Alder woman Milleley Cox here.

Online we have Alderman Scott Spyker and Alderwoman Charlotte Moore.

Do we have any note from Bergelis yet?

He'll be joining shortly.

Okay.

Excuse for now, but of course we'll uh amend that when he's when he's here.

Um for anyone tuning in.

This is not our budget hearing.

It's actually our regular finance and personnel meeting.

They kind of blur together, but we'll see you at one o'clock today.

We have election commission, neighborhood services, and probably one more.

I think I might be forgetting.

Um but should be a good one at one o'clock.

With that, we'll start with item number one.

260812.

Resolution reserving and appropriating up to 500,000 from the 2026 common counsel contingent fund to the 2026 damages and claims fund special purpose account for the purpose of settling claims.

Uh we're joined here by budget director Nick Kovac and our city attorney Evan Goikey, um, sponsored by Alderman Jackson from judiciary.

Whoever would like to present, good morning, gentlemen.

Good morning, Madam Chair, uh Evan Goikey City Attorney.

Um happy to answer any questions.

This is a file that uh this committee sees from time to time.

Um if the council would like just uh to summarize where we're at in 2026.

Uh we have paid out, I'm gonna use round numbers for ease, um, about eight hundred and thirty-eight thousand dollars in twenty twenty-six so far in claims.

Those are generally cases that don't make it to circuit court uh and are reviewed and paid out by our office or approved by the judiciary and legislation uh committee and then the council.

And then we've paid out um uh three million three hundred and seventy-two thousand in cases that have gone to litigation.

That includes both state and federal uh cases.

This year, uh we also began the year by uh concluding uh a 2025 settlement in the death case involving Keyshawn Thomas, which was settled for 2.5 million, one million was paid in December, 1.5 million paid in the beginning of January.

So paid to date in 2026, even though that case was settled last year, it was a big chunk of it was paid this year, is 5.7 million very roughly, 5.5706.

Uh and so this transfer uh, you know, we are at a posture where we're approaching an inability to resolve claims or cases that are in litigation for the final couple of months of the of the year and uh are coming before you asking for this transfer so that we can continue to conduct uh those you know settlements should they arise and be approved by council for the duration of the year.

Thank you.

How much of the 5.7 million in 2026 has been police related?

Um it's a it's a good question.

And in we did do a kind of summary of 2025 and last week when I was here for the budget hearing, it was very clear that the council was asking for that, and I believe actually somebody did ask officially, and we're working on the data by department.

I will tell you the three largest claims involved the Milwaukee Police Department, the Keyshawn Thomas case, um uh the De Kaiser case was which was a shooting case just under a million dollars, and Tomlinson Robinson, which was the SWATIS for um 575,000.

I don't have a full breakdown uh of all of the resolutions, but we are working on that.

The council's requested it and we will provide it.

Thank you.

And I think it might have been Alderwoman Cogs at one point.

Um, and I'm sorry if I might have missed it, but we also requested at one point, kind of trying to understand, and maybe it's more of a legislative reference bureau, where we are in terms of similar cities with similar police force, because to me that seems outrageous.

Um, but I'm also trying to see what other I mean, having a large city and a large police force comes with a lot of liability.

So do we have any of those um comparisons?

I don't have comparison data for you today.

I'm happy to work on that.

Most large cities in America are self-insured as we are.

Um most have large litigation departments like we do, and potentially large exposure like we do.

So I expect that we fall in line with our peer cities, but I can certainly return to the council with better data or work with LRB to do so.

Yeah, or maybe even the comptroller's office.

I'm not sure if that falls in analysis.

Are there any other cities too?

I was looking for that um size that have retained um like an additional for lack of a better word, like a rider additional insurance that could be paid out of police funds to cover police type, like an extra insurance.

No, seriously, I mean, like I think about when we have an extra situation, you get extra insurance.

Um I feel like we've done something like that at the city for something different.

I can't think right now.

But have you looked into that?

Uh we do have some insurance policies that cover our properties.

There are most municipalities in Wisconsin have some form of insurance.

Madison, second largest city has insurance and their insurer provides kind of coverage of claims, I believe over 250,000.

I think one of the challenges is whether or not there is a product for that for municipalities of our size and whether we could afford the premiums of that product.

If the premium is 5.7 million dollars, then I mean it might be worth looking into.

I know that that has been discussed in the past.