garageman's Blog

Last night Mike Lowe reported on a town hall meeting about an advisory referendum that will be on the ballot on Nov. 4th.  Members of the Milwaukee County Board want the authority to put a one percent county sales tax in place to fund the county park system and transit and emergency medical services. It took a couple of hours to digest what I took in at that town hall meeting.

It's a tax increase!  Under the guise of property tax relief, if passed supporters of the referendum have calculated that they will take in some $130 million dollars.  Twenty seven percent of the Milwaukee County property tax levy.  How much of that $130 million goes toward property tax relief?  Less than half!

Why stop there?  If the numbers that were put out were correct and twenty seven percent of the property tax levy can be replaced with a one cent county sales tax, by my calculations the entire property tax levy can be replaced with a 3.65% county sales tax. Including the wolf in sheep's clothing tax increase they want to create. That would make the total sales tax in Milwaukee County 9.25%. Still a full point less than Chicago.  Why isn't anyone talking about that?

The most bang for your tax buck.  It's been reported that a controversial letter was sent out to at least a portion of the citizenry (I did not receive one) explaining the referendum and calling them to this town hall meeting.  The cost of the letter exceeded $20,000.  Regardless of what "fund" the money came from, it was still taxpayer money that paid for it.  So how many people showed up for the town hall meeting?  I counted ten. Was this a wise use of taxpayer's money? 

As this is an advisory referendum my fear is that, much like Congress and the bailout, the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors will be in a position to ignore the will of the people and pass the tax increase anyway.  They may be able to generate a new tax revenue stream for Milwaukee County, but it's the County Executive's budget that decides what money goes where.  They can't guarantee that the revenue generated by the county sales tax will be used for the purposes being put forth.  Some other "economic emergency" will appear and the Board of Supervisors will "Doyle"  the money for other purposes. Nor can they guarantee a commensurate property tax cut.

It's a hurry up world, but this is one thing I had to stop and think about before forming my opinion.