(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s newly elected governor is brushing off accusations that he hid Milwaukee County’s $4.5 million budget deficit.

Gov.-elect David Crowley admitted during an appearance on UpFront over the weekend that he knew about the budget gap weeks before the deficit was made public.

"We knew about this, yes," Crowley said.

Crowley unveiled Milwaukee County’s $1 billion budget on Oct. 1. Crowley said his staff told him about a $4.5 million error in the budget on Oct. 20. That news wasn’t shared with county supervisors or voters until the day after last week’s election.

"We wanted to make sure that we were doing the best thing possible as far as giving as much information as possible to the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors,” Crowley said. "Yes, there was an error, but we wanted to make sure we could communicate what happened with that error, how we found a solution and how we fixed it moving forward."

Budget Director Nick Sinram told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he didn't disclose the budget problems to the public until after the election because he wanted to "present solutions" along with news of the error.

County Finance Committee Chairman Steve Taylor said the budget error withheld from them was "totally inappropriate," and he called the excuses from Crowley's administration an "awful excuse."

Milwaukee County supervisors last week demanded a full review of both the error and the timeline.

Crowley said in his broadcast appearance he wasn’t hiding anything, and that the delay in admitting to the error was simply a matter of time.

The announcement "just happened to coincide with the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors budget meeting," Crowley said. "That's all that was."

The $4.5 million budget deficit is being blamed on an automated budget system.

Crowley’s budget office says the deficit is the result of an error that saw the automated system reverse some numbers in two airport accounts.

Crowley said Milwaukee County will be able to manage the error, and said the account problems should not be a major issue for the county.

While county supervisors are demanding a report on the error and deficit by next month, all but one supervisor voted to move forward with Crowley’s budget.