(The Center Square) – Homeowners across Wisconsin are finding much higher property tax bills in their mailboxes this month, and Republicans at the state capitol say second-term Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is to blame.
Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August said people are seeing their property taxes jump by hundreds of dollars. He says it is largely due to Evers’ school funding increase that he vetoed into the last state budget.
“The huge increases in property taxes are a direct result of Tony Evers’ 400-year veto,” August told TCS.
Evers used his veto pen to change a one-year school funding increase in the 2024-25 state budget into a 400-year funding increase by erasing some of the numbers and punctuation from the budget, leaving the funding increase to run from 2023 to 2425.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld his veto.
August said as much as homeowners are paying this year, they need to get ready to pay more next year, and the year after that, and the years after that.
“Voters need to understand how much worse it would get under total Democrat control,” August said. “If Evers managed to single handedly raise property taxes this much, imagine how much they will go up if Mandela Barnes becomes governor with a liberal socialist Legislature. They have already said they’ll tear apart Act 10 which will lead to massive property tax increases as big government union bosses line their pockets off the backs of hardworking middle class property taxpayers who are already struggling to afford the basics.”
Barnes has said he supports ending Act 10, which rolled back how primarily teachers could negotiate their new contracts. Act 10 limited teachers to just negotiating over salaries, and capped salary increases to the rate of inflation.
Act 10, according to the MacIver Institute, has saved Wisconsin $35 billion since it became law back in 2011.
August and many other conservatives say if or when the Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes it down, those savings will be erased, and property taxes across the state will skyrocket.
