Here & Now

Cory Mason on State Funds for Wisconsin's Local Governments

Frederica Freyberg:

City mayors across the state are imploring legislative leaders to allocate more funding for municipalities known as shared revenue in the upcoming state budget. Racine Mayor Cory Mason says every year he’s told there’s no money but in a year when Wisconsin’s bank account is showing an historic $7.1 billion surplus, he now says now is the time to fund police and essential services. The mayor joins us now. Thanks for being here.

Cory Mason:

My pleasure, thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

We expect when he rolls out his two-year budget Governor Tony Evers will include his proposal of sending 20% of the state’s sales tax back to local communities for shared revenue. When you heard that proposal that he made in the State of the State address, what was your reaction?

Cory Mason:

Overwhelmingly positive. I mean, really, the governor’s shown some real leadership here. Just to put it in context for people though, we’ve had the state’s share of funds to local services, it’s been frozen for more than a decade. For the city of Racine, in real dollar terms, we get less than we did more than a decade ago and that makes it very difficult to maintain services when costs continue to rise. So the fact the governor committing that kind of a funding source, both in terms of its increase and then also its sustainable growth in the future, obviously myself and mayors all over the state were obviously very excited to hear about that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Have you done the math on that for the city of Racine? Do you have any kind of rough numbers what that mean or could mean?

Cory Mason:

That’s where the details will really come out because obviously there’s different levels of government have different ideas about how that increase would be but it would be about an additional half billion dollars that would go back to local governments. How that’s distributed through cities, villages, towns and counties is an ongoing conversation. What we do know though is, a generation ago about 12% of the state budget went back to local governments. Now it’s at 5% so we know we need a reinvestment in local communities if we’re going to keep our neighborhoods safe.

Frederica Freyberg:

Paint the picture for us. What has that meant in terms of local services?

Cory Mason:

There’s real stress on local services. Our ability to maintain services and frankly to give police and fire fighters the raises they deserve becomes harder and harder. As health care costs might go up 10%, 15% a year, if your revenues remain very flat, it’s just a matter of time before there’s a real tension between giving workers the raises they deserve so we can recruit and retain them in these professions and maintain vital public services if you’re still dealing with budgets that are at levels from 10, 12, 15 years ago.

Frederica Freyberg:

Also, there are the levy limits as you well know and the only way under those legislatively-imposed limits is to get more tax dollars is to go to a referendum but Racine last year had a referendum for $2 million to hire 11 new police officers and it failed. Are you able at this time to preserve public safety under that scenario?

Cory Mason:

That is the real tension. We’re in negotiations right now but certainly the raises we have on the table exceed our ability to maintain those funds in the future. We have to put real offers on the table though because we need to maintain a police force and EMS and fire fighting force. It’s at a crisis point for communities like Racine. We know there were dozens of public safety referendums throughout the state last November. 85% of them passed. Unfortunately ours was one that didn’t. Those are really our two options: either going to referendum or getting the state to reinvest in its commitment to funding local services. But everybody agreed last year that funding the police was a priority. Everyone agreed about that. This is the opportunity for the legislature and the governor to come together and make good on that commitment the governor has already laid out before us.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of that, having served in the legislature yourself, what is your expectation about how the Republican majority will respond to the Evers proposal to share 20% of the state sales tax?

Cory Mason:

I have said to some people who were like, this is great. We’re going to get a huge increase. And I’ve warned people the increase doesn’t come until the legislature weighs in and actually passes it in the biannual budget. And I will say as somebody who was in the legislature for a long time and might have been more skeptical in other years, but I do know in conversations we’ve had with other communications, the legislature is very much having conversations about this model about the 20% sales tax going. So if both the governor and the legislature agree roughly on the framework and what they need to do is negotiate what the details are, I feel more optimistic about funding shared revenue this year than I have in a long time.

Frederica Freyberg:

As mayor of a major city, what is your message now to budget writers at the state Capitol?

Cory Mason:

If you want to have safe and healthy communities, you have to invest in law enforcement and you have to invest in public safety. They know that. The city of Racine and communities all over the state need the resources. And we need the state to make good on its commitment to fill its responsibility to fund local services. I think at the end of the day everybody agrees to that and I’m just really hoping with this new framework laid out by the governor under his leadership the legislature will come in and find a model we can all agree on but we are at a point where the legislature can’t kick this can down the road any further. It’s getting to a place where providing basic services, like police and fire, is becoming harder and harder for communities like mine and many others all over the state.

Frederica Freyberg:

Mayor Cory Mason. Thanks very much.

Cory Mason:

Thank you.