Aug. 27, 2002 e-newsletter
Aug. 27, 2002 e-newsletter
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Meeting Was Aug. 19 in Fond du Lac
Members Help Chart Alliance's Direction
What regional approaches and options should become priorities for the Alliance of Cities? That was the question asked of Alliance members attending our Aug. 19 meeting in Fond du Lac. The priorities identified by members in three break-out sessions were:
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These priorities were chosen by ballot from nearly 100 initial recommendations. Of course, they represent goals, not a strategy for accomplishing them. Ed is drafting a proposed proactive legislative agenda to accomplish the goals that members identified, and members will vote on that in September in La Crosse.
The priorities boldfaced above are the subject of the article below.
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The importance of revenue sharing as an economic development tool is recognized in other states, but the linkage is largely ignored in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, for example, supported Gov. Scott McCallum's since-abandoned plan to eliminate the state shared revenue program. In contrast, in Richman's home state of Virginia, the Urban Partnership and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce have endorsed revenue sharing as a way to foster economic development through cooperation.2 Virginia law (Virginia Code § 15.2-1301) authorizes "revenue, tax base or economic growth sharing" among localities, including sharing of taxes derived from all development, existing and future. Reducing disparities between wealth and poverty is a win-win situation for the areas that accomplish it, research suggests. A 1994 Federal Reserve study, for example, found that as central city residents make more money, suburbanites make more money too, and the value of suburban homes increases as well. And a study of 78 metropolitan areas found that between 1979 and 1989, median household incomes of central cities and suburbs moved up and down together in most areas.3 That study also found that those regions with the widest gap between central city and suburban income also had the most sluggish job growth. |
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| Orfield and Luce analyzed the effects a tax-base sharing program similar
to Minnesota's Fiscal Disparities Program would have in Wisconsin. The map at right takes a look at how tax sharing in the Eau Claire area would have looked in 1999 if a Minnesota-like program had been in effect since 1993. In three metropolitan areas, Orfield and Luce found that more than 70% of the population would be net recipients under the program, and in three others, more than 62 % of residents would benefit. |
Eau Claire Area Tax-Base Sharing Potential
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"These residents could expect to receive more or better public services with no increase (or, potentially, an actual decrease) in local tax rates under tax-base sharing,:" Orfield and Luce wrote.4
To see Ed's September, 2000 analysis of the tax-base sharing potential in Wisconsin, undertaken for West Allis Mayor Jeanette Bell and UW-Madison Prof. Don Kettl, look here.
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Local Fragmentation Analyzed
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Gov. Scott McCallum asserts that Wisconsin has too many local governments. With 1,265 towns, 190 cities, 395 villages and 72 counties, they do start to add up. Especially when you include the towns.5 But Wisconsin is not out of the ordinary in the proliferation of local governments. With 121 cities, villages and towns, the Milwaukee metropolitan area is in the middle of the pack in terms of fragmented governance, according to The Brookings Institution. |
| In the Pittsburgh metro area, 430 units of general
purpose government surround the city of Pittsburgh, Prof. Roger Richman told the Alliance
of Cities. California has nearly 4,000 local government entities: cities, counties, townships, school districts and special districts. The Denver Metropolitan area (roughly 2.5 million people) has more than 800 local government entities. "Both are typical of 'local government' in America," according to the Illinois Municipal Review. |
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| Increase is slower
than state's Alliance Equalized Value Rises 6.53% The equalized value of Wisconsin Alliance of Cities members rose 6.53% last year, somewhat less than the 7.3% increase recorded statewide. Still, more than a quarter of the surge in equalized values statewide occurred in Alliance cities. The big percentage gainers among Alliance members were: Madison, up 10.21%, Wauwatosa, up 9.61% and Kenosha, up 9.01%. For the Journal Sentinel story on the report, look here. |
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McCallum challenged on executive order
Gov. Scott McCallum had no legal authority to unilaterally dissolve the Dane County Regional Planning Commission, County Executive Kathleen Falk declared Aug. 23.
McCallum sided with towns over cities, villages and counties as he attempted to negate the effects of a law he had signed weeks earlier. The Dane County corporation counsel's office said McCallum signed a budget repair bill provision guaranteeing the commission's continued existence until Oct. 1, 2004, notwithstanding a law that would allow him to dissolve the commission earlier.
"There is no ambiguity. The general provisions of (the law) do not apply to the Dane County RPC and it dissolves by operation of law in 2004," Assistant Corporation Counsel David R. Gault wrote in an opinion to Falk's office.
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| McCallum: What Do You Think? Gov. Scott McCallum told West Bend Mayor Mike Miller, president of the Alliance of Cities, "I don't like your organization," wispolitics.com publisher Jeff Mayers wrote in the Aug. 23 edition of the Madison weekly Isthmus. "To be quite frank with you, we're not happy with you either," Mayor Miller replied, according to Mayers. "Local officials, many of them Republican, haven't gotten over this perceived insult of being labeled 'Big Spenders,' or McCallum's original plan to phase out the $1 billion shared-revenue program that locals say is necessary to keep a lid on property taxes," Mayers wrote in a column on frayed relations between McCallum and local government. In a series of unscientific polls beginning with this newsletter, we're exploring McCallum's relations with local government. We knew that people stuff the ballot box on these polls, but we inadvertently set the poll to allow more than one vote per visit. Silly us. We also didn't realize that the folks who stuffed the ballot box had so much free time during business hours. We just hope that the people who voted also read the copy. If you want to subscribe to the Alliance newsletter to answer future polls (which are going to be hidden in the text) click on the button in the left frame, or here. If you have an idea for questions to ask in future polls, or a comment on this one, click here. -- Rich Eggleston |
About 350 people visited our web site to vote in this poll, and the results were interestinfg until someone discovered it was possible to vote more than once. Until that happened, the vote was running three-to-one for the proposition that cities are not indebted to the governor for signing what the Legislature passed. |
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Engler Shared Revenue Veto Overturned
| Michigan's Republican Gov. James Engler vetoed $845 million in shared revenue for local governments. With only two dissenting votes, the Michigan Legislature voted Aug. 13 to override the veto. The vote was 105-1 in the House and 36-1 in the Senate. It was the first gubernatorial veto overridden in Michigan in 25 years. |
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| For the Detroit Free Press story on the veto override, look here. | |
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Upcoming Events
| Sept. 4 | Public Health / Terrorism Cmte. | 10 a.m. 1 E. Main St #401 | |||
| Sept. 5 | Public & Private Broadband Cmte. | 9 a.m. 411S | |||
| Sept. 5 | Amer. Transmission Co. planning mtg | Appleton | |||
| Sept. 12 | Fireworks Law Cmte. | ||||
| Sept. 12 | Amer. Transmission Co. planning mtg | Milwaukee | |||
| Sept. 19-20 | Alliance meeting, La Crosse | ||||
| Sept. 25 | McCormick Health Care Task Force | 225 NW | |||
| Sept. 26 | Sustaining Great Communities, Madison | APA Wis. Chapter | |||
| Oct. 3-6 | "Rail-volution" transit conference | Washington, D.C. | |||
| Oct. 30 | Wis. Municipal Telecom Workshop | Wis. Dells | |||
| Nov. 21-22 | Alliance meeting, Appleton | ||||
| (click on underlined text for more) |
THE WISCONSIN ALLIANCE
OF CITIES
14 West Mifflin Street Suite 206
Madison, Wisconsin 53703
(608) 257-5881
