach them to us for administrative purposes.

However, just like the salaries for Aldermen and aides, also in his budget and set by statute, Leonhardt is not able to reduce expenditures for the police liaison positions. This probably puts him in a bind, especially when the mayor is demanding all city departments cut their budgets. 

FUN FACT!
For Gomez, a detective, an MPA Liaison job might mean a pay cut -- he earned $91,141 last year, including $26,292 in overtime beyond his $58,818 base pay. Bormann, also a detective, might have to take a cut if he becomes liaison -- he earned a base pay of $55,526 which he augmented with $18,257 in overtime pay.