Property taxes rise in the face of a budget deficit

Steven Walters reports in "Limiting property tax will be no easy feet" that homeowners are paying a larger share of the levy at 71%:

Capitol leaders promise to control property taxes next year, after homeowners and other property owners opened bills this month that, in total, rose by 2.8% to a record $8.6 billion.

Wisconsin's 1.5 million homeowners will pay about 71% of that levy - a percentage that keeps rising. In 1990, for example, homeowners paid 60% of all property taxes.

Doyle said the property tax bill mailed in December on a median-value home assessed at $171,840 will be $2,843, or about the same as last year. Of that total, $1,475 - or more than half - will pay for public schools, and $783 will go to run the local city, village or town.

Reedsburg faces some difficult budgeting challenges

Ken Leiviska reports in District will leave no stone unturned that Reedsburg is facing some tough challenges for the second year in a row due to declining enrollment, budget cuts, and a referendum:

The school district has already made some tough decisions in an attempt to balance a budget for the 2008-09 school year. Despite cutting three custodial positions, saving $150,000; cutting building maintenance, $175,000; postponing curriculum adoption, $150,000; cutting a part-time clerical position, $2,675; changing the long-term sub pay; and cutting six extracurricular programs, the school district ultimately passed a budget with a deficit of $65,027. The district overspent its budget by $595,117 during the 2007-08 school year.



Because the three-year rolling average for student enrollment is in a period of decline; the district is in the second year operating without referendum money; and because the district is in jeopardy of losing one of the major grants it holds — the Wisconsin Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) — there are many tough decisions ahead.

The Wisconsin Way and tax reform

Steven Elbow reports in Group calls for tax overhaul in new report that the Wisconsin Way is interested in:

Moving school funding away from property taxes, shortening high school time from four to three years, eliminating the corporate income tax. These are a handful of the many ideas an influential group of business and lobbying leaders in the state are hoping to spur a discussion about long-term solutions to Wisconsin's economic woes.



The group's long-anticipated "Blueprint for Change" is the result of 14 months of public forums and meetings across the state to address policy shortcomings that it says has resulted in a tax system that doesn't work and a brain drain of workers with college degrees. The result is an erosion of earning power and quality jobs, according to the group.

Spending increases do not mean increased tax bills for Madison

Dean Mosiman and Matt DeFour report in Madison property tax bills reflect rate drop of 1.1 percent that:

Despite city and school spending increases, many Madison taxpayers aren't having a sticker shock compared to other municipalities when opening tax bills.



Madison's equalized tax rate dropped 1.1 percent for 2008 while the average of cities, villages and towns in Dane County showed slight increases between 0 and 1 percent, new county tax information shows.



Change in equalized tax rates ranged from a 10.69 percent increase in the town of Deerfield to a 9.76 percent decrease in the town of Blue Mounds. Equalized means all properties are assessed at fair market value.

Revenue limits stay, QEO goes

Richard Moore reports in Doyle: Keep school revenue limits, repeal salary caps, that Governor Doyle wants to kep the revenue limits in place while getting rid of the QEO:

"I do not intend to take the revenue limits off of schools, so I think like any public employees - there are revenue limits on cities, and firefighters and police go to the bargaining table without any QEO and they have to operate within what those limits are. I don't see why teachers should be treated any different."