MacIver News Minute: Who Raised My Property Taxes?

The MacIver Report: Wisconsin This Week

So, you got your property tax bill, and you’re wondering why it went up so much for the school district. Across the state, school district property taxes went up $327.2 million this year. That comes out to 5.7% A lot of that was because of referendums, but that’s not the whole story. You probably forgot the big budget deal republicans made with gov. Evers last year. They agreed to increase the revenue limits for school districts by $350 per pupil last year and again this year. There are two ways that $350 gets paid, either with more state aid or with higher property taxes. There wasn’t that much more state aid. Last year, property taxes went up $150 million to make up the difference. This year, it was $65 million. It’s going to get worse. Gov. Evers really doped republicans in that deal. He used his line-item veto to make the annual increase go on for another 400 years. That means, lawmakers can either use money from your income taxes to increase state aid, or they can let you pay it directly through higher property taxes. Either way, the school districts will get theirs, and you’ll be paying for it.