Let’s restore services
Enough is enough. Decades of politicians in Wisconsin have milked the property tax issue. They have handcuffed local boards when it comes to raising real estate taxes with complicated, technical formulas. The result is counties, villages, cities, townships and schools have all cut back on vital services and increasingly are in debt. This has to stop. Either the state needs to dramatically increase shared revenue and state aid to local governments or give local boards the power to levy property taxes as they see fit.
Starting in the 1980’s, Wisconsin was a high tax, high service state. Politicians promised tax relief. Now, decades later, services suffer. There are more potholes. Police departments are underfunded. There is a teacher shortage. County social services for the most vulnerable have been cut.
Consider the following:
n In 2002, Wisconsin per-pupil spending ranked 11th highest in the nation, but, as of 2020, spending has fallen to the 25th spot, 5.6 percent below the national average.
n Strapped for cash, school districts are increasingly resorting to referendums to bust out of revenue caps. There are 77 school referendums for over $2 billion scheduled for the November general election. Of these, 39 are to exceed revenue limits.
n Schools struggle to fill basic teaching positions in subjects like English and math. Milwaukee Public Schools started the school year with 230 teaching vacancies. At Madison Public Schools, there were 141 vacancies.
n While a majority of Wisconsin’s cities, villages and towns increased funding for police and fire protection in 2018 and 2019, 253 cut police services and 621 decreased spending on fire protection. Fifty-communities reduced the number of officers on the street. In spring 2022, voters approved six of seven referendums to hire more police officers, EMTs and firefighters.
n Wisconsin public employees are retiring in large numbers, but also quitting to find work elsewhere. In 2010, roughly half of Wisconsin’s public workforce had been on the job for over 10 years. As of this year, that number sank to 45 percent. The percentage of public employees with less than three years experience grew from 24 to 28 percent during the same timeframe.
n In county health and human services departments, staffing for clients has been cut 9 percent from 2006 to 2018 while the caseload has increased 6 percent during the same time.
n In 2021, Wisconsin ranked 26th overall in the nation for overall highway quality, but the state was pegged at a dismal 41st in the nation for both rural and urban arterial pavement condition. The state ranked 29th for government spending per mile of road.
A general picture comes into focus. Government services in Wisconsin are not what they historically have been and, increasingly, both schools and municipalities turn to referendums to raise property taxes and protect services from cuts.
Depressingly, there is little political consensus to save the state from further incremental service cuts. On K-12 education, for instance, Gov. Tony Evers, a pro-education Democrat, is proposing a $2 billion infusion of cash into local public schools, but his opponent Republican businessman Tim Michels supports reducing corporate and individual income taxes and sees little point in increasing per pupil spending without school curriculum changes (mandatory reading programs, no Critical Race Theory). There seems to be no way forward.
For 40 years, Wisconsin politicians have promised property tax relief. To an extent, they have delivered. Since the 1990’s, property taxes have only doubled when both state sales taxes and income taxes have tripled. What the politicians never told us, however, is that basic services would suffer. They didn’t tell us about potholes, inexperienced teachers and cuts to police department budgets.
There is only one way to change the trajectory of the situation. We, as voters, have to demand better. Our politics have to change.
Editorial by Peter Weinschenk, The Record-Review
