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Wisconsin’s smallest municipalities started it in 2006.
The Town of Westin (population 15,700) in Marathon County said it needed $226,600 to fund a third EMS shift and firefighters. DePere (population 25,300) in Brown County wanted $343,700 to offset special assessments that had paid for street maintenance and repairs.
Officials in those communities were the first to sound this alarm, telling voters: New state-imposed limits on property tax levies threaten local services, so please pass special referendums — and, yes, raise your property taxes — to maintain and expand these critical programs.
Two other local referendums passed in 2006. Another Brown County community, the Village of Bellevue (population 16,100), got approval for about $300,000. In Fond du Lac County’s Town of Friendship (population 650), voters approved about $14,000 more.
Researchers at UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs found that 38 of 108 municipal referendums passed between 2006 and 2018 — a 35 percent approval rate.
Just like school district administrators, officials who run Wisconsin’s towns, villages, cities and counties are increasingly asking voters to approve additional spending for local services — and getting permission to do so.
Municipal officials say they have no choice, for two reasons. State laws that control their future tax levies are too tight, especially when some communities only saw 1 percent increases in annual property values. And, state revenue-sharing payments to local governments haven't increased in years, which amounts to a cut due to inflation.
“Public safety is a top priority in Wisconsin, and our local communities cannot rely on temporary Band-Aids and referendums to fund critical local services any longer,” says Jerry Deschane, executive director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, noting that 23 municipalities put referendums before voters on Nov. 8.
“Municipalities are turning to the ballot for short-term relief due to long-term, flatlining state support for public safety services,” Deschane adds.
According to Curt Witynski, deputy director of the League, 18 of those 23 municipal, town, and county referendums — or 78 percent — passed. “Of those, 21 of the 23 referendums asked for more spending on public safety — for local police and fire protection, emergency medical services (EMS), or all three,” he says.
Cities that passed referendum included Eau Claire, $1.44 million for additional police, fire, and EMS personnel; Chippewa Falls, $1.22 million; Middleton, $770,000 for additional police, parks, and communications professionals; and Whitewater, $1.1 million to hire full-time professional fire and EMS workers.
The largest municipal referendum approved by voters came in August, when Kenosha got permission to exceed state tax limits by $2.5 million each year.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republicans who control the Legislature must find an alternative to the “unsustainable” trend of referendums to pay for local emergency services, Deschane says.
There is no consensus among Republican legislators on help for local governments.
At a WisPolitics event last week, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu floated the idea of attaching local aid to another revenue source like the sales tax. Milwaukee County officials want authority to levy a countywide 1 percent sales tax.
But, at the WisPolitics event, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said "not every local government is created equal."
Asked about giving local governments a 1 percent statewide sales tax — which could generate about $1.4 billion a year — Vos said there can’t be "revenue without reform," since some counties have been “awful in how they manage money."
Campaigning for re-election, Evers promised to include a 4 percent annual increase in state shared-revenue aid to local governments in the two-year budget he will give lawmakers.
But 4 percent increases would only be a “short term” solution, Witynski says.
“Shared revenue has been cut for cities, villages and towns by $94 million over the last 20 years,” Witnski explains. “None of those cuts have been restored; 4 percent would not get us back to where we were in 2003.”
Jason Stein, research director for the nonprofit Public Policy Forum, says, “Not all communities receive large shared revenue payments to start with — Milwaukee, for instance, has a sizable payment and Madison a much smaller one.”
So, he adds, “because some communities receive only a small payment, a 4 percent increase … wouldn't necessarily reduce the current level of desire for those communities to go to referendum.”
The city that has passed the most referendums? DePere with four.
Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com
