After WisGOPs don't add state funds for school costs, property taxes will rise in December.

Now that the Wisconsin budget has been officially signed into law, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau has been releasing reports summarizing some key parts and effects in the wake of that document. Among those was a look at what will happen with property tax bills under the budget, and those bills are likely to rise this Winter, even with one provision reducing those bills a bit.

Act 15 modified the definition of revenue limits for school districts and technical college districts to include the personal property aid payment associated with the 2023 full exemption of all personal property from taxation. These modifications were also included in SB 45/AB 50, as initially introduced. As a result of these modifications, the exempt personal property aid payment must be considered revenue for the purposes of calculating the limit. This modification will decrease school district levies by an estimated $57.4 million annually and technical college districts by an estimated $5.1 million annually.

As a result of the provisions included in Act 15, gross property tax levies are currently estimated to increase on a statewide basis by 5.1% in 2025(26) and by 4.9% in 2026(27), while net levies are estimated to increase by 6.0% in 2025(26) and by 5.5% in 2026(27). These levies would result in estimated tax bills for a statewide median-valued home of $3,590 in 2025(26) and $3,746 in 2026(27). This would represent a decrease of $16 (0.4%) in 2025(26) and $15 (0.4%) in 2026(27), compared to the estimated tax bills under prior law.

Our property tax bill is well over double that $3,417, so...yeah, not great.

The LFB document adds that Governor Evers had several items in his budget proposal that would have kept those property tax bills down near 2024 levels for the next 2 years, but the GOP Legislature didn't go for them.

Act 15 does not include several provisions of SB 45/AB 50 [Gov. Evers' budget proposal] that would have affected property tax levies in the 2025-27 biennium. These provisions include modifications to school district revenue limits and county and municipal levy limits, which would have allowed increases to school district and county and municipal levies. Also, Act 15 does not include SB 45/AB 50 provisions that would have provided aid to counties and municipalities that would not increase their annual levy and provisions that would have provided additional funding for general school aids and the school levy tax credit.

This is the outcome of a budget compromise that gave a $0 increase in general school aids, and it didn't include Evers' incentives for counties and municipalities to freeze their property tax levies. Republicans may want to blame Evers for allowing K-12 districts to put in a $325-per-student increase in resources through a creative veto in 2023 (the HORROR!), but Evers was the one who wanted to cover those costs with state aids and take them off of the property tax, while Republicans chose to pass the costs down to the local level and property taxes.

To be fair, districts don't have to take the full $325-per-student increase, although that amount won't even cover the cost of inflation for many Wisconsin schools. If the GOP Legislature was smart, they could make the excuse that events in Washington DC made them rush the budget through, and they can try to cover some of this looming property tax increase.

However, there is very little cushion left after a budget that includes more than $1.5 billion in tax cuts, nearly $728 million being sent to the Transportation Fund, and $326.5 million more to avoid borrowing for building projects.

So it would be difficult to find any state funds to try to limit the higher property taxes that are coming in 4 months. And who knows what we might have to come up with if our currently-stalled economy falls into a full-fledged recession that would reduce tax collections and raise costs at the state level. Again, not great.