Even red Waukesha County is struggling to pay its bills. Maybe get a sales tax like the rest of us?

Even with increases in shared revenues from the state, the many years of neglect before 2023 meant that many local governments are still not able to make ends meet. And it's worth noting that one place whose local government is especially struggling is the Republican stronghold of Waukesha County.

For years, Waukesha was able to rely on shared revenues, property taxes and other means to pay for their services, to the point that it is 1 of only 2 counties remaining that have not put in sales tax. And despite their top elected official admitting the financial difficulties and wanting to take action to allow for more resources, he said this week that he is going to back down and not ask for a sales tax to help pay the bills.

Instead, he's going to hope his fellow Republicans in the Legislature use some of this state's $4.3 billion surplus to help him out.

Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow introduced a measure to implement the 0.5 percent sales tax in October. It would have generated an estimated $60 million a year for the county.

But speaking to the Waukesha County Board of Supervisors last week, Farrow said the sales tax measure is now officially “dead.” He withdrew the plan after it was met with backlash from some in the community.

“Without a significant change in how the state funds local government, or a change in how our local government funds itself, our future balanced budgets will come at the cost of deep service cuts starting in 2026,” Farrow said during the meeting.

$60 million a year seems like a lot of money to pass up, especially if some of those sales taxes could reduce the property tax burden in Waukesha County, where the median-priced home sold for $456,000 in 2024. It’s also worth mentioning that Farrow wanted $12 million of those funds to go to property tax relief.

The property tax relief part is worth mentioning, as Waukesha County's high property values generally translates into lower state aids, especially for schools. But at the same time, Waukesha County hasn’t been allowed to take advantage of their median home sale prices going up by more than $200,000 since 2015, because the Walker/WisGOP regime limited property tax increases to the rate of new construction, NOT the increase in home values.

Those limits on property tax levies means that Wisconsinites are paying their lowest property tax rates in decades. Check out this chart from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

That's small solace for us who are still paying more in property taxes despite the lower rates. But in theory, local governments have had to deal with limits to their resources that the state has not had to deal with, because the state got higher income, sales and corporate taxes with that inflation, and from growth in the economy.

And because of those limitations, Waukesha Executive Farrow asked for the sales tax last Fall. And guess who was one of the leaders of the "backlash" from Farrow’s suggestion, which led the Waukesha County Board to back down?

Tonette & I live in Waukesha County. We are shocked that the county board will be considering a sales tax increase on Tue, Oct 22. I encourage residents to let their supervisor know their opinion before 10/22.

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) October 16, 2024

I want to back up and note that the Wisconsin Department of Tourism says that Waukesha County had the 4th highest amount of direct visitor spending out of any county in the state in 2023, with over $900 million spent. Yeah, kinda surprises me too, but apparently a lot of people stay or stop by there when they’re doing things in Milwaukee, or even take in events in the 262.

And given the large amount of tourism spending and high population that lives there, Waukesha County would seem to be a place that especially would benefit from such a sales tax. They can’t just rely on sprawl and home-building at this point (and at this point, do they even want any more of that?), so getting that extra revenue source and taking some burden off the property tax seems like an obvious solution.

At the same time, while I have sympathy for how Waukesha County isn’t allowed to get all the resources that they need from property tax or state shared revenues, not having a sales tax is a self-inflicted wound. Therefore, I don’t see where they should get much extra help from the state to pay their bills until they install a sales tax like the overwhelming majority of the rest of the state does.

It's a two-way street where you have to do something to get something. But when did BubbleWorld BSers like Scott Walker ever do tradeoffs and actual solutions like that? After all, that clown thought you could pay for increasingly costly road repairs with the same amount of gas taxes and registration fees.