All 18 seats on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors are up for election on April 7.
Each supervisor represents a different region of Milwaukee County on the board. As a group, they make decisions that affect our parks, public transit, mental health services, and more.
To break down what the Milwaukee County Board does, Lake Effect's Xcaret Nuñez spoke with Phil Rocco, an associate professor and chair of the political science department at Marquette University.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Xcaret Nuñez: What is the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, and what do they do?
Phil Rocco: The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors is an 18-member legislative body of the county, and it does essentially what a legislature in any sort of system of government would do. If there are executive nominations for particular positions, it reviews and votes on those. It modifies the budget that the county executive proposes in line with its own priorities. It can propose ordinances and changes to ordinances to create new programs. It can also consider ordinance changes that the county executive proposes and then votes on those. So you can think of it as an analog to the state Legislature or the Milwaukee Common Council, really a legislative body.
You listed some of their responsibilities as a legislative body. How does the work of the county board affect Milwaukee County residents' lives?
Much of the most important action that the county board does is reviewing, voting on and amending the budget that's proposed by the county executive. That's a process that starts in the spring, and it goes through to the fall — it's quite a long budget process, but that affects so many of the services that shape our daily lives.
If you think about what the county can do, it has enacted some hugely impactful programs, like Housing First, a program that has really made Milwaukee a leader in reducing homelessness around the country. That's a county program. And so while people, I think, forget about ‘What is Milwaukee County, and how does it differ from the City of Milwaukee?’ It's important to look at those details of the programs that the county has, and the county board of supervisors makes some really important decisions about how those programs are funded and how we balance all of the different responsibilities that the county has to attend to.
What district seats are currently up for election?
All 18 seats are up for reelection on the county board of supervisors, but there are only three contested elections where you're going to see more than one candidate on the ballot. That is District 9, which is the far southwest corner of the county, and includes Franklin. District 11, which is also pretty far in the southwest, includes Greendale. And District 7, which is further Northwest in Milwaukee County, [and includes Enderis Park.] So you only really have three contested races, even though all 18 members are up for reelection.
What are some of the issues county supervisors will have to face if elected or re-elected this year?
So the county's fiscal problems are by no means solved. Many of the dynamics that are driving county budget challenges and were faced in the current budget, are going to continue — like flat state aid, rising service costs and deferred maintenance on county buildings. Those will continue, and it's going to continue being a balancing act. So there's going to be a lot to pay attention to as a resident of Milwaukee County in the year to come.
And I think that there are also broader national, political issues that the county is going to be forced to respond to, like the Trump Administration's cuts to major programs, including Medicaid. That's a huge issue for residents in the county. Food stamps, or SNAP, are another really important issue. And the county has kind of limited fiscal capacity to respond to some of those major federal cuts, but it's going to feel the consequences because of the role that the county plays in service provision. It's going to feel the blowback of those federal decisions.
The county is also one of these places where the role of multiple levels of government, federal, state and local, kind of come together. It's a meeting point for those roles. And so what happens nationally, we're not necessarily immune from here in Milwaukee County.
