Madison deserves more PMS thrown their way from the state.

Was pleasantly surprised to see Isthmus discuss an issue that is in the weeds of state government policy, but has a significant effect on my hometown. That involves the state’s Payments for Municipal Services (PMS) program, which is intended to be a make-up for what local communities give in aid for state properties.

The math ain't mathing pic.twitter.com/EbJwqzeUBu

— Francesca Hong 홍윤정 (@FrancescaHongWI) September 12, 2024

State-owned facilities are generally exempt from paying property taxes to their host city. But Wisconsin’s municipal services payments program, administered by the Department of Administration, reimburses cities for police, fire and waste removal services provided to local state facilities. The DOA calculates the amount owed from annual financial reports submitted by municipalities and makes its recommendations annually by Nov. 15.

When the Legislature allocates less than what is recommended for municipal payments, funds are decreased by a uniform percent across all cities. The program’s 2023-25 budget appropriation was 61.8% short of what was needed, which is how Madison received just $8 million for $20.8 million in services.

Madison is obviously the community that gets the largest of these PMS payments, given that we have the flagship UW school and a large number of state office buildings. And while those state-owned facilities are exempted from paying property tax, it does mean that the city of Madison gets an essential part of its budget from these payments.

According to DOA data from 2022, Madison has 658 state facilities eligible for the program, which total nearly $8 billion in value. Numerous state agencies have their headquarters in Madison, and UW-Madison also falls under the municipal service program’s jurisdiction.

The program’s payment goes into the city’s general fund and represents 1.9% of 2024 general fund revenues. Municipal services payments are the third-largest source of Madison’s intergovernmental revenues this year, representing 17.5% of the $45 million Madison brings in from state-level aid.

Which is why it is a screwjob to Madison in particular when the state doesn’t increase its Payments for Municipal Services while land values and overall costs go up, and means the state pays less of the costs that the local communities have to pick up.

But since 2011, with the Legislature and Joint Finance Committee, which writes the annual state budget, under Republican control, the program’s appropriation has dropped from covering 51% to 38% of submitted costs.

Governor Tony Evers tried to increase the amounts in the PMS program by $2 million in the 2021-23 budget, and $1 million in the 2023-25 budget. But the gerrymandered WisGOP Legislature turned down both requests, despite a multi-billion dollar budget surplus in each of those budgets.

I’ll also point out that WisGOPs in the Legislature approved a significant increase in shared revenues as part of another bill passed in the Summer of 2023. But as the Wisconsin Policy Forum noted, the largest increases went to rural communities, while Madison and Milwaukee got far less per person in shared revenue.

…due in part to its relatively high property values, Madison’s total county and municipal aid [CMA] will amount to just $28 per capita, the third-lowest amount of any municipality in the state. Save for Waukesha ($34 per capita), the remaining eight largest cities in the state will receive at least $76 per capita in CMA, and seven of those eight will receive at least $100 per capita.

While those per capita amounts are not insignificant, they pale in comparison to those received by many smaller communities. The Village of Big Falls, the smallest incorporated municipality in the state with a population of just 58, received $29,283 in CMA in 2023, or a little over $500 per resident. Act 12’s formula for supplemental aid tended to favor small municipalities and guaranteed that each town, village, and city would receive at least $30,000 total. Consequently, in 2024, Big Falls will receive $60,291 in CMA, for a per capita total of $1,040 that is the largest in the state by more than $100. There are 31 municipalities – Big Falls included – that will receive at least 20 times more per capita in CMA in 2024 than Madison.

WisGOPs will gladly take in all of the additional income and sales taxes that come in as a result of the fastest-growing city and county in the state, and then tie the city of Madison’s hands from actually being able to invest more from that growth with levy limits and in preventing Madtown from levying its own sales tax, like they did for Milwaukee in 2023, and for several small tourist towns in the years before then.

As a property tax payer in Madison, this disparity in funding from the state vs what my city adds in is obnoxious. And it demand significant changes when we get an ungerrymandered Legislature after this November’s elections, both in the PMS program, and in the shared revenue situation.

It’s also why I’m strongly considering not voting for the multiple referenda on my ballot in 2 months, because why should we keep having to pay for a Legislature that wants to screw over my town? I’d rather have things go bad, maybe lessen city services around the Capitol so the legislators can be the ones who feel the difference, and force action where the state either gives more back to Madison from general tax dollars, or allows the city to grab some sales taxes from all of the events that go on here.

It won’t add revenues from all the Bama fans that came in earlier this month, or in all of the other expansion of business that comes from being in the fastest-growing region in Wisconsin, and the 2nd largest tourism draw. But can we work on taking some of the burden off of the locals in Madtown sooner than later, OK?