The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance has the details on the municipal level. To wit:
– Among the municipalities with a population of at least 2,000 (230 total), despite the Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi) 2% tax “freeze”, property taxes increased 4.1% in fiscal year (FY) 2006 (2005-2006 on your calendar), the same as the average between FY2002 and FY2005. Throwing in the tiny communities kept the FY2006 increase at 4.1% and raised the average FY2002-FY2005 increase to 4.3%.
– 86 of those “large” communities raised those taxes higher in FY2006 than in FY2005 (when there was no Craps anti-Freeze).
– Local spending in the “large” communities increased by an annual average of 4.3% between FY2000 and FY2004.
– Local debt in the “large” communities increased by an annual average of 6.9% during that same time-frame.
Meanwhile, neither inflation nor compensation has kept up with any aspect of government taxation or spending over that time. Between 2000 and 2005, inflation in the Midwest was an annual average of 2.41%. Over that same time, compensation in the Milwaukee-Racine area went up an annual average of 3.48%.
Tell me again, members of the Party In Government, why we don’t need a property tax freeze.
Will the last person out of Wisconsin please tell We Energies to turn out the lights.
Revisions/extensions (11:19 am 7/26) – Forgot to mention all of those unelected taxing authorities, like MMSD and MATC, that weren’t even part of the Craps’ anti-freeze. Throw those in, and the news gets worse.
