The deputy director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission resigned less than a month after the Nov. 5 election, records show.
Bonnie Chang, 44, resigned effective Nov. 25 to return to work at the City of Madison, an employer she had not left when she accepted employment in Milwaukee. She eventually went on an unpaid leave from Madison on Aug. 28, according to the city.
The Election Commission will be announcing a new deputy director soon, according to a city spokesperson.
Bonnie Chang, Deputy Director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, answers questions from an election observer during a public demonstration of Milwaukee’s voting equipment at The City of Milwaukee Election Commission warehouse at 1901 S. Kinnickinnic on Saturday October 26, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wis.
“The (Milwaukee Election Commission) is confident it is well-positioned to ensure smooth and effective operations for the Spring elections,” the spokesperson said in an email.
The early part of 2025 is expected to be busy with elections including for a seat on the state Supreme Court that will determine the high court’s ideological balance. The spring election will take place April 1 with any primaries, if necessary, on Feb. 18.
Chang was hired by the City of Milwaukee in February as the Election Commission’s early voting coordinator and promoted to deputy director in June, according to the city Department of Employee Relations.
Soon after she was promoted, questions were raised about her dual residency in Milwaukee and Madison and about her holding full-time election jobs in both cities simultaneously in a busy election year.
The Election Commission also fielded criticism from Republicans during the Nov. 5 election, when about 31,000 absentee ballots had to be rerun after an election observer noticed that doors covering on-off switches on some of the machines that are used to tally those votes had not been properly closed.
Chang’s promotion followed Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s dismissal of former Executive Director Claire Woodall and the ascension of Paulina Gutiérrez, Woodall’s deputy, to the department’s top post.
Soon after Chang was promoted, questions were raised about an arrangement under which she was receiving higher pay by reporting that she was a Milwaukee resident even as she declared herself a Madison resident for the purposes of voting — an arrangement Gutiérrez defended.
Records show Chang was receiving some $3,500 more annually than a non-city resident would under Milwaukee’s incentive pay plan. Under that plan, those who live in Milwaukee get a 3% bump — a program that was put in place after the state Supreme Court tossed the city’s residency requirement for city workers.
At the same time, she continued to vote in Madison until the Nov. 5 election, when she voted in Milwaukee, according to online voting records.
Those records indicated her previous residence for voting purposes was a downtown Madison condo just blocks from the state Capitol and the City-County Building, where the Madison City Clerk’s Office is located. She has worked in the City Clerk’s Office as voter outreach coordinator and in-person absentee voting coordinator.
It later came to light that she had not left her employment with the City of Madison when she started the job in Milwaukee.
Records instead showed she spent much of this year clocking full-time work on Madison’s elections even as she was being paid to work full-time as Milwaukee’s early voting coordinator starting Feb. 5.
Her supervisors in both cities expressed confidence in Chang’s work, though Milwaukee’s Department of Employee Relations director said previously that he was “not sure that folks were aware that Bonnie was working full-time in both places.”
Still, DER Director Harper Donahue IV said previously that “while not advisable, there’s nothing policy-wise that would prevent her from having both jobs.”
Alison Dirr can be reached at adirr@jrn.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Election Commission deputy director returns to Madison