Morris Andrews
Red Crown Lodge Resort
P.O. Box 1460
Arbor Vitae, WI 54568
Fax 715-385-2015November 28, 2001

Dear Mr. Andrews:

Your secret meeting at the Red Crown Lodge Resort to change the manner in which state revenues are distributed to schools and municipalities is the wrong way to forge public policy affecting every taxpayer in Wisconsin.

Yesterday, I wrote Governor McCallum to express my concern about the process that you have designed. It is wrong to close the doors on open public debate on this issue that has been brought about by many years of bloated state operating budgets.

Shutting the public and media out of this process won't cover up the fact that the state budget deficit is the direct result of the excessive growth of state spending. In 1986, Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum ran on the platform that state government was too big and spending money too fast. Despite their promise to correct the situation, state operating spending (General Purpose spending, not including shared revenue and school aids) has grown 116% or a yearly average of 7.7% from 1986 through 2001. Since 1987, the number of state employees has grown by 10,363 or 19% - meaning that the number of employees added by the state during this period is larger than the entire City of Milwaukee workforce.

Instead of looking to raid local property tax relief and force layoffs of police officers and firefighters in order to close the state's budget gap, you should propose rolling back state employment growth. If you returned the state bureaucracy to the levels that existed when Thompson and McCallum took over, you could save approximately $518 million (assuming an average salary and benefits package of $50,000). If the state had reduced employment at the same rate as the City of Milwaukee (620 City positions eliminated since 1989), you could be saving an additional $160 million.

You owe it to the taxpayers who pay you $5715 per month to open the doors to the Red Crown Lodge and let the newspapers, radio stations and television stations of Wisconsin cover your meeting. The public's business should be conducted in public.

Sincerely,


John O. Norquist
Mayor