Statewide property taxes for homeowners have gone down for the first time in 12 years, which officials in the governor’s office are crediting as a ripple effect of the ending of collective bargaining for public employees.
The statement from Gov. Scott Walker’s office said the tax bill for the median value home is currently $39 per homeowner, lower than originally estimated by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau when the 2011-13 budget was passed.
According to the statement, property taxes paid by homeowners have risen 43 percent since 1998, and without the governor’s reforms the average homeowner would have paid an additional $700 over the biennium.
Walker spokesperson Cullen Werwie said part of these savings were made possible by the governor’s reforms to collective bargaining.
“Almost 49 percent of taxes go to local aid of government and in order to tackle the deficit. The only way to do it without massively increasing taxes is to reduce state aid to local units of government,” Werwie said. “So the collective bargaining reforms put in place, along with levy limits with property taxes, could more than cover the state aid.”
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin put out a statement hours after Walker’s release that said while it is true Walker imposed property tax freezes on localities, he did this at the same time as decimating state aid.
The statement said the reforms led to layoffs and diminished services, where dozens of school districts and localities will have to increase local taxes, as well as instituting hikes on fees. Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesperson Graeme Zielinski said the reductions were not Walker’s to claim.
“Several school districts took actions before Scott Walker,” Zielinski said. “He has a history of claiming credit for what he didn’t do. He did the same thing with savings found in BadgerCare.”
Dale Knapp, spokesperson for the private government research organization Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, said the alliance evaluated property taxes a bit differently than Walker when the group did an evaluation of the tax system last January.
Knapp said WTA looked at the entire property tax levy, including homeowners, businesses and farmers. Under the group’s criteria, property taxation has hardly changed at all.
According to Knapp, Walker’s release is looking specifically at the median value of a home, which reflects a bigger change but is also dependent on home values. Knapp also addressed the tax policies ties with Walker’s collective bargaining reforms.
“Parts of the collective bargaining reforms did limit how much the counties and districts could increase their property taxes, and that’s had a significant impact,” Knapp said. “But those reforms are not tied directly to the worker’s bargaining rights.”
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who is running in the recall election against Walker, criticized Walker’s tax policy in a statement released today.
Barrett said Walker has delivered $2.3 billion in tax breaks and giveaways primarily for the rich and corporations over the next 10 years, while making dramatic reductions to local communities and historic cuts to public education.
