Frederica Freyberg:

In tonight’s look ahead, if you live in Milwaukee County you could be looking at paying more at the check-out. That’s because elected officials and even business leaders there want to hike the sales tax by 1% to help pay for services and improvements. It could be a heavy lift though as it needs legislative approval before it goes to a referendum. Democratic Representative Evan Goyke of Milwaukee is proposing a bill to allow the tax increase. He joins us now from Milwaukee. Thank you for doing so.

Evan Goyke:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Assembly Speaker Republican Robin Vos as you know, has already said the proposal will be a “hard sell.” Is this dead before it even gets off the ground?

Evan Goyke:

I certainly don’t think so. I don’t like to spend my legislative time working on issues that are dead on arrival in the state capitol. The reason why I think we aren’t there yet is we have an unprecedented coalition of leaders in Milwaukee: leaders from the suburb, the city, the county, civic leaders and business leaders. This is a unification of Milwaukee unlike one that I have ever seen in my tenure in Madison. And when we work together, we can move mountains. And so, that’s our goal is to stay united, push forward on a solution that we think solves a lot of the issues facing local governments in Milwaukee County.

Frederica Freyberg:

If it is a hard sell, do you think it would be that because it is Milwaukee asking for this?

Evan Goyke:

Well, I think, we as a coalition have worked hard to try to tailor the legislation in a way that doesn’t pit Milwaukee versus the rest of the state. If this legislation passes, no school district, no one’s healthcare, no one’s roads are impacted. This is our solution. We will bear the brunt on our shoulders, our residents, our visitors and commuters will raise this revenue, keep it local, spend it local. If some of our listeners don’t live in Milwaukee County, they will not be impacted at all by this other than these investments will grow Milwaukee’s economy and our return on investment to state taxpayers will be larger.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why does Milwaukee need a new source of revenue?

Evan Goyke:

We have — we’re unique in Wisconsin. As the biggest city and the biggest region, we have unique challenges. Almost every other large city or large metro area in the United States has some ability to control their local revenue. We have suffered loss of jobs. We have concentrated poverty. We need the tools to address those issues. Currently Wisconsin’s law, our state law, treats our municipalities as pretty uniquely around the country. We’re the only state in the Midwest that does not allow our largest metro area to control, to raise or to spend its local taxes. And so what’s happening is our neighbors are growing faster than us. Our neighbors like Minneapolis or Chicago are seeing big investment that is able to attract and retain young workers and they are growing faster than our metro area.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how much could be raised and what would it go toward?

Evan Goyke:

So our estimate is that 1% or 1 cent on a dollar would raise roughly $160 million. The first one quarter of that would go back to property taxpayers. We have an imbalance in Wisconsin. We have a low sales tax and very high property tax and we want to better balance that ratio. We reserve some money for public health infrastructure to address some of the health disparities in our region and then the rest is split between the county government and our 19 municipalities so that they can use it on their operation and capital budget. That’s filling potholes. That’s police and firefighters, parks, public transit. All public services and public goods that our residents use.

Frederica Freyberg:

Just briefly with about a half minute left, one UW-M economist suggests lower income residents would suffer a higher burden saying the increased cost of things we buy daily or even weekly will have more of an impact on low income families. How do you respond to that?

Evan Goyke:

The sales tax is not a progressive tax by its nature. I think that economist is not wrong in that, I guess, that analysis. However, when governments are forced to cut services, that same population, those low income individuals, are first to bear the burden. So when we cut bus routes or parks don’t get maintained, it’s normally those populations living in poverty that are most affected by cuts in services.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We need to leave it there. Representative Evan Goyke, thank you very much.

Evan Goyke:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

In the hard sell caucus on this matter, State Representative Joe Sanfillipo of New Berlin. Thank you for being here.

Joe Sanfillipo:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think of a local option sales tax increase in Milwaukee County and its local municipalities?

Joe Sanfillipo:

You know, the county already takes advantage of the sales tax increase that they have. They have a half percent. I think that it’s tough. You know, in Wisconsin we’ve been going in the right direction with our taxes the last few years but we’re still one of the highest-taxed states in the country and especially in the Midwest region. Any time we want to put an extra burden on our citizens, I think it’s something we really have to take with careful consideration.

Frederica Freyberg:

But what about the argument that Milwaukee has seen declining state aid and needs some way to offset that for needed services?

Joe Sanfillipo:

So I think the county has plenty of areas where they could look within their own budget to do some trimming. I spent about five years on the county board. I’ve been off of it for about seven so I’m not as familiar as I was but when I was there, there was just a lot of areas where trimming I thought could be done that the county just was unwilling to do so. When you take a look at now, they are talking about needing to raise revenue for debt reduction and things like that. When I was on the county board, we have thousands of acres of land that is unused that developers may be interested in purchasing. I think that option ought to be explored to raise some money to be able to lower debt service as opposed to just running to the taxpayers and putting an extra burden on them.

Frederica Freyberg:

Supporters, including the Milwaukee Association of Commerce say the increase in the sales tax would provide property tax relief by putting 25% of the sales tax proceeds toward that. They also call it a sound investment of the future in Milwaukee. What about the idea that business leaders support this?

Joe Sanfillipo:

So I think you have some business leaders that will support it. If you’re in downtown Milwaukee, depending on the type of business you’re in, you aren’t as affected. But if you’re in some of the suburban communities where you’re neighboring other counties, I mean Waukesha County already is a half percent lower in its sales tax than Milwaukee County. So if this provision goes through, that’s going to translate to 1.5%. So if you’re living in the suburban communities, you have the option to go do your shopping in Waukesha County, you’re going to save 1.5%. That adds up throughout the year so I think a lot of businesses around the outer edges of Milwaukee County may not feel as much, you know, insulated from any damage that could be caused by this increase as those in downtown Milwaukee itself.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is this in your mind a good example of local control, though, through the referendum process?

Joe Sanfillipo:

Well, I think it’s a good example of the state — of the local community, in this case the county and local municipalities, coming to the state and wanting to throw it in our lap, right? I mean local municipalities and counties already have an option to hold a referendum and raise taxes if they see that they need to. But in that case, they have to sell that idea to their local voters. It is much easier for them just to come to Madison, ask legislators to give them the authority to raise the sales tax and try to slam it through. In an election where you may have lopsided results.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so as to that, Speaker Vos as you know, called this a “hard sell.” Do you think that’s accurate?

Joe Sanfillipo:

I think it is going to be a hard sell. I mean we’ve worked very hard the last eight, nine years to lower taxes in the state of Wisconsin to get us moving in the right direction. So nobody’s going to want to do something to start reversing that trend. Now the flip side of that is I think that if you see where is the money going to be spent and how do we safeguard — for example, you talk about property tax relief. How do we make sure the property tax relief isn’t just there right at first and then all of a sudden dissipates as time goes on and they end up having your property taxes going up and now your sales tax is up as well? So there will be a lot of discussion going forward. There’s no doubt there are some areas of need. The city of Milwaukee has a horrendous crime problem right now. They refuse to put more money into the police department. I think if you ask the average citizen that would be somewhere where they would agree to have some extra spending if they knew it would be going into safety. But how do you protect that money and make sure that’s where it really goes?

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We’ll continue to watch this. Representative Sanfillipo, thanks very much for your time.

Joe Sanfillipo:

Thank you for having me.