 Hello and welcome to another session of the Donahue group We're delighted to be back. They haven't kicked us off the set and so or taken us off TV. So we think we're doing great This is a half-hour discussion of some of the issues that are of interest to us as citizens of the city and the county and the state Joining me today our trusty panelists or Participants whatever we want to call ourselves the group 30 seconds and I'm out of control already. What can I say? But just to reassert my control I'm going to introduce some of the folks sitting around here Cal Potter is to the far right here Cal is former state senator Also former assistant superintendent of public instruction in Madison and now retired and Living a busy retired life Tom Paneski is a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, Sheboygan and Served as a city council alderman for 14 years, I believe and in the 1980s 79 through 93 through 93 very good To my direct right is a Ken Risto Ken is as he often tells me a humble social studies teacher but in as an actuality is the coordinator of Social studies instruction for the Sheboygan area school district And I'm Mary Lynn Donahue. I'm a lawyer in private practice here and the We are a diverse group of diverse opinions and different approaches to life But the one thing we have in common is that we like to talk and we like to talk about the body politics So with that in mind, we're going to get started We thought we would talk a little bit this time about For lack of a better word the cost of government it costs a lot of money In the minds of lots and lots of people it costs way too much money And they're all sorts of moves of foot to try to curb those costs And I thought we'd talk a little bit Just as an initial piece about Tabor T-A-B-O-R which is an acronym for the taxpayer bill of rights Anybody want to give a 30-second description of of what Tabor is and we can start the the discussion from there Well, there have been a number of Initiatives over the years to try to control from the state level spending on a local level When I first began serving in the state assembly Pat Lucy was governor and Pat Lucy had We had controls on school districts that were basically inflation based They were modified over the years to provide about 15 different exemptions and really kind of imploded as a result of their non-functionality over time In the 1990s when the Thompson administration was in office We had controls put on for for teachers and administrators or salaries as well as some type of revenue kept to control school board Budget increases so the movement has been trying to get a handle usually on the property tax because it is one of the major Visible taxes it comes in a lump sum Or as your sales tax your nickel and dime to death I guess and you know sort of Rise up against that is as much So now we've had in the last two sessions of a legislature including I'm taking this one a movement to One freeze Local budgets and of course when you do it through legislation The governor has a say in it in the last session he vetoed it and threatens to veto similar sort of Blanket approach to local budgeting and so the legislature is is taking the option where you don't have to Include the governor and that's the constitutional amendment route Which if you pass something in two successive sessions of the legislature it goes right to the electorate So if the legislature passes something this session and again In two years in the spring two years from now you may have something on the ballot That's the taxpayers bill of rights, which will in essence put in In their constitution a formula that will dictate as to what local budgets can increase And they're usually based on and this will go through an amendment process as it's debated But it's based on usually growth in population or growth in Personal income some factor that sort of you hitch your your star onto some other Economic goings on in your community or in your state. Well, and I think the Frank Lasset's Tabor proposed amendment is actually tied to new construction so Again because it's property tax basis and and if you don't have growth in your community in value in new Businesses in the homes Construction you don't have any base to have increased revenues The problem of course is that when you get into schools for example There's another big kicker when since the state picks up close to two-thirds of the state costs of education When you have a declining enrollment, which over half of our school districts have You have subsequent reductions in state aides and if you're when you're talking about 60 to 65 percent state pickup in some districts as high as 70 percent and you have a loss of a hundred kids You're talking about real kick in the pants budgetarily So when you talk about just using a factor such as home construction or property value increase You can see a school district that may have no growth a loss of a hundred kids or whatever if it's a small district is really in a difficult Situation so that's why this is so hotly debated is that these formulas that are being put forth Whether they're in personal income or property value increase are applicable to all units of Government that usually level your property tax But the players and the factors and the variables that go into whether they're workable or not are all different For those various units of government and different from community to community it kind of the the emotion that Tabor I mean just the phrase Tabor now is kind of in the political consciousness and On one side or the other it's generating Probably a little more heat than light because it is a complex topic, but Why all the energy on this why why all of the the I think from my perspective pretty high emotion Well, you know local budget say I've always Tried to tell people when I was in a public office is that government is faced with the same cost pressures that a home Owner is a person who lives every day life. I mean they buy food for If you have institutions and nursing homes, whatever they buy gas or oil to heat They buy gasoline to run buses or or operate squad cars or whatever So the same pressures Inflationary pressures and cost to living pressures are on government that aren't everyone else But it just so happens that people when they're faced with those pressures start looking at things that are causing their pocketbook to be Squeezed and they start looking at government and say I don't like the pressure that I'm getting from this I can do something about it because I elected an older person. I like to the state representative. I like to the whoever but I don't necessarily Have much say in Wisconsin power light or Wisconsin gas or or while the other bills that come to their doorstep So as a result sometimes the focal point on people's budgetary frustrations and their ability to just Finance everything in their life comes down to taxes and I think that's sort of the lightning rod It's part of democracy. It seems to be unavoidable I guess to have that type of scrutiny, but it is very understandable that the government increases do occur because the their Product buyers and service buyers just like everybody else's in the society taxpayer doesn't have any control other than through the voting polls or trying to influence their legislators to vote a certain way to to help them with their their dilemma of Ever-increasing taxes. I want to you were you were framing the issue a little bit and you talked about the government dictating some kind of Limits on the local governments. I guess they do that with the school system with revenue and from a municipality Don't they have shared revenue if the municipal Pallity Doesn't spend as much they get so much shared revenue if they expenditure restraint expenditure restraint if they spend a little more they so the state government has always and some former other tried to influence Spending on the local level through various kinds of programs in Tabor I think would be just another way another It's another step. That's probably more restrictive is what it is See the shabuigan area school district Of course, you know all us all of us have faced these revenue caps. We've been pretty fortunate in that Why the district recognized the formula before it went into the law and actually Was able to increase their spending just before to set up that base so that where other school districts got caught You know, that's not much most people don't know that and the second thing is we've had up until this year pretty much stable or inclined or increasing enrollments and So that that allows you to get more state aid coming in when you're looking at something We're getting about $6,000 a student. I believe from state aid something like that So you're looking right when you're looking at a thousand, you know, a hundred students you're looking at a chunk now this year What's might happen our projections are we're going to stabilize a little bit and we might see a little bit of a downward drift Maybe 50 60 students and and then things are going to get interesting this district. I think the city of Shabuigan through real wise fiscal management, you know Roger Lays and the group over at Central really get a pretty good I get a lot of credit for that and and we manage the debt We haven't had the impacts the city of Shabuigan people haven't seen the impacts of the QEO yet What's the QEO well a qualified economic offer which is our which is the salary cap Law that we face we can't exceed Offering a benefit package to teachers more than excess of three point seven percent Which was sort of the average rate of inflation over the last 15 years or something along those lines now That includes not only salaries, but salaries and benefits and so just like everybody else in the private sector you're looking at Tremendous increases in Generally in health care. We've been able to manage those through self-insurance and some other means primarily There is kind of a growing perception because I hear it at the Pigley Wigley again about Public sector health care and the the deductibles and the premiums or lack of premium payments and those things teachers have primarily throughout Wisconsin have Negotiated most of that three point seven to go into those benefits and have taken restricted salary increases and so from a from a public sector kind of point of view This argument that well, they've got these Cadillac health care systems or health care programs We don't have in the private sector. That's sort of a half truth People have made the political decision within their collective bargaining units their unions their associations whatever you want to call To say we'd rather maintain our our health care programs and benefits And we'll sacrifice that down in the salary schedule In Sheboygan last time our last contract was the three point seven something like two point one was was dedicated to Benefits and and only about one and a half Which isn't bad when you consider we're living in a low inflation environment, you know put the truth in the table We don't see that So so if we're thinking about extending that to other government employees and other units of government It'll be interesting to see how that plays out over time. It's like a faucet dripping You're not going to see doom and gloom the first year or two years or three years But there may be a steady erosion in certain school districts Small school districts rural school districts school districts that declining enrollment as Cal was saying they're already struggling struggling tremendously losing And that's what the public's going to have to decide, you know, what do they value? Well, and that and that kind of I Think really focuses for me what the discussion is is we don't talk about why we pay taxes and If any tax level is acceptable and why taxes are always too high Have we ever been in an environment where people have felt the taxes are just right? you know we just I I The center on Wisconsin strategy and the Wisconsin council on children and families, you know, which I think are two pretty respectable organizations They talk about taxes are skyrocketing in in Wisconsin is as a myth In fact taxes as a sheriff income are actually falling in Wisconsin taxes are killing business in Wisconsin They're saying no Wisconsin business taxes are far below average and they're not the primary factor in business location decisions What's the deal let me just say one other thing I moderated a discussion on Tabor for the that the American Association of University women sponsored one of my Sidelights one of my organizations and we had six speakers the first five were you know people government people a school board member somebody from the LTC board the Somebody from Schwung County Assemblyman, Van Akron who are very articulate about how awful Tabor would be the private sector person You know from the Republican Party stood up and said I opened up my tax bill. It's too high And it was a pretty powerful statement in spite of the five speakers that we had heard before who were very articulate about how awful Tabor is going to be so What's the deal? You know I spent 24 years in state office and I heard from day one that Wisconsin was a tax hell and that we ought to do something about it and over the years as your statistics show we did Substantially reduce business taxes as well as the number of other taxes But you still hear the complaining. I have sort of just done a little personal reflection I think some of it is just the conditions under which people Live today have forced their price of their government to be Something that competes with a lot of other expenditures in their lives for example home size The 1950s 1,100 square foot house is no longer being built Unless it's for a very low-income situation Most houses today have you know four bathrooms and Three garages and are probably an average of 25 2,600 square feet and many more Well a house like that is going to obviously take a big chunk out of your check when you want to pay that mortgage And when you're assessed it's going to be very reflective of what you have purchased a high value and high tax and so The austere lifestyle of our parents is not there as far as home ownership and we're talking basically about property taxes That's one factor and I think another factor is The divorce rate has Become about 50% of marriages and what you find is a number of people today Have multiple families and multiple child support and multiple alimony and whatever and it's very difficult When they're paying out out of their paycheck Not only the cost of the car and the SUV and the boat and the house to have Support for multiple family situations So you find a lot of people that are very strapped financially as is shown by record in recent years bankruptcies and some of us do to Catastrophic medical situations that one it happens that can't afford to pay the bills, but those bankruptcies I think are reflective of the fact that people are living on the edge financially and As Tom mentioned when it comes down to what the heck can I do about this severe financial plight? particularly reflective of the mailing I get in December that shows a property tax Of several thousands of dollars, you know, it's not uncommon for these new houses to have $4-5,000 property tax bills. That is a huge bill to get in December right before Christmas and when people again have multiple payments and The average credit card debt is something like $6,500. You know, it's just unbelievable. I think that's low I think it's much higher. I I'm living in the past It always was sad that those property tax bills come out just just at Christmas time I'm gonna add another piece of the puzzle might because I teach an economics class. I have my students or my guinea pigs and One of the things they have to learn how to do is index for inflation as part of the course, you know math and action, right? Tom and What I had to do is I had to go to the United States. I haven't go to the US Census Bureau of Statistics for Wisconsin And look on on median family income find that the you know richest per family in Wisconsin and put the poorest in the line and pick the middle for median and We were indexing for median family income from 1975 to about the year 2002 and it's virtually stagnant in Wisconsin So the average family person Family middle family isn't in real terms after you adjust for all the changes in prices and wages Isn't any better off and they were 25 years ago Now you combine that with the things that you were talking about Cal and you combine it to what? I think is an also interesting that you were hinting at in terms of house sizes is How we define what a middle-class family is or what is normal given how the media defines it for us what they expect? I mean what I grew up. We didn't have a cable bill exactly didn't have the internet bill You look at it builds today that only one car so only one car or the cell phone bill Well, you combine that exactly when you combine that with with median family income staying virtually stagnant And then we figure that middle-class should look like this with VC You know VCRs and every other room or whatever it might be depending what your vision of middle class is It's it's awfully tough to go to the public and say We want we want any kind of money out of you, you know, and you've got that and then you layer on top of that Certainly a media that that is a drumbeat that taxes are too too high too high too high It's not too surprising that that people are real leery about government and American culture always is a We're literally attacks or schizophrenic about America as a government as Americans You know sometimes they're us because it's we the people and sometimes it's them and we hate them And you know America kind of swings back and forth And and that's that happens On the more mundane level a level, you know from a city viewpoint Empty buses driving by we're paying taxpayer money and Supporting empty buses when you see somebody working on a project in the city whether it's a repair of a sanitary sewer or parks Five or six people one person's working the other four or five seem to be standing around We're paying taxes for that. I don't know what they say in the school system But they're paying taxes for you. Maybe you've got too many secretaries or too many so sitting around But so gee I got this tax bill and I I observe what's going on in my community and it seems like we're not getting Any dollar or any efficiency for a dollar well That's real mundane. That's like kind of close enough for government work mentality That's a real close local level. Yeah, and I do think that that is just a key piece of it is that for whatever reason? And frankly sitting around the school board table as I did of the nine people there Seven of them either were being paid by a governmental unit or their spouse was being paid by some governmental unit whether it was The state of Wisconsin or the police department or a teacher or a teacher's aid or whatever The the the scope of government I think has increased Beyond when we were growing up But there's just a sense that that is too much too big and I don't think that's true necessarily The services that we that we take for granted are part of big government, but Well, let me ask you this and I know or we don't have a whole lot of time to explore this But what about shared services? This is an issue that is going to be no doubt a significant one in the upcoming mayoral election Certainly we've talked about it, you know between relations between city and county Is there any hope any salvation and shared services? I think there's a great opportunity coming up with the building of a new police building I Mean before you lay the plans. I mean they may already have plans, but you could still Change the plans and work some shared services with the county sheriff's department and the city police department We'll talk about a revolutionary idea Happen, you know, I think there's some merit to that because we pay taxes to the county I know that's what you said the other night We pay about 40% of our city taxes go to the county and that helps support the sheriff's department And then we pay for city police services, so we pay twice Because we're paying a county tax to support the sheriff's and we're playing a city tax to support the police And we're primarily protected here in the city by the police But boy every municipality loves its own policing unit little towns have their constables City or the city of Sheboygan Falls Plymouth the village of Kohler everybody has its own policing unit and We don't want to give that up You know, I mean because it is a kind it is I think fair to characterize a revolutionary idea to have only one law enforcement agency in the country probably will never ever happen, but just Bringing it up as an interesting how much money do you do you say? It's gonna take a difficult journey down Doing away with the status quo because when you have what 1200 towns and how many cities and villages and 426 school districts And we are just rich overly rich I think in Wisconsin and the number of units of government that we do have and that goes back to a time Of course when things were Decentralized and simple on the old township each township your memories to have that school house and and you know You could see when you traversed your your countryside and horse and buggy You couldn't go very far before you needed to have something relatively close for school or municipal Service purposes, but today things have changed but in many cases the units of government still are in existence and To have everybody say well, we don't need to be here anymore is a very strong inhibition On the part of those individuals in those towns and villages and cities to come to realize that maybe things could be done differently, I think the movements is going to have to come very strongly from groups such as Chamber of Commerce and so on to say It isn't a matter of just high taxes It's a matter of if we were to start over and deliver this service Would we do it this way and should we be doing it this way in 2005 and really the answer is probably no and many Communities if you go around Nashville and Jacksonville Florida a number of places that have gone metro with their fire with their police You'll find out that they didn't have the vestige in the depth of the multiple units of government that we have and so the Resistance to do away with this the elected board or that elected board or this panel Is isn't it wasn't there? So we have a lot to overcome But it really ought to be looked at very seriously because This computer age and the way we are immobile and able to move around and communicate with each other We can do things differently, but it's going to take some effort to do get there and it's interesting that the impetus the more current impetus for shared services is coming again from the business community and Those folks willing to fund a study to to look in into areas of economy and My question is what are the actual economies? We talk about shared services a lot What is one? What does it mean to what do we save? And I think that those are those are issues that are are really not are really not particularly clear And I think the interesting question will be what would happen if and I have no idea I'd be interested to see when the study comes down if the financial advantages are to the city of Sheboygan But it's it's a wash or it actually isn't all that an advantage to the village of Kohler or the town of Sheboygan falls and people begin to start Playing that all out and then watch what happens then watch what happens and maybe the city Sheboygan finds its to its benefit, but The rest of the county now we used to have two health services a county health services and sure Sheboygan health department That's right. It was called Blinky's Department, right? And we know a fry inspector And in a way he was very good because he actually protected businesses because if they ever had a case of Sominole or something immediately their livelihood would be wiped out nobody would go there anymore so because he was so concerned about health Made in owners do various things he protected him in a way even though they complained but we Eliminated the health department because there was an alternate The county had to pick it up by state law and they did and they did and they I think they have some really committed people who are Really focused I know a couple of those folks on keeping local eating establishments clean and so forth So we you know we're talking about that, you know What is actually the role of government and thankfully our half hour is is done So we can't begin to launch into that But this is a topic that we can talk about forever and that I expect will be and I expect we'll visit it again