WAUKESHA – Last week, the Waukesha County Board unanimously passed a resolution asking the state to examine theamount of state funding the county receives to pay for mandated services.
Leaders say Waukesha County, despite having the third highest population among Wisconsin’s 72 counties, receives the second-lowest per capita funding in the state. An analysis conducted by the Wisconsin Counties Association found the county received roughly 148 dollars in state aid per person in 2022, ahead of only Rock County at 124 dollars a person. Notably, much of Southeast Wisconsin expect for Kenosha County fell into the lowest quartile of aid at under 261 dollars per person.
The resolution notes Waukesha County has sent approximately $1.5 billion in taxes to the state and in return receives around $60 million in state aid.
“The County Board needs to take a leadership role in working with the state,” said Supervisor Johnny Koremenos. “I believe if we work with the state in a civil and collaborative way, the legislature will come to the table and heed our requests.”
“The county’s budget issues have not been resolved, and the county is facing looming budget challenges related to public safety,” added Supervisor Larry Bangs. “I hope this resolution can be used to encourage all residents to contact their state representatives and demand fair funding for Waukesha County.”
County Executive Paul Farrow tells WTMJ while shared revenue reform in 2023 was a positive step overall for the state, it didn’t completely eliminate underlying county funding issues, namely the amount of competition between counties for a finite amount of money.
“They didn’t change the way the formula was created, and how it’s equalized throughout the 72 counties,” says Farrow. The County Executive points to the concept of “return to origin” during the creation of the Wisconsin income tax in the early 1900s as a starting point for the issues the county sees to this day.
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The resolution warns if changes aren’t implemented, the county will need to make serious cuts to services across the board, most notably in the realm of public safety. County Executive Farrow notes he’s overseen over 100 various consolidations of services since 2009, and cited the Village of Muskego’s volunteer fire department as an example of a service that could be on the chopping block.
“They’re going to have to go to a paid service, that’s a huge chunk of money that’s going to come out of wherever,” said Farrow. “What we’ve got to look at is how do we provide the services of government to the people that deserve it and need it, while being as cost-effective as possible. And that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
One possible area of revenue generation in Waukesha County is a sales tax. Currently, Waukesha County is one of two counties in the state along with Winnebago that doesn’t collect its own sales tax in addition to the five percent state tax. A possible 0.5% county sales tax was to be voted on by the Board of Supervisors in October, but was tabled by County Executive Farrow to allow for more discussion on the measure. Farrow notes now that if the state were to readjust its funding protocol, the county sales tax might be taken completely off the table.
“If we could get the 55 million dollars that we’re giving back to the state every year, then I don’t need a sales tax,” said Farrow.
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