MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, now Wisconsin’s governor-elect, said Sunday that he was aware of a $4.56 million hole in the county’s draft 2027 spending plan before voters went to the polls.
Crowley said his staff did know about the problem and wanted county supervisors to hear a clear account of what went wrong, how it was repaired and how it would be avoided later.
County leaders disclosed the shortfall Wednesday, one day after Crowley won the race for governor. A software-driven math mistake had treated $4.56 million as available savings in the 2027 draft even though that money was not there.
A memo dated Nov. 4 from the budget office to board officers said a new computer routine for spreading equipment costs and depreciation reversed the plus and minus marks on two airport figures — a $4.49 million depreciation item and $2.21 million booked as airport income. Officials intend to close the gap over the 2027 fiscal year and ask supervisors for a transfer of funds before April.
Crowley said the disclosure simply landed on the same day as a board budget session. He said members of the board were not told until the morning after voters had cast ballots. On the question of when he personally learned of it, he said the Office of Strategy, Budget and Performance studied the numbers, lined up a remedy and then briefed the board. He did not answer yes or no on whether the news was kept quiet until after the vote, repeating that the aim was to explain both the mistake and the repair.
Supervisors on Thursday adopted the revised 2027 plan 17-1 and ordered the budget director to return next month with a written account of the roughly $4.5 million transportation-budget mistake. During the campaign, Republican Tom Tiffany had criticized Crowley over how the county’s books were kept.
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