Alliance Message to
WMC:
Reform Must Be Greater Than ProposedBy
Rich Eggleston
Do state and local officials like to sting
taxpayers like scorpions, or do local leaders thirst for real reform more than sponsors of
proposals to cap spending at the state and local level?
| Those were major questions that
emerged before hundreds of business people at the Wisconsin Manufacturers &
Commerce "Business Day in Madison" as the debate continued over AJR 55, a constitutional
amendment that has been dubbed the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, or TABOR. Charlie Sykes. the talk-show host from
WTMJ-AM, Milwaukee, started off the panel discussion on TABOR by telling a story of
a scorpion that persuades a reluctant frog to give him a ride across a river, but stings
him half way across.
“Now we’ll both drown,” the frog
cried. “You promised you wouldn’t sting me. Why did you sting me?”
“It’s in my nature,” the scorpion replied.
Politicians are like scorpions: they can’t help themselves, and they need AJR 55 to
keep them from following their natural inclination to spend ever more money, Sykes was
suggesting.
Michael Butera, executive director of the Wisconsin
Education Association Council, replied that AJR 55 is a slick-sounding “pre-election
gimmick” born more of a distrust of democracy than a fear of spiders.
When the colonists rebelled against the British and threw the Boston Tea Party around the
rallying cry, “No taxation without representation,” they weren’t rallying
against taxation, but for representation, he said.
John Fund, who writes a political diary for
opinionjournal.com, said asking state legislators to control spending is like asking
chickens to deliver themselves to Col. Sanders.
When Ed Huck objected to government bashing by Fund and
Sykes, Sykes declaimed that none had occurred. |
TABOR Effects
Here
Haven't Been StudiedSponsors
of AJR 55 have taken a 2,900-word constitutional amendment that was adopted in Colorado in
1992 and drafted it almost word for word into a proposed constitutional amendment
introduced in the Wisconsin Legislature.
Apparently, they did so without any
study of how TABOR in Wisconsin would operate compared with TABOR in Colorado.
TABOR is one of four constitutional
amendments in Colorado that affect state and local taxes. Why just pick TABOR?
Homeowners in Wisconsin might be
interested in one that limits residential property taxes there to 45% of Colorado's total
property tax burden. Here the figure is 70%, because the Legislature has shifted tax
burden to homeowners over the years.
Among other differences in the tax
systems of the two states:
municipalities in Colorado get
almost none of their revenue from the state, with the exception of 18% of state gas tax
revenue.
In Wisconsin, in 2001, about 22% of
city revenues came from state aids — primarily state shared revenue and
transportation aids. The figure is about 15% for villages and 31% for towns.
About 73% of municipal revenue in
Colorado is generated by local sales taxes.
In Wisconsin, 1.3% of total local
revenue is generated by a county sales tax in some counties.
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Ed Huck makes point at "Business Day"
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Huck, executive director of the Wisconsin
Alliance of Cities, said the goal of AJR 55 is a laudable one, to make the appetite of
government match taxpayers' ability to pay.
But he said local government needs the same protection from the Legislature as AJR 55
extends to taxpayers.
Butera said putting government spending under referendum control would increase economic
disparities — cities and rural areas will need help, and suburbs won’t want to
foot the bill.
Huck said TABOR should be redrafted to revitalize the economy, reform government, reduce
the cost of government and reduce property taxes. But the
Legislature isn’t likely to embrace that much reform, he said.
Huck suggested a constitutional convention — something Alliance members
endorsed in La Crosse in September, 2002.
“We want real reform,” Huck said. Fund greeted the constitutional convention
idea with derision. |
“How can you say people should have a say on taxes,
but not on their form of government? What kind of hypocrisy is that?” Huck
replied. “When are we going to take on the tough questions?”
Columbus Park v. Kenosha
Agency Seeks to Overturn Supreme Court Decision
The Wisconsin Housing and Economic
Development Authority intends to draft legislation that alters a state law requiring that
to qualify for a tax exemption, a piece of rental property must be rented to an entity
that qualifies for a tax exemption in its own right.
The action is in response to Columbus Park Housing
Corporation v. City of Kenosha, 2002 WI App 310, 259 Wis. 2d 316, 655 N.W.2d 495, http://www.courts.state.wi.us/html/sc/02/02-0699.htm.
Columbus Park
rehabilitates housing and rents to low-income tenants and receives federal subsidies
through the Kenosha Housing Authority. (the Authority), which bring the rents to
reasonable market rates. While it may qualify for a property tax exemption, its tenants
don't, the Supreme Court ruled, basing its decision strictly on the meaning of the words
in the statute.
Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson dissented, calling the
ruling "more strict than reasonable."
As a result, Kenosha and similarly situated municipalities
have the right to seek back taxes for two years prior to the current tax year (2004) from
groups like Columbus Park.
Advocates for low-income housing went to the Doyle
administration seeking a legislative remedy. We've had a series of meetings with WHEDA,
which is trying to find compromise language. But local leaders who have provided us with
input so far are leery of the changes the agency has proposed. For the proposal from
WHEDA, go here; for Ed's memo to
members go here.
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Smart Growth v. Dumb Growth
There's a Campaign Against Comprehensive Planning...
...and it's
spreading to southeastern Wisconsin.
In Cedarburg, officials fear they could become
"subservient" to Ozaukee County on planning decisions, and are seriously
considering dropping out of county-led Smart Growth planning, the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel reported Jan. 12.
There, "the question is who has the final authority
to make decisions about each city's own plan," said Mequon Mayor Christine
Neurenberg.
On Dec. 3, the town board in the town of Alban in Portage
County voted to pull out of countywide comprehensive planning, echoing earlier actions by
the towns of Sharon and Linwood, and villages of Almond and Rosholt, the Stevens Point
Journal reported.
The drop-outs want to keep their identity and
maintain local control over planning and zoning, town officials told the media. Portage
County Planning and Zoning Director Charles Kell says Smart Growth planning is all about
local control.
"That's why this system was built from the ground up
to begin with," Kell said.
Portage County received a $514,000 state grant in 2001 to
draft a countywide comprehensive plan. It stands to lose some of that because of the
drop-outs, as well as some ability to do truly smart Smart Growth planning.
Land-use issues often transcend political boundaries, and
collaboration in planning can help deal with complex issues that affect several
communities, a county or an entire region, according to Tom Larson of the Wisconsin
Realtors Association. The law requires each local government involved in a
multi-jurisdictional plan to adopt the plan separately, so there's no real surrender of
control..
Steve Born
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"Planning is inevitably a
political process," says Steve Born of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning
at UW-Madison. And intergovernmental cooperation is
one of the toughest nuts to crack in smart growth planning, in Born’s judgment. But
the comprehensive planning process moves us toward cooperation, of which almost everyone
says we need more. |
Ways to counter the critics and make
comprehensive planning something that all citizens can buy into, Born says, are:
- involve citizens more in the process.
- plan on a 50-year horizon.
- convince people that planning will make a difference.
In tight budget times, Born adds, there’s
always the possibility that planning will be seen as a luxury — but it’s really
nothing more than what government should be doing all the time: informed decision-making
in managing change, and dealing with conflicts that arise in a sensible, democratic
fashion.
See the story about fear in Cedarburg here.
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Five members of Madison's Common Council are
proposing to ban smoking in the city's bars, bowling alleys, restaurants and other public
places on Jan. 2, 2005. The proposal could be scheduled for a debate and vote as soon as
March 16, the Wisconsin State Journal reports.
. "People want it," Ald. Matt Sloan said of the
ban. Story here.
Conor Williams says Wisconsin’s correctional
system not only punishes criminals, it punishes taxpayers. While Wisconsin and
Minnesota are similar states with similar populations, Wisconsin has nearly
triple the number of people in prison, Williams, a member of the Milwaukee-area
faith-based group WISDOM,
said during a visit to Oshkosh. Minnesota will spend $358 million for its prisons
this year and Wisconsin will spend more than $1 billion. By coincidence, economist
Kevin McGee of UW-Oshkosh has studied prison spending. McGee found that while
spending on corrections nationally grew 79.6% between 1991-92 and 1999-2000, in Wisconsin
correctional spending grew 158.3%. This spending spree cost Wisconsin taxpayers
$227 million, McGee calculated. Williams said concentrating on treating people
with substance abuse problems rather than locking them up would save the state money and
deal with crime more effectively. Oshkosh Northwestern story here.
A survey ranks La Crosse
as one of the top 10 least-stressful small cities in the country, but Kenosha
made the top-10 most-stressful list, the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram reports.Metro
areas were rated on nine factors: divorce rate, unemployment, commute time, violent
crime, suicide rate, alcohol consumption, property crime, mental health and cloudy
days. Eau Claire ranked 82nd of 117. Wausau
finished at 94th, while La Crosse won a 110th spot. Kenosha ranked the ninth-most
stressed, followed closely by Racine at 13th, according to Sperling's
Best Places web site: http://www.bestplaces.net. Madison
scored high among laid-back medium-sized metropolitan areas, and Milwaukee-Waukesha
was in the middle of the stressfulness pack — 46th — among the 100 largest
metropolitan areas. Eau Claire story here (registration required).
Introduced at the urging of the
telecommunications industry, a bill before the Legislature could impede the ability of Kaukauna
to capitalize on 12 miles of fiber optic cable it installed within the past year in a
joint project with the school district and Kaukauna Utilities, the Appleton Post
Crescent reported. “There are no plans now, but it gives the utility an option
for future services to its customers,” Mayor John Lambie told the
newspaper. Story here.
The silence was deafening when Iowa Gov.
Tom Vilsack called for more than $250 million in additional tax revenue --
a 60-cent-per-pack increase in the state cigarette tax and extending the state
sales tax to accounting, consulting and other services -- the Quad City Times
reports. Vilsack, a second-term Democrat, wants the money for schools, health-care
and local governments. Story here.
But more than half of Illinois voters
say they would support an income tax hike to increase education funding,
a Copley News Service poll showed. And three in five voters said primary and secondary
education is underfunded in Illinois, the Springfield State Journal-Register
reported. Story here.
City Clerk Pat Lohse ruled that Sheboygan
Citizens Action Group came up short in its petition for an ordinance change requiring
voter approval of municipal projects of $1 million or more. The group submitted 2,520
signatures to the city, but Lohse ruled only 2,241 were valid, 165 short of what was
needed, the Sheboygan Press reported.. If the signatures had been sufficient, the
Common Council's choice would be to adopt the proposed ordinance or submit it to voters.
Story here.
In Oregon, voters rejected
an income tax increase a year ago, and schools closed early, poor people lost
prescription drug coverage and criminals went unprosecuted. Story here.
Lawmakers responded by calculating a minimum service level the state should provide,
looked at what recession-hammered tax revenue their state can expect, and cobbled together
an $800 million package of temporary and permanent tax increases to make
up the difference. On Feb. 3, Oregonians will vote on the package
passed last August, and so-called tax reform advocates nationally are zeroing in on
Oregon to make sure voters reject the package. See the AP story here. State
Republican Party Chairman Kevin Mannix's response? A plan similar toTABOR
in Colorado. Story here.
Speaking of TABOR, the
League of Women Voters of Colorado last month called for the repeal of TABOR on
grounds it "severely restricts the ability of our elected officials to
respond to the funding needs of our state. It ties their hands and prevents creative and
sound responses to economic conditions." The League said it is against partial fixes
to the amendment, the Denver Business Journal reported. Story here
(registration required.) |
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