The Waukesha County Budget

There's been a lot of dust raised over the Waukesha County budget presented by Dan Vrakas, the County Executive. (Linked above is the summary.)

He increases the tax levy by ~2%.

Vrakas, in his summary, makes the case that the County is very efficiently run and that its prop-tax burden is light.

OK.

There are other factors, among them that Waukesha County does not have its own sales tax--unlike the County immediately to its east, e.g.

And Vrakas mentions that the State imposed more "unfunded liabilities" on the County this year, forcing revenue-raising to the County level.

OK.

But leaders don't settle.

I think it was Belling who suggested that Vrakas could have found $1 million someplace and thus have presented a ZERO tax-increase budget. That might have been a challenge, and I suppose it's possible that Vrakas tried and simply could not find the million bucks.

But he's spending $267 million, meaning that all he had to find was one-half of one percent.

Is it that difficult?