Aug. 13, 2002 e-newsletter

Meeting Aug. 19 in Fond du Lac
Help Chart Alliance's Direction

Alliance of Cities members will have a facilitated discussion Aug. 19  to decide the direction the Alliance will take on:

• new forms of local government,
• consolidation of services and financing, including regional taxes, and
• service delivery based on regional rather than traditional boundaries.

The discussion will be led by Roger S. Richman, professor of urban studies and public administration at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. Richman has spent more than 20 years mediating annexation and intergovernmental contract disputes in Virginia, mostly on appointments from the Virginia Commission on Local Government.

"Alliance of Cities members attending the Aug. 19th meeting on regional approaches to local problems might want to view the following recent report, prepared at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.  We will be discussing some ideas and cases in this report," Richman said

The report, Creating Metropolitan/Regional Government: TheTales of Five Cities, can be obtained by clicking here. There's also an interesting report, "Intergovernmental Cooperation: Has It's Time Come for Metropolitan Milwaukee?" on the same site.

Alliance staff will draft a legislative proposal based on the discussion and goals set by those attending the meeting for approval at the September 20 meeting in LaCrosse.

Alliance members should have received notice of the meeting in the mail a few weeks ago. If your copy got lost on your desk (ours did) go here for details.

Sheehy Task Force hears ideas Regional solutions to state and local problems abounded at a meeting of the governor's Task Force on State and Local Government Aug. 8 and 9 in DePere. The Alliance's Ed Huck, sitting in for task force member Rick Gale, suggested transforming shared revenues into a separate uitility aid component that includes telephone company property as well as electric utility property; separate programs for Wisconsin's 21 urban counties and 51 rural counties, financed initially through a statewide property tax. the statewide property tax would be eliminated when replaced by alternative regional revenue sources. In the 51 rural counties, shared revenues would be financed by state general purpose revenue (GPR).

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Ed emphasized that his plan was aimed at fostering discussion, and wasn't the position of the Alliance of Cities. His proposal in full is available here.

Brookfield Mayor Kate Bloomberg called for a city-based economic growth strategy.

"The vast amount of our economic energy (originates in) cities, and so our challenge should be to keep cities successful," she said.

Bill Mielke, architect of the award-winning Racine Area Intergovernmental Agreement, called for a second level of revenue sharing instituted on a countywide or regional basis.

"This will take away some of the turf battles which currently have neighboring community industrial parks competing for the same industry," he said. "A formula such as was utilized in the Racine area would provide a sharing of any economic growth between all communities located within the designated area."

The existing shared revenue formula should be revised to be weighted solely on fiscal capacity expressed in dollars of equalized value per capita, which is the measure of a community's ability to afford municipal services, Mielke said.

	The chart at left, from Mielke's July 10 presentation to the Sheehy Task Force, demonstrates how the disparity in equalized values between Racine and its neighbors grew in the 1990s.
Mielke, in his July 10 presentation, said growth in the Racine area depends on Racine providing services to outlying communities, and outlying communities maintaining the fiscal health of Racine. Last week, he had a series of specific recommendations for changes in state law to make regional revenue sharing, consolidation and cooperation easier. His Aug. 8 and 9 comments are available here. For the Green Bay Press Gazette story on the meeting, look here. The Brookings Institution graph below suggests that the phenomenon Mielke found around Racine is a nationwide occurrence that affects central cities and inner-ring (or "first") suburbs.
Metro Area Growth County Growth Source: The Brookings Institution "First Suburbs" presentation to the Wisconsin Metropatterns Conference

2003-05 State Budget
Will Local Government
Again Be on Chopping Block? 

"Eliminating the fiscal year 2002-03 structural deficit will be the overriding factor in GPR spending decisions for the next budget. Because of the projected size of this structural deficit, there will need to be restraint in all types of GPR appropriations in the next budget, i.e., state operations, aids to individuals and local assistance," Gov. Scott McCallum said in budget instructions to state agencies Aug. 8.

McCallum said

• "Agencies should assume there will be zero growth in overall state GPR appropriations in each fiscal year during the 2003-05 biennium, and specific program needs should be managed within this general constraint," and
• "Exceptions will only be considered for K-12 equalization aids; required cost-to-continue needs for the state's institutions, i.e., the Department of Corrections and the Department of Health and Family Services institutions; Medical Assistance; and housekeeping adjustments like standard budget adjustments and debt service."

Notable in its absence from that list is state shared revenues.

McCallum catches flak on 10-lane freeway plan

The Legislature's study arm, the Joint Legislative Council, will again focus on a range of issues in preparation for the 2003 legislative session.

Study committees that we'll be watching include the Mental Health Parity, Public & Private Broadband, Review of Fireworks Law and Public Health Systems' Response to Terrorism Committees. For the Racine Journal Times' story on the committees, go here.

Interested in getting your fair share of $160 million in available brownfields grants and loans? The Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are holding a free videoconference Aug. 21 at 14 sites across the state to highlight   7 state and federal brownfield grant programs.

The DNR hopes the information will help cities, nonprofits,  community development, redevelopment and housing authorities, among others, as they investigate, cleanup and reuse their brownfield properties.

For more information, look here.

Republican policies shifted billions of dollars in federal spending from poor rural and urban areas to comparatively affluent suburbs, the Associated Press reported Aug. 8.

The result was an additional $612 million in federal spending last year alone for congressional districts represented by Republicans, the AP's computer analysis showed.

That translated into more business loans and farm subsidies and fewer public housing grants and food stamps, the AP said. For its story and sidebars, go here.