Walker's Lame Defense On Pension Scandal During His Tenure

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker explains his asleep-at-the-switch behavior as pension outrages occurred on his watch - - with a self-serving email to AM 620 WTMJ talk show host Charlie Sykes (proving a point I made in separate posts about Walker's joined-at-the-hip relationship with rightwing talk radio on transit issues.)

The full text is reprinted below.

In the email, Walker blames "bureaucrats," a focus-group tested canard if there ever was one, but one usually aimed by an outsider to government (perhaps even one seeking the mantle of "reformer"), and not by the incumbent who has been in charge of those bureaucrats for the last five years.

He blames himself a bit - - for not being cynical enough when it comes to the machinations of these evil bureaucrats.

And Walker falls back on the weakest of responses to a genuine problem - - the appointment of a yet another task force. A task force to do his job: lead, root out corruption, waste and insider self-service, and then governing.

Separately, Walker made much the same case to the Journal Sentinel, which broke the story about the discovery of what could be a $50 million obligation to the county pension fund and/or county taxpayers because special pension eligibility and extra retirement benefits were allowed to about 500 county employees.

The full text of his email to Sykes follows - - with one insert because the text cries out for correction. I've italicized it in brackets so no one will think Walker wrote it):

"Charlie,

Sorry I did not get a chance to email you sooner as I was camping with my sons’ Scout troop in northern Wisconsin over the weekend and just got back last night.

First, we made a mistake in not pursing more information on the buy back/in program when it came to light in once case involving Sue Baldwin’s former employment with Milwaukee County. Based on the information we had at the time, we believed that it involved special treatment given to her by the past administration.

Our mistake was in not being more cynical about the possibility that others had dreamed this up and let a larger group know about it.

The people who are wrong in this are the bureaucrats who dreamed it up and enacted it without formal approval from the former pension board.
By the time Baldwin was no longer an employee, the person most responsible for this idea was out of the county government.

The issue next came to light in 2005, when another individual sought to get the approval of the new pension board to do what Baldwin did. They were surprised and said no and took action to end the program, but they did not understand the IRS implications.

Earlier this year, the pension board was given information about the IRS issues. They and our administration agreed that the county must self-report to the IRS. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel does a good job of explaining the issue and of looking into the details.

To see if there are more land minds in the retirement system, I am putting together an independent panel to review all areas and make recommendations on further changes.

The reforms we made to the pension board were done to guarantee financial literacy, insure independence and to prevent the concentration of power. In the past, the County Executive controlled the pension board and that left the door open for trouble like this.

Finally, we addressed the pension issues that were presented in the 2002 and 2004 elections. We got waivers from cabinet, executive and new employees.

[Now hold on. Waivers were not gained from all employees, as claimed, and promised earlier. Only after Walker opponent David Riemer called Walker on the issue in the 2004 campaign did Walker get all the waivers, the Journal Sentinel reported.]

We ended the backdrop for non-represented employees years ago and finally got the last union to agree to the cap.

We enacted reforms to the pension board so new benefit proposals get a through review in the future and we proposed a plan to remove the unfunded liability of the pension system.

Still, we have work to do as it becomes clear that previous administrations left even more land minds in the system than we originally thought when we first came into office.

Unlike the people of Milwaukee County (for whom I am eternally optimistic), many of the bureaucrats from the past require me to be completely cynical about there [sic] actions and motives.

Unlike the pension enhancements that were approved in the fall of 2000 where there is clear evidence that several actuaries mislead the county, this issue seems to be enacted with clear intent and with a disregard for the future.

Scott"