Property tax rates remain a top issue in Wisconsin elections

By Jon Styf
The Center Square

The future of property taxes in Wisconsin remains one of the largest topics along with affordability heading into this fall’s elections.

This week, congressman and candidate-for-governor Tom Tiffany pointed to a ranking that showed Wisconsin is 43rd in terms of property tax rates, just higher than Iowa (42nd) and trailing only last place Illinois in the Midwest.

“We have to fix this,” Tiffany wrote while sharing the property tax map. “There is no reason Wisconsin should rank alongside New York, New Jersey, and Illinois for some of the highest property taxes in America.

“Wisconsin Democrats stuck you with a 400-year property tax hike and told you to ‘deal with it.’ That ends on day one.”

Wisconsin voters will have the opportunity to block a future governor from repeating the partial veto from Gov. Tony Evers that led to the 400-year K-12 school funding increase with a constitutional referendum on the November ballot that would end a governor’s ability to “create or increase or authorize the creation or increase of any tax or fee.”

Evers used the current veto power to erase numbers and a hyphen to change the year “2024-25” to “2425” in a school appropriation in the budget bill.

That meant a $325 per student per year funding increase for the next 400 years was allowed and later upheld in a 4-3 ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

A Marquette Law School poll earlier this year showed that 58% of registered voters polled were more concerned about property taxes than funding for K-12 public schools while 41% said the opposite.

Republicans have pointed to Evers’ partial veto as a reason property taxes have and will continue to increase in the state while Democrats have said that those increases have been necessary because the state needs to fund more of the cost of K-12 schools.

The K-12 education portion of Wisconsin property tax bills rose 7.8% this year, the largest rise in more than three decades, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report released in December.

All Wisconsin Senate Democrats voted against a $1.8 billion surplus bill that 80% of voters in a Marquette Law School poll believe should have been passed. The bill was a bipartisan agreement between Evers, outgoing Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu.

The bill included $300 or $600 income tax refund checks, $600 million for schools and an end to taxes on tips and overtime. It passed the Assembly and was voted down 18-15 in the Senate.