Dems Say Shared Revenue Sales Tax Bill Shortchanges Some Cities

Tuesday, June 13th, 2023 -- 4:00 PM

(Bob Hague, WRN) Democrats say some medium sized Wisconsin cities are getting short-charged in the shared revenue sales tax bill.

Senator Mark Spreitzer represents the city of Janesville, “The deal that has been negotiated certainly moves us in a better direction. The 20% minimum increase certainly is helpful to many communities including some that I represent. But there are some folks who still get left behind including the city of Janesville.”

Senator Jeff Smith of Eau Claire, which doesn’t do much better. “We're just trying to be sure that we are listening to the, to those midsize cities, who. This is like the doughnut hole.”

Senator Spreitzer continued, “There are only two communities above 50,000 that are getting less than a million new dollars. It's Janesville and Waukesha. And Eau Claire is not doing much better at 1.2. And the worst thing is that if you look at the city of Janesville and the city of Eau Claire, they are already very disadvantaged under the current shared revenue formula.”

“I don't think it's anyone's fault. I think the old formula, you know, was locked in when Janesville still had a GM plant. Nobody went back and updated it. And now we've got a bill that builds off of the old formula by doing these percentage increases, and unless we add some more money on a per capita basis, we're gonna leave Janesville behind for another generation.”

An amendment to address that, by Spreitzer and Senator Jeff Smith of Eau Claire was rejected in a committee vote on Monday. The Joint Finance Committee takes up shared revenue legislation today.

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