WAUKESHA 鈥 SM天地论坛 County may consider looking at possible revenue options such as a wheel tax, property tax levy increase or a sales tax.
The SM天地论坛 County Board on Aug. 27 will hear from Raftelis Financial Consultants, the facilitation group the county hired, with their presentation.
SM天地论坛 County Executive Paul Farrow isn鈥檛 necessarily in favor of a wheel tax as there are limits to what such a tax can be used for.
A wheel tax is a fee for a person鈥檚 vehicle. Registration for a vehicle costs $85 with the Wisconsin DMV and it costs a little more if a person wants a special license plate. Milwaukee County implemented a wheel tax where they tack on extra money for a registration fee. The state and county get a piece of that revenue. The challenge is the money can only be used for transportation/infrastructure-related operations. "We need it for all the different areas," he said.
Farrow previously announced the creation of a task force made up of municipal leaders, business representatives, County Board supervisors and public members, who will have discussed what the county budget may look like over the next five to 10 years.
Farrow said at a recent panel discussion a question was raised, "If we have to increase revenue in SM天地论坛 County to maintain the level of services, what are the things we should be looking at?"
Raftelis Financial Consultants, over the course of four different meetings, helped the task force lay out what the different options were.
"The three main options we have for a new revenue stream would be a wheel tax, a sales tax that we have an opportunity to do or increase our levy. We could go to referendum by the county to do an increase to the county levy," Farrow said.
A referendum would be similar to what school districts do when they go out for referendum for operations or to build a new school.
鈥淚n our meetings we held in-depth discussions and we talked about the current situation with the county鈥檚 revenues, and what we have been doing up to this point. These are the things that will come out in this report to the county board on the 27th,鈥 Farrow said.
The discussions were used as a guide and they asked input from different people.
鈥淲e knew we wouldn鈥檛 be able to build a consensus around one area but wanted to find out what are the touchpoints and what are the issues that they are concerned with. What have we done well so far and what should we be continuing to look at and what are some of the options we should consider. Are there revenue options we should be looking at,鈥 Farrow said.
From Raftelis Financial Consultants鈥 presentation on Aug. 27, Farrow and staff will sit down with the County Board over the next couple of months to decide what they should be looking at when putting the budget together.
鈥淲e know we are going to have some challenges,鈥 Farrow said.
Farrow added there will be some significant changes that people will see in the budget.
鈥淭here will be some position cuts that are going to be there. Departments are already recommending some to maintain their budget. It is up to the County Board and myself to work together to figure out do we look at new revenue options for 2026-2027. When should they be implemented? What should they look like?鈥 Farrow said.
Farrow added an interesting conversational point brought up was they don鈥檛 need a 0.5% sales tax to solve this year鈥檚 budget or next year鈥檚 budget. Something less than 0.5% might be possible. The state statute reads that a county can implement a 0.5% sales tax by resolution. There was discussion to see if the state statute could be changed to state 鈥渦p to 0.5%.鈥
鈥淭hat is what we are going to talk to legislators about as we come into the next session. We are also looking at the numbers and how we roll that out,鈥 he said.
It could be up to one year before any commitments are made about a possible wheel tax, property tax levy increase or a sales tax.
Farrow said there is always a question in the back of everyone鈥檚 mind when it comes to government that they spend money loosely. People think the government should be more frugal and more efficient.
鈥淚 would challenge anyone to come look at the county鈥檚 book over the last 10 years I鈥檝e been in office. We have cut our operations almost $2 million a year to maintain the level of services we have and keep a balanced budget. We have done a good job of balancing what the new levy is but are really looking at what areas we can cut. We are now down to the bare bones,鈥 he said.