3 takeaways from Milwaukee Police Department's proposed 2025 budget

Milwaukee Police Department hopes to fund two new positions aimed at easing communication among victims and the department, as part of its 2025 proposed $314.5 million budget.

The potential new positions and discussion around usage of overtime and staffing requirements from state law dominated a city committee meeting on the law enforcement budget on Thursday. The city's police department leadership presented the department's budget to the city's Finance and Personnel Committee, as part of a series of hearings on various city departments' budgets this month.

The 2025 proposed budget, for $314,501,013, is $2.2 million higher than this year's. It comes as ramifications from Wisconsin Act 12 , a state funding bill with stipulations on maintaining and increasing police staffing , began to shape the department this year .

The council's powerful Finance and Personnel Committee will hear from departments throughout October, and the full 15-member council can amend the full 2025 budget before adopting it on Nov. 8. Mayor Cavalier Johnson's signature is also required.

Here's three takeaways on the police's proposed 2025 budget:

Department seeks to hire two victim witness specialists

The police department aims to hire two positions that would help improve communication between victims or witnesses and the department, while lessening that load on police detectives.

The two positions would be based in the department's Criminal Investigations Bureau, which Assistant Chief Nicole Waldner leads. She said the two would be civilian positions, with some similarities to a social worker.

"Even when we have done our initial investigation, (the family or victim) has this person who's trained in this type of trauma to connect with them and keep them apprised of their investigation," she said.

As an example, Waldner said she's received complaints from gunshot victims feeling "left in the process" when they leave the hospital and the court process ends.

"They feel kind of abandoned and so this is to help fill that gap," she said.

Ald. Scott Spiker said he agreed with the decision to budget for the roles, but questioned if community partners or the city's Office of Community Wellness and Safety could handle the duties.

Norman and police chief of staff Heather Hough said it was a better fit in-house. Hough said the types of calls they anticipate the position handling require information that isn't available to outside agencies or other city departments.

The two positions are estimated to cost $130,000 total, but the department expected them to begin halfway through 2025. That brings the cost to $65,000 in the initial ask to create the positions in the proposed police budget for next year.

Pressure from Wisconsin Act 12 top of mind for recruitment

Alders and police leaders didn't shy away from the pressures Wisconsin Act 12 places on the city and department.

Wisconsin Act 12 is a 2023 Wisconsin funding law that grants the city more state funding but also requires it to grow its police force to 1,725 officers within 10 years of the city's new sales tax going into effect earlier this year.

In August, the Milwaukee Police Department had 1,587 sworn officers. Act 12 does not allow grant-funded officers to be counted in its total, meaning the city's roughly 82 grant-funded positions don't count toward that requirement, according to an August staffing report.

Recent recruit classes fall far short of the city's budgeted goal of holding three classes of 65 recruits. A recent graduation class had 37 become officers and another class of 33 was moved on to the academy.

The city's Fire and Police Commission, which was stripped of much of its power as part of Act 12 , is the main entity that manages the department's recruitment, with the police department supplementing their work.

"Recruitment is such a critical, fundamental first step to building, sustaining the department," said Ald. Peter Burgelis, who asked what the department needs to reach the state mandates. "We don't have 65 officers in each class ... we should be hiring en masse."

Norman said the issue goes beyond Milwaukee and is part of a larger issue in police hiring in the country. The department is looking at improving retention as well, he said.

Marcey Patterson, manager of the police department's office of community relations, engagement and recruitment, said the department has two recruiters on staff. She said it's been stressed that recruiting is a "department-wide activity," and the department is working to identify other officers who can help.

"The challenge you speak of sir is real," Norman said. "We're doing as much as we can with whatever we got available for us."

Under Wisconsin Act 12, Milwaukee will lose 15% of its shared revenue from the state if it does not maintain the number of police officers and the daily staffing level in the Fire Department minimally at the numbers from the previous year. The city met that requirement this year and projections show it will make it in 2025, officials said previously.

Overtime costs a concern

The proposed budget include $21.8 million for overtime costs , which funds 340,000 hours of overtime, Bryan Rynders, budget and fiscal policy operations manager for the city, told the committee.

That figure drew concern from alders, who questioned whether the amount used to patrol downtown entertainment or if overtime agreements could be tweaked to better cover costs. Police officials said overtime agreements between the department and other entities include a 10% administrative fee aimed to cover associated costs, but it doesn't always cover those costs.

The agreements require the other party to pay the maximum overtime rate for whatever officer they use.

One program, called Code RED, an acronym for Responsible Entertainment Districts, sends additional officers to the city's downtown entertainment area, and cost about $580,000 in overtime. That began in the early 2010s.

Alder Milele Coggs said the program began with grant-funding but had now become taxpayer funded.

"Maybe the fair thing to do is to figure out how those businesses that are benefiting could help," she said.

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