(The Center Square) – Milwaukee’s mayor is looking to bring in millions of dollars in new money by charging drivers and reckless drivers more.
Mayor Cavalier Johnson put a proposed wheel tax increase into his new city budget last week.
His proposal would raise the wheel tax, which is Wisconsin’s optional, local tax on license plate renewals, from $10 to $40. Johnson’s office says the hike would bring in $2.7 million to Milwaukee each year.
But the higher wheel tax would also push the cost to register a car in Milwaukee more than $150.
Some Milwaukee aldermen, however, are not thrilled about the mayor’s
plan.
“In a move that surprised absolutely no one, the mayor took one look at the structural deficit that lies at the heart of city finances these days and did what he did last year: he punted,” Alderman Scott Spiker said in a statement.
Milwaukee will need to notify the state if it intends to raise its wheel tax, but it can move ahead on its own.
Milwaukee, however, will need state permission to pursue the mayor’s other idea.
Johnson said he wants to bring red light cameras to the city as a way to fight reckless drivers.
“It’s not just people who are fleeing law enforcement officers, it is those people that are speeding through red lights, it is those people who go through stop signs,” the mayor said. “All those things amount to reckless driving.”
Johnson’s proposal would allow for 75 cameras, five in each of the city’s 15 wards.
State lawmakers would have to change state law to allow the mayor to move ahead with red light cameras. There’s already plenty of opposition in the Republican-controlled legislature.
“This is a cash cow,” Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, said. “You’re going to tell me that a speed camera that clicked onto a vehicle with a stolen license plate, or with no license plates? You think that’s going to stop that guy from doing 100 miles an hour in a 30-mile zone five blocks up? It’s not!”
Lawmakers held a special hearing in Milwaukee on Johnson’s red light camera proposal Tuesday morning.
