Frederica Freyberg:

Others in Milwaukee are an unequivocal hard “no” on this proposal. Our next guest says this deal in the legislature fails Milwaukee by overinvesting in police and taxing the poorest residents. Devin Anderson is campaign director of the African-American Roundtable. Thanks very much for being here.

Devin Anderson:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So your organization is highly critical of this shared revenue plan as it affects Milwaukee. In your mind, what is the worst of it?

Devin Anderson:

Yeah. All of it is pretty bad, but I think if you look at it in its totality, the provisions that it places on Milwaukee in particular bringing cops back into school, our friends at Leaders Igniting Transformation have led really strong organizing to get cops out of school. If you look at just the continued investment that Milwaukee would have to make into policing, part of the reason Milwaukee’s in the problem, the budget problem that it has is because of its overinvestment in policing and so this bill doubles down on that investment and we haven’t even gotten to the 2% sales tax. That’s a regressive tax, and a regressive tax disproportionately impacts the poorest residents, and that’s something we’re against. People in Milwaukee, residents of Milwaukee are already struggling to make ends meet and adding a 2% sales tax when they’re really getting no increase in services is a bad deal.

Frederica Freyberg:

So do you think city residents would consider voting to approve a 2% sales tax that goes to pay for police pensions?

Devin Anderson:

No. I think the answer is no and I think that’s why we’ve seen the pivot from the leadership at the city and county asking for this to be approved via the respected legislative branches rather than going to referendum. I think people in Milwaukee have an understanding and don’t want to see any of their services cut, but what they know is they don’t want to be forced to pay additional revenue and not see any expansion in services.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think about the bill as introduced, including that referendum, taking the 2% sales tax to voters, whereas that is not required elsewhere?

Devin Anderson:

Yeah. I think our position is still we’re going to oppose a 2% sales tax. One thing we want to continue to lift up is that Wisconsin has a $7 billion surplus. So instead of asking voters in Milwaukee to dig deeper into their pockets to pay to maintain services, the state should write the check. Over the last year, and I know a lot of folks have talked about it, everybody always says Milwaukee is the economic engine of the state, but Milwaukee doesn’t receive its fair share of shared revenue. Our position and what we’ve fought for over the last years has always been more investment into our communities. Since we launched our campaign in 2019 Liberating MKE, that’s been central to our demands, that our communities need more. They need more access to public health, they need longer hours at the libraries, they need their roads to be repaired. But our vision of how we get there is not to increase taxes on the poorest people of Milwaukee. It’s not to sign deals that continue to add to more police. And instead, it’s demanding that the state give its fair share back to the residents of Milwaukee who provide so much to the state of Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

What concerns do you and others have that in the kind of wrangling about the process and the specifics of this bill, that the whole thing could go down and then Milwaukee and other local governments don’t get this sorely needed boost?

Devin Anderson:

Yeah. I think our concerns always lie within our residents. For too long, the residents we’ve talked to have noted that they already don’t see the impacts of city government. And so our concerns are like lifting up their voice and naming right now that we can’t sign this deal just because it’s the only deal on the table; we have to ask for more. We have to demand more. Our communities deserve so much more from government and we have to be demanding of that and not accepting the scraps left on the table for us.

Frederica Freyberg:

Are your voices being heard in all of this?

Devin Anderson:

No. No, they aren’t. I think we’ve made it loud and clear the last years throughout the city budget process that actually what Milwaukee residents want is they want to see more investments into programs like public health, they want to see their libraries expanded, they want to see less money spent on police. But instead we continue to see status quo budgets, we continue to see election officials making excuses around why folks — always talk about how Milwaukee is going towards this financial cliff, but we’ve never seen any changes in terms of their investment and support for police and policing. And so for us, it’s like, you know, city leadership will talk about like how previous administrations have led us to this moment, but actually, their administration and the budgets they passed last year have continued to push us towards this moment and we shouldn’t be asking Milwaukee’s poorest residents to bail us out in this moment.

Frederica Freyberg:

Devin Anderson, we’ll leave it there. We appreciate hearing your voice. Thank you.

Devin Anderson:

Thank you so much for having me.