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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – This was presented as good news. It isn’t.
The Wausau Board of Education set its mil rate for the next budget cycle. It’s down by $1.42 cents per thousand-dollars of assessed value. If your home is worth $100,000, your school taxes will be $142 less.
Only that’s not true.
What’s left out of those numbers is that almost all of the properties within the Wausau city limits were reassessed this spring. Your home that was worth $100,000 last year is assessed at $140,000 this year. Even at the new, lower mil rate, you’ll pay more in property taxes.
Now the news isn’t all bad. It’s actually good that your property value is increasing. I can think of no other investment that I own that’s risen as quickly. Wausau’s equalized value is going up. That’s good news, too. It will offset some of the tax increase. And we still don’t know how much the lottery credit will be. In past years, lottery sales have been robust.
But don’t be deceived. The amount of the check you write to cover your Wausau school taxes is going to be larger. And it would be nice if the school district told you that, instead of pretending that the property value that’s being tax will be the same next year as it is this year. It isn’t.
And we’ve seen this slight of hand by the Wausau School District once before. Their community survey suggested a dollar amount for an operating referendum that wouldn’t raise taxes. It was the only scenario that voters supported. And it’s only half true. The amount that would be asked for at referendum comes only after next year’s school budget, and the tax increase that goes with it, is complete. I’m certain that if a referendum goes to the voters in April, it will be voted down. Voters won’t be willing to voluntarily raise their taxes again after going through the sticker shock at the end of this year.
My advice to the school board is this. Finalize an elementary school-closing plan as quickly as possible. We’re liking going from 13 to 8 schools because of declining enrollment. The only thing on the horizon that will save money for taxpayers is to right-size the school district. We can’t afford half-empty schools. Voters need to know, now, how much it will cost to run a smaller, more efficient school district. Those numbers are the ones we need to have.
Chris Conley
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