WHEREAS, Members of Governor Scott McCallum’s administration are circulating a plan to eliminate municipal and county State Shared Revenue and the Expenditure Restraint Program; and

WHEREAS, This plan, as presented to officials in Brown and Dane Counties, would replace state aids as distributed through the State Shared Revenue and Expenditure Restraint Programs with a county levied sales tax of up to 1.6 cents; and

WHEREAS, The administration’s plan would result in Milwaukee County having the highest sales tax in the five county southeast Wisconsin Region thereby creating a "Milwaukee County Sales Tax Island"; and

WHEREAS, The administration’s plan would allow counties to levy a sales tax of 1.6 cents and apply the amount over and above the amount needed to recover lost state to local property tax relief; and

WHEREAS, Milwaukee County would be the only county within the five county region that would not receive a comparable benefit from a 1.6 increase in the sales tax; and

WHEREAS, The property tax disparities between communities in the five county region will be exacerbated; and

WHEREAS, State General Purpose Revenue spending has grown 132%, or an average of 8.8% from 1986 through 2000; and

WHEREAS, Since 1987, the number of state employees has increased by 10,363, or 19%; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the Intergovernmental Cooperation Council of Milwaukee County states its opposition to the administration’s plan now being circulated; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Intergovernmental Cooperation Council of Milwaukee County encourages the Governor and Legislature to dramatically reduce the costs associated with state government operations.

Adopted: December 17, 2001

Timothy T. Seider, Chairman
Intergovernmental Cooperation Council of Milwaukee County