Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The Cost of County Government Going Up… Fast

It’s telling that they don’t consider “state aid” to be taxes. 

A recent study by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance found that in 2005, Wisconsin’s 72 counties spent $4.42 billion on operations, or 23.4 percent more than they spent in 2000.  This report, titled “A Snapshot of County Finances: 2005” notes that health and human services spending dominated county expenditures, accounting for 46.1 percent of operations.

As a result of state aid only increasing at a modest level, counties relied on taxes and fees to fund spending.  While state assistance rose 10.6 percent, county tax collections climbed 32.1 percent, while revenues from fees, fines, and permits rose 58 percent.

(2) Comments
Posted by Owen at 1905 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. For those that don’t want to do the math to put it in annualized terms…

    - County spending went up 4.30% per year between 2000 and 2005.
    - State aid went up 2.04% per year between 2000 and 2005.
    - County taxes went up 5.73% per year between 2000 and 2005.
    - Fees/fines/permits revenues went up 9.58% per year between 2000 and 2005.

    Don’t know many people that had their pay go up even 4% a year lately.

    Posted by steveegg on November 20, 2007 at 2047 hrs


  2. A bit of background.

    Included in that levy was the Real Estate bubble, especially in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Dane, Ozaukee, probably Washington and many northwoods Counties. New construction = new levy without necessarily raising the levy on existing homes (ala Vrakas in Waukesha County).

    Not being able to see the background data, I’m willing to bet the bubble contributed heavily towards the fee increases. As we all know, every time a property - rather new subdivisions, new vacation homes or new condos on the lake front - sells you pay a transfer fee and a document recording fee. That also happens every time you split a piece of farmland into lots for new subdivisions. Also with all the new construction, you had all sorts of permits sold. In most cases if you have a problem with this you need to talk to your State legislator, not the County Board because those inspections and fees are required by state statute.

    Also for Milwaukee County on the fee side, you have to look at Mitchell International. That place is rocking and rolling and it uses fees - not tax levy - to cover its costs. In fact that is the case with most fees, they either help or completely cover costs of the service provided.

    State aid is a joke. I bet you could not find 5 Supervisors statewide that would be unhappy if the State took over every single mandated service it doesn’t fully fund.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 21, 2007 at 2024 hrs


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