Alliance Oct. 25, 2002 newsletter

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Oct. 25, 2002 e-newsletter

In this issue:
Tax Increases Must be On Menu, Summit Told
Gov. Candidates on Shared Revenue
Alliance Meets Nov. 21-22 in Appleton (click here to RSVP)
Sheehy Task Force Draft Recommendations
News Briefs		Upcoming Events

Former Officials Say 'T' Word
Tax Increases, Cuts Proposed to Restore Fiscal Balance

Nine former state officeholders/appointees from six administrations on Oct.15 proposed a solution to the state's fiscal crisis.

On their menu is a decrease in the amount of state support of education, a call for consolidation of local governments and school districts, a cut in the state’s income tax and an increase in the sales tax from 5% to 6%.

The plan unveiled at Wisconsin Economic Summit III calls for a decrease of $50 million in shared revenues in the second year of the biennium, affecting the 2005 payment.

More Economic Summit Coverage:

Wisconsin & the 'Forklift Economy'

Deficit an Issue for Grown-ups

Pledges for Action End Summit

Regional Economic Development

(for the stories, click on underlined text)

Because the group recommends broadening the sales tax to services that are currently exempt, they advise deducting the entire amount from the counties' shared revenue payments. Former Revenue Secretary Mark Bugher, whose name is listed first on the report, told Ed, "we did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and estimate that counties would gain about $60 million in sales tax revenue."

The Wisconsin Counties Association has not reacted formally yet, however it points out that more than a dozen counties don't levy the .005% county sales tax.

For Steve Schultze's summary of the package in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, with Ed's reaction at the end, look here. For a copy of the report, go to http://www.wisconsin.edu/summit/papers/fiscalpolicy.pdf.

The Candidates on Shared Revenue

As the campaign for governor winds down, the positions of the candidates on state shared revenues are becoming known. The hardest candidate for the media to pin down seems to be the man who last Jan. 22 proposed eliminating the $1.1 billion shared revenue program.

"(Gov. Scott) McCallum has refused to apologize for the radical idea he made in January, which he said now has local governments at least talking about how to consolidate services and become more efficient," Steve Schultze and Steve Walters wrote in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Oct. 7.

"I needed to move the ball down the field. I had to shake the system up. . . . We're moving now," McCallum told them. But McCallum has refused to rule out future attempts to kill or reduce shared revenue, Schultze and Walters wrote.

And Matt Pommer, the dean of the state Capitol Press Corps, says in a column that, given the opportunity, McCallum could revive his idea. See Pommer's Oct. 14 column here.

The best overall summary we've seen of where the five candidates for governor stand on shared revenue was Eric Widholm's story in the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram the other Sunday. Check out that story here.

Regional Economies Promoted

seconregions.gif (4796 bytes)
Terry Ludeman's economic regions

Region	Pop	Jobs
North	138,591	56,562
NW	464,789	193,833
SW	391,199	172,344
S Cntl	956,825	501,099
SE	1,932,908	1,008,818
NE	1,055,452	548,310
N Cntl	432,920	200,730

Regionalism was a buzzword at the Economic Summit. Terry Ludeman, Department of Workforce Development economist, presented his idea for fostering economic development regionally in Wisconsin.

Economic development is easier in other states Wisconsin's size, Ludeman said, because their focus can be on "super metros" — proportionately very large metropolitan areas like the Twin Cities in Minnesota or the Seattle area in Washington State. Wisconsin has plenty of metropolitan areas, Ludeman said, but no single one dominates the state's economy, Ludeman said.

Ludeman suggested splitting the state into seven economic regions, with one or more metropolitan areas in each of the areas except the North.

He proposed economic development councils be created in each of the regions. The councils would include business, government and educational leaders.

Does this sound a lot like the blueprint for regional planning and economic development created by the Wisconsin Metropatterns workgroups that met last spring in Wauwatosa? (Click here for their report.)

Ludeman will be reporting to the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities at our meeting in Appleton on November 22. For more on the Nov. 21-22 meeting, and to RSVP, click here.

'Northern Edge' Economic Development

Twenty-nine counties in Wisconsin are part of a new initiative to grow Wisconsin’s economy in the north. The project, called the Northern Edge, was detailed at the Economic Summit. It uses the UW-Extension to focus on building the economic development capacity of the northern counties. Al Anderson, Director of the Center for Community Economic Development at the UW-Extension said that the 29 counties have 20% of the state’s population, but 40% of the landmass, resulting in increased drive times for qualified workers and decreased potential to create markets for the goods produced. The goal is to use research, technology and assessment tools to create an informed economic development strategy to grow incomes in the north.

The project is funded by a U.S. Department of Labor grant obtained through the work of Senator Russ Decker (D-Mosinee ) and U.S. Representative Dave Obey (D-Wis.) For an Adobe Acrobat file that tells more, click here: http://cf.uwex.edu/ni/documents/1002ni.pdf

News Briefs

Campaign contributors of more than $100 to Attorney General Jim Doyle are more likely to live in cities, while Gov. Scott McCallum's big bucks come from the suburbs, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Oct. 14. Libertarian Ed Thompson's cash was coming heavily from rural areas. See the story here.

An intergovernmental agreement between Fitchburg, the city of Madison and the town of Madison that provides for the eventual assimilation of the town into the two cities was approved by Fitchburg's city council Oct. 22. It is expected to come to a vote in the two Madisons early next month. See the Wisconsin State Journal story here.

Cities across the country are turning to "cyber-shaming" as a way to get people to pay up their unpaid parking tickets, reduce solicitation of prostitutes and get restaurants to clean up their act, Fox News reported Oct. 18. Go to the story by clicking here.

A chunk of the town of Hallie in Chippewa County can hold a referendum to become a village, Chippewa County Circuit Judge Roderick Cameron ruled Oct. 18, affirming a state Department of Administration determination. City Manager Don Norrell said Eau Claire will not appeal the rulings. See the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram's story here.

In southeastern Wisconsin, the push for consolidation of municipal services is losing steam, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Oct. 3. For the story, go here. But there are bright spots on the consolidation horizon in the region too, Laurel Walker pointed out in a Journal Sentinel column Oct. 21. For the column, click here.

Vacant, abandoned or under-used land in cities can be transformed into property that enhances the tax base and quality of life in our cities, and in a new report The Brookings Institution has ideas about how to make it happen. Check them out here.

How to fill in the gaps in the information superhighway is one of the tasks of the Legislative Council's Special Committee on Public & Private Broadband, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported Oct. 12. For that story, click here. The pace of broadband deployment is "seriously inadequate" nationwide, The Brookings Institution found, in a report available here. But broadband companies tear up municipal rights-of-way to lay cable, and rights of way management issues are impeding broadband deployment nationwide, according to an Oct. 17 article in Telephony Online, available here.

Upcoming Events


Oct. 29	Prof. Joel Rogers on State Budget	Zoofari, Wauwatosa
Oct. 30	Wis. Municipal Telecom Workshop	Wis. Dells
Nov. 5	Election Day
Nov. 12	Local Govt., School Funding Crisis	Madison
Nov. 13	Special Session on Ethics
Nov. 13	Public & Private Broadband Cmte.	Madison
Nov. 13	Public Health / Terrorism Cmte.	Madison
Nov. 14	Wind Energy Symposium	UW-Manitowoc Cty.
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