Give city authority to use a sales tax
D
Last month, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett sent a letter to Gov. Scott Walker and state legislators asking them to authorize a local half-cent sales tax to fund public safety and allow the city to increase the number of police officers.
That may go against everything Madison Republicans stand for — their war on Milwaukee, limiting local government, state government as Big Brother — but they should grant the request nonetheless.
Without the $35 million the half-cent sales tax would raise, the city stands to see deep cuts in its fire and police departments, perhaps as many as 84 police officers, the mayor has warned.
It’s a very simple math problem: The city has been getting less money from the state in shared revenue at the same time that its public safety costs have ratcheted up. Here’s what we said in a January editorial: “City figures show that state shared revenue in 2005 was $230,605,000, which more than covered the Police Department budget of $185,962, 917. Last year, the aid didn’t come close as shared revenue was at $218,992,000 and the department’s budget is at $277,233,534.”
Talk about diminishing returns. That’s not a budget that any city could sustain. And contrary to what some argue, Milwaukee isn’t a drain on the state but is, in fact, doing more than its fair share by sending more money to the state than it gets in return. More shared revenue would be only fair, but that’s not likely to happen.
And it’s not like Milwaukee has many other options: In a recent meeting with the Editorial Board, Barrett told us the state controls not only how much shared revenue the city gets, but how much the city can raise its property taxes
and what other revenue streams the city could tap into.
And right now, it can’t tap into many. In fact, the Public Policy Forum noted in a recent report that “Milwaukee is the only city its size limited to using property taxes as the sole form of local taxation,” the Journal Sentinel reported in July. The Forum’s report makes clear that the city’s revenue structure “ineffective and outdated.”
So what the mayor is asking for is simple fairness. He’s not asking the state to create a new tax; he’s willing to leave that up to Milwaukee voters by including a referendum in his proposal.
“I deliberately included a referendum in this proposal because I think the residents who pay property and sales taxes deserve to decide if an increase in police officers is worth increasing their taxes,” he said in his letter.
All he’s asking the state to do is allow voters to make that decision. Given the pressures the city is under, that’s hardly asking too much. The Legislature should give Milwaukee citizens the right to decide this question for themselves.