Milwaukee Common Council committee hears three hours of testimony on proposed $300 million police budget and police technologies

By Alexandria Staubach
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The Milwaukee Police Department’s executive staff fielded more than 60 questions over nearly three hours from members of the Milwaukee Common Council and its Finance and Personnel Committee last week regarding the MPD's $310 million proposed budget allocation. Department salaries alone cost $195 million.
 
But the bulk of conversation wasn’t specific line items or costs. Rather, the conversation focused on what MPD is doing and the places council members saw room for improvement.
 
The use of emerging technologies loomed large as did the department’s controversial use of facial recognition technology (FRT).
 
Artificial intelligence "is a force multiplier,” Chief Jeffrey Norman said on more than one occasion as the conversation roamed around new and proposed tools.
 
Not all council members were in lockstep around increased use of technology, especially when it came to additional surveillance.
 
Alderman Peter Burgelis questioned whether placing more cameras at intersections would do any good without enforcement of the laws already on the books to identify the cars that cameras are designed to capture.
 
Burgelis was referencing SB375/AB371, fast-moving legislation that would permit 75 red-light cameras to be placed across Milwaukee.
 
Burgelis compared MPD’s low citation rate for failure to display plates—fewer than 200 citations in 2024—to the more than 12,000 tickets written by the Department of Public Works for the same offense.
 
“We as a department can hold ourselves responsible for what we can enforce more,” said Norman in response to Burgelis.
 
Facial recognition technology loomed large in the conversation. Several alderpersons shared concerns about the deployment of federal officers as close as Chicago.
 
“It’s not just in California,” said Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic, who called out a letter she helped author to Norman earlier this year in which a supermajority of the council opposed the use of facial recognition technology by the department. (That opposition was shared by the Mayor’s Equal Rights Commission.)
 
Norman compared use of FRT to his department’s use of police pursuits. You’re “damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” he said.
 
Norman said his department is still interested in the technology and alluded to current use in only the direst and time-sensitive cases. But he also said the department was using the public-facing conversations with the Fire and Police Commission and Equal Rights Commission to “understand how do we use the proper bumper guards and rails.”
 
Dimitrijevic reiterated her hope in the current climate “to at least pause,” while Alderman Scott Spiker said there has not been a “sober conversation” about this technology as a city.
 
Other generative AI tools discussed included software called “Draft One,” developed by Axon, which produces initial drafts of police reports from the audio of body-worn camera footage.
 
Spiker highlighted its use in Minnesota cities and proposed that its implementation could reduce some of the additional paperwork burden often cited by MPD as resulting from a legal settlement.
 
Spiker suggested they might be able to have fewer “cops behind desks” with Draft One but acknowledged that staffing mandates imposed by Act 12 wouldn’t permit the reallocation of salary funds to pay for the technology.
 
Assistant Chief of Police Craig Sarnow said the department had considered using Draft One, but rolling it out would likely involve a test period on felonies and would require buy-in of the district attorney. Sarnow also highlighted its hefty price tag.
 
Another topic of conversation was that only 63% of sworn officers live in the city of Milwaukee. A recent Fire and Police Commission survey cited crime as a primary reason male officers live outside the city and education as the primary reason female officers live outside the city.
 
Milwaukee police officers are required to live either within city limits or within 15 miles of the city’s boundary.
 
Alderman José Pérez noted that while on paper crime is down, “people in my neighborhood don’t feel that.”

“I think there’s a lot of criminal nuisance behavior that we’re not measuring,” he said.
 
In its presentation, MPD highlighted its priority areas for 2026: sustained efforts to ensure compliance with Act 12 hiring mandates; community relations; youth engagement; enhancing public safety; AI integration “digital trust”; employment of drones as first responders; virtual academy training; vehicle pursuit mitigation; and identifying roles that can be transitioned from sworn to civilian.
 
As for the amount of the proposed MPD budget, while that number is $4 million short of the department’s 2025 allocation, it still far exceeds allocations to every other department. The next largest sum goes to water works ($167 million).