(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers wants to rehash his proposal to send $1 billion of state tax money to local entities that agree to freeze property taxes.
Republican leaders, however, say that it is a request to backfill after Evers’ partial veto raised property taxes on Wisconsin residents for the next 400 years.
Evers said Tuesday that he would again push for the property tax proposal that legislative budget leaders rejected in the last budget negotiations. Evers plan included sending the $1 billion in state funds to local governments along with spending $237 million on property tax relief programs for “veterans, seniors, individuals with disabilities, and others struggling to afford the property taxes.”
Evers blamed Republicans for 7.8% statewide average increases in K-12 property taxes that Wisconsin Policy Forum said were due to referenda and Evers’ partial veto, which allows school districts to make a $325 per student per year property tax funding increase for the next 400 years instead of just the next budget.
“Republicans want to blame my 400-year veto (for) property taxes going up,” Evers told media at a press conference. “The problem with that is … Wisconsinites were going to referendum for an increasing number of years, long before I became governor.”
The $325 per student increase will allow for an approximately $250 million increase in property tax levies each year, which adds up to a $1.5 billion increase by 2030, according to Will Flanders, research director for the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
“After months of ignoring our warnings of massive property tax increases due to his outrageous 400-year veto, the governor is now asking us to backfill his mistake,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a statement on Tuesday. “We will pass a repeal of his 400-year veto and we ask him to urge Democrats in the legislature to join that effort.”
This year’s Wisconsin property taxes saw the largest percentage increase in K-12 since 1992, a jump from the 5.7% increase a year ago. The K-12 costs on property tax bills are more than 50% of the property taxes collected statewide.
“Recent property tax increases fall primarily on his shoulders and unless he’s willing to fix that, taxpayers in Wisconsin will be driven out of their homes due to these unaffordable increases,” Vos said.
