Milwaukee County Transit System

David Crowley's proposed 2027 Milwaukee County budget totals $1.5 billion, increases overall spending by 6%, seeks to close a projected $50 million budget gap, and proposes a 2.6% increase in the county property tax levy.

At the same time, MCTS, the Milwaukee County Transit System, is confronting another financial mess.

Reporting on the proposed budget says the transit system projects a $20 million deficit for 2027 as it-- in the middle of bus service cuts.

So when Crowley tells us everything is moving in the right direction, forgive me if I ask, for whom? Milwaukee County is his resume David Crowley took office as Milwaukee County executive in twenty twenty.

And the story is about David Crowley buying electric buses.

David Crowley purchased 15 electric buses for the Milwaukee County Transit System.

15.

The county sh- so they used federal money and county money.

The county share for those 15 buses was somewhere around $8 million to buy electric buses.

Those buses were not in service for even six months.

But Milwaukee County, which is running a structural deficit, the Milwaukee County Transit System which is going to be running a f- a structural deficit of $34 million next year when all the federal money runs out.

All the federal money.

And there are some things that he's kicking the can down the road for, such as our public transportation here.

MCTS, Milwaukee County Transit System, is looking at a deficit of about over, uh, $15.7 million for a budget gap.

In order to close that, he went into the reserve wells and got $12 million out to be able to close that gap.

But again, there's gonna need to be a bigger conversation talking about the Milwaukee County Transit system coming up here in the future, where big decisions are gonna have to be made.

Now, I know they're trying to look at ways to maybe cut routes potentially to save money, but there needs to be a bigger conversation had about the future of Milwaukee County Transit system, because this is not sustainable.

We cannot run a deficit every single year for public transportation.

If public transportation is not able to sustain itself, there needs to be a conversation about how can we balance that budget.

I, I don't know the exact argument there.

With MCTS, it became very clear after a while that they needed some new blood.

Yeah.

New ways of thinking about things.

That was, I'd identified that 10 years ago when I was on a internal MCTS committee.

The library system, I haven't seen that, and part of that's because just they've successfully promoted.

The deputy has become the director.

In our focus today, you may have heard this story earlier on WTMJ in the news, but wanted to shed just a little bit of extra light on it.

It concerns a former Milwaukee County transit system bus driver who was convicted in a deadly drunk driving incident.

You may recall some reporting on that I did from last fall.

That driver now receiving a six-year prison sentence for the crime.

A 15-year-old is facing charges in the deadly shooting of a 16-year-old in Milwaukee.

Prosecutors say Robbie Stokes shot Cameron Bowen several times after the two got off an MCTS bus near Layton Boulevard and Greenfield Avenue last Saturday.

The two had reportedly got into a fight at Bayview High School just three days earlier.

According to court records, Stokes is facing first-degree intentional homicide charge in connection with the shooting.

We talk about fare enforcement.

Fares only make up a small part of the budget of the Milwaukee County transit system.

It's a huge bus system.

It supplies buses.