(The Center Square) – A Waukesha County judge updated his order and no longer has ruled a state budget provision allowing Milwaukee County to keep all of its motor vehicle fines and forfeiture funds.
Last week, Judge J. Arthur Melvin signed an order ending the allowance and ruling the provision from the last state budget unconstitutional. But Melvin reportedly changed that order Monday, saying that instead he intended to allow the Wisconsin Educational Media and Technology Association to file an amicus brief, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Milwaukee County was the state’s only county who did not have to pay 50% of its fines and forfeitures into a state Common School Fund, which is then used to fund school libraries. Instead, Milwaukee County used the funds to pay for 12 district attorney positions.
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of Menomonee Falls resident Christine Stueland by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
“The law passed to ‘fund prosecutors’ allows Milwaukee County to take millions from the school fund,” WILL Attorney Dan Lennington wrote on social media. “That's unconstitutional and no one in the case disputes that, even Milwaukee County's attorneys. Actually I haven't seen anyone defend the legality of this move anywhere. The legislators who wanted this -- correct me if I'm wrong -- never asked for or received advice from Leg Council or WisDOJ, which is typically what legislators do when they have legal questions about legally complicated bills.”
Lennington went on to say that funding prosecutors can be done through state revenue or local revenue but it cannot legally be done by raiding the school fund.
The change was estimated to cost the Common School fund $2.2 million per year, according to estimates from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Milwaukee County schools were still receiving benefits from the Common School Fund even without contributing funds.
“Finally, I should say that the legislators who wanted to ‘fund prosecutors’ put no language in the law to actually make sure this gambit -- taking money from kids who want to read library books -- actually funds prosecutors,” Lennington wrote. “MKE is not required to use this money to fund prosecutors and the money will just be dumped into David Crowley's Milwaukee County DEI Budget. They could spend the money on whatever they want. We're putting an end to this illegal scheme.”
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