| Property Tax 'Freeze'
is b-a-a-ck
Leaders
of the Wisconsin Legislature have revived an old diversionary tactic to avoid the issue of
government reform in Wisconsin. It's called the property tax freeze, and while it
isn't a real freeze in taxes, it does freeze into place all the inequities in Wisconsin's
current tax system, and all the inefficiencies built into Wisconsin's 19th century system
of government.
Our last two Republican governors ordered
studies of the state-local tax system, studies that looked beyond grabbing headlines and
made recommendations for reform. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson’s Blue-Ribbon Commission
on the State-Local Partnership for the 21st Century made 139 recommendations for making
state and local government work better for citizens. A property-tax "freeze" was
not among them. Former Gov. Scott McCallum’s Task Force on State and Local Government
made six broad recommendations on how to make government work better for citizens. A
property-tax "freeze" was not among them.
The Wisconsin Alliance of Cities in 2002
recommended 12 reforms. We are dedicated to making local government work better and more
efficiently. We are dedicated to reform that saves the taxpayer money. We're dedicated to
regional solutions that save the taxpayer money. We're dedicated to eliminating
duplicative layers of government that waste the taxpayer's money. A property-tax freeze
was not among our recommendations for the current legislative session.
When it comes to not being listened to,
we're in good company. While we're about as far from advocating the status quo as a group
can get, the Legislature, sadly, is about as close to advocating the status quo as an
institution can get.
The Alliance of Cites
urges the Legislature to analyze the factors that drive property taxes and enact
the following:
Health Care Reform;
Education Reform;
Local Government Service Reform; and
Tax Reform.
The return of the property-tax freeze left
the Appleton Post-Crescent editorial board cold. Editorial here.
And the Oshkosh Northwestern said legislators should own up to the fact that
their own spending record is worse than any local government's "...More has been lost
in state highway cost overruns and unneeded car purchases than the damage any single
community could inflict on its taxpayers," the Northwestern wrote. Editorial here.
| Alliance to Tour Marinette
Shipyard City leaders from across
Wisconsin will have a chance to see the newest Staten Island Ferry under construction when
they gather in Marinette July 29-30. The ferry, the third being built for New York City's
Department of Transportation, is 310 feet long, and she and her sisters are the longest
ships launched in Marinette. In the last 60 years, Marinette Marine Corp. has built more
than 1,300 ships for the Coast Guard, Navy and commercial customers.
After the tour, a bus will take city leaders to Red Arrow
Park for a cookout, and then across the river to an outdoor concert by a Madison
group, Harmonious Wail, in Menominee, Mich.
Rooms are blocked until July 15, but RSVP For more
information, go here. |
Ferry launched in Marinette
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Phil Boutwell of Rock County, Tom Larsen of AFSCME,
Ed Huck of the Alliance of Cities and the Rev. Kurt
Handrich of WISDOM visited the Beloit Daily News.
 Mayor
Tim Hanna of Appleton and Rich Eggleston of
the Alliance of Cities were among a large group that
visited the Appleton Post-Crescent.
Jay Selissen, president of Green Bay Fire Fighters
Local 141; Dotty Juengst, legislative liaison of
the Green Bay School Board; and Joe Strohl,
lobbyist for Wisconsin Professional Fire Fighters,
were in the delegation that met with the
Green Bay Press-Gazette.
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TABOR Critics Hit the Road By Rich Eggleston
A loose-knit coalition of critics of the proposed "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights"
visited editorial writers and reporters around the state this month to make the case that
micromanagement by formula, even with the laudable goal of holding down taxes, doesn't
belong in the state constitution.
Coalition members have joined local officials,
public employees and members of the religious community to take the message to newspapers
across the state.
The message is simple: TABOR, as it is called, is a
one-size-fits-all prescription for declining schools, shrunken public services and reduced
police and fire protection that does nothing to revitalize Wisconsin's economy.
As long as some government costs continue to far
outpace the increases permitted under the proposed constitutional amendment,
quality-of-life services that citizens and businesses expect from government will decline
as nondiscretionary spending items assume a bigger and bigger share of local budgets,
coalition members stressed.
Forsaking representative democracy for ballot-box
democracy can work only where a well-informed and highly engaged electorate is willing to
take on the responsibilities that voting on complex matters of public finance entail, they
added.
Tabor Tidbits
'If TABOR's their saber, they're dull'
"Under TABOR, legislators' role is diminished to the point
that Wisconsin barely needs a Legislature, certainly not a
full-time one," the Marshfield News Herald editorialized May 23. The
newspaper said there's a difference between state government finances and a family's
finances, an analogy that TABOR supporters like to draw. "A family's finances are
controlled by responsible adults," the newspaper said. "If members of the
Wisconsin Legislature were responsible adults...they could do that too." Must-read
editorial here.
The best reason for opposing the latest version of the 'Taxpayer's
Bill of Rights' (see next story) is that Wisconsin Manufacturers
& Commerce is for it, The Capital Times said. The proposal,
said the newspaper, should be called the Taxpayer's Bill of Rip-Offs. Editorial here.
Legislative flirtation with the 'Taxpayer's Bill of Rights' amounts
to dereliction of duty, wrote Editorial Page Editor Tim Kelley in the Wisconsin
State Journal May 23. "They can't say no to spending, so they want to
box themselves in," Kelley wrote. |
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In the end, it will be local opposition that
dumps the 'Taxpayer's Bill of Rights,' says longtime central Wisconsin journalist Bill
Berry. Berry, former editor of the Stevens Point Journal, wrote in The
Capital Times that hard-working local officials, progressive business people and
honest conservatives will spell the death knell of TABOR.
"TABOR is going down, baby, and when it does,
it will take with it some of those who tried to handcuff the rest of us. They will learn
some simple lessons when that happens. They'll learn the old truism that all politics is
local. They'll learn, too, that Wisconsin's progressive tradition won't be sullied by the
selfish acts of a few. They'll learn that playing politics with education, the
environment, basic services and quality of life is dumb. In the end, they'll get what they
deserve, a good lesson in civics and a ticket back home, where they'll have to face the
very people they offended," Berry wrote. Guest column is here.
"Like the Sirens’ song, TABOR’s promise of lower
taxes is seductive but it will surely wreck our ship of state," Curt Andersen,
vice president of the Clean Water Action Council and an adjunct instructor at
Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, wrote in the Green Bay News Chronicle.
"...TABOR should be TABOG…the Taxpayer Bill of Goods. It’s
bogus." Guest column here.
"One of the mostly widely held misperceptions about Wisconsin
is that state and local governments are out of control. Misrepresent the facts often
enough and long enough and soon the distortion becomes truth," Andrew
Reschovsky and Steven Deller of UW-Madison wrote in the Wausau Herald.
The misrepresentation, they wrote, is that high taxes are caused by high spending.
"When one looks at taxes alone, it is true Wisconsin tends to
rank fairly high compared to other states. But when one looks at fees and charges,
Wisconsin ranks relatively low," they wrote. Guest column here.
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TABORs multiply like rabbits
The latest incarnation of the "Taxpayer's Bill of
Rights," a plan by Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-Peshtigo), would limit state and
local spending to 80% of statewide personal income growth in Wisconsin. The Legislature,
however, could allow some local governments to exceed the allowable increase by taking
away a percentage of the allowable increase from other local governments.
For local governments, the proposal would apply to all
spending of funds derived from taxes, fees and tuition, unless the funds were deposited in
a fund in existence in 2003 or earlier.
State surpluses would go into a rainy-day fund, and once
the rainy-day fund reached 3% of state general purpose revenues, the excess could be used
for property-tax credits earmarked for Wisconsin residents. Use of those credits
would be exempt from the uniformity clause of the state constitution, but the credits
could not be distributed based on the recipient's age or income, like the Homestead Tax
Credit.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce immediately
endorsed Gard's plan, and provided local officials and public employee unions with the
unsolicited advice that they should too.
"If they oppose this plan, they won't support
anything," said WMC Vice President Jim Buchen. "They will have exposed
themselves as obstructionists set on protecting wasteful government spending, Rolls-Royce
health care benefits and Milwaukee-style pensions."
Ed Huck, executive director of the Alliance,
said the WMC statement reflects "an anti-worker approach, an anti-health care
approach," according to Huck. Rather than trying to roll back health care benefits,
the WMC should endorse quality health-care benefits for everyone, Huck said.
Huck stressed that his criticism was not aimed at Gard's proposal, but rather at the way
the big-business lobby was demanding its adoption. The Alliance of Cities wants to work
with Gard on the amendment because there are wrinkles in the proposal that need to be
addressed.Later, Ed said local governments across
Wisconsin are at risk because of the state's structural deficit, and the latest TABOR plan
does nothing to address the structural deficit.
"Not fixing it and doing TABOR at the same time
definitely puts us at risk," he said.
To see the story on the exchange that ran in The
Capital Times, click here. |
Ed Huck
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For a copy of the Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo on Rep.
Gard's TABOR proposal, go here.
Meantime,. Rep. Frank Lasee (R-Bellevue) and Rep. Jeffrey
Wood (R-Chippewa Falls) proposed seven constitutional amendments instead of one to
implement their "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights." The seven amendments would put in
place:
- a requirement for a referendum before a unit of government
could increase spending by more than a "reasonable" amount. (They haven't
publicly defined "reasonable");
- a requirement that referendums be held on tax increases;
- a requirement that referendums be held on large bond
issues;
- a requirement that units of government establish rainy-day
funds;
- a requirement that elections be held on a regular schedule;
- protection from unfunded mandates; and
- a requirement that someone act during emergencies.
And economists are convinced that regardless of its form,
'TABOR' would inhibit growth. It would place communities in a Catch-22 if they promoted
growth, because they wouldn't be able to recover the costs of growth.
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Kewaunee utility
v. Wisconsin consumers
If Plant is Sold, Who Gets the Pot of Gold?
Kewaunee Plant
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By Cathy Boies
Customers First! CoalitionWisconsin Public
Service Corp. and Wisconsin Power & Light Co. recently announced a deal to sell the
Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant on Lake Michigan to a Virginia-based energy conglomerate.
If approved, the utility will be handing over a low-cost
source of electricity to an out-of-state company, and profits garnered from electricity
produced at the plant will flow to Virginia rather than staying in Wisconsin to help keep
our electric bills low.
Also, if sold, Kewaunee will no longer be as rigorously
regulated by the state. State regulators will lose oversight over operational decisions
such as repair and maintenance, financial decisions, subsequent ownership and
decommissioning funds. This amounts to piecemeal deregulation. Wisconsin cannot afford to
make the same mistake California did some years ago.
State regulators are expected to consider the details of
the proposed sale in mid-June. For more information
about the sale and its potential harm to state consumers, look here. |
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Its role as the "seedbed of
biocapitalism" earned Madison the No. 1 spot on Forbes
Magazine's 2004 list of best places in the country for business and careers. The magazine
cited Madison's low unemployment rate and brain-powered economy: the city has the highest
concentration of advanced degree-holders of any city in the U.S. Appleton
came in 16th on the list. Story here.
High gasoline prices could cause budget problems
in city halls across the state, says the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. For example,
Cudahy budgets for a 5% increase in gas prices. "And what is it up -
about 30 percent?" asked Mike Clark, general manager for Cudahy's public works and
water utility departments. The result, potential cuts in other parts of the budget. Story here.
The father of San Diego, Calif.
is also the father of what Wisconsin city? Hint: San Diego was developed by Alonzo Erastus
Horton, who in 1867 purchased 800 acres of what is now San Diego. He also gave his name to
Hortonville, writes San Diego Union Tribune columnist
Logan Jenkins, who recently used the question to stump What'Ya Know? host Michael Feldman.
Column here. |
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