The Tax Freeze & TABOR Continue to be Key Issues

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and the property tax freeze continue to be key issues before the Legislature. Use the OnWEAC Cyberlobby to tell legislators to keep great schools a priority.

Investments in public schools cut across all economic, geographic, cultural and political boundaries and improve the standard of living for everyone. Great schools are the primary force behind rising economic tides, improving our children’s individual possibilities and delivering substantial returns on community investments.

Education, local government, union and social service groups from throughout Wisconsin have issued grim warnings about proposals that could cripple our representative government’s ability to fulfill the promise of great schools. A constitutional amendment to fundamentally change the framework for setting tax and spending levels in Wisconsin and the introduction of legislation to “freeze” property taxes could jeopardize our investment in public schools now and for many years to come.

TABOR would result in long-term, irreparable harm to great schools
The proposed constitutional amendment, modeled after constitutional provisions in Colorado known as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or “TABOR,” would cause long-term harm to Wisconsin’s great schools. Among other drastic measures, a constitutional amendment would limit spending growth for public schools and essential local services.

• Arbitrary formulas enshrined in the constitution cannot take into account the full impact of factors related to school expenditures. For example, health care premiums are not a factor in the CPI make-up, but are increasing at many times the rate of inflation. TABOR also fails to address how schools should handle variables such as the rising number of special needs students or the enormously under-funded mandates of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as the "No Child Left Behind" Act.
• More than half of all Wisconsin school districts are declining in enrollment. Since much of a local school’s costs are fixed, reduced enrollment does not translate into a proportional cut in real costs. Schools have lived with this fiscal absurdity under state-imposed revenue caps for 10 years. The proposed resolution would make the statutory problem of revenue caps more permanent and potentially less flexible by putting it into the Constitution.
• One recent estimate shows that if the Colorado version of TABOR had been implemented in FY88, Wisconsin’s rank in state aid per student would have dropped to 47th by 1999-00. In 1999-00 (the most recent year of state comparable data), Wisconsin ranked 11th nationally in state aid per student (Source: Wisconsin Department of Administration TABOR analysis).

The Freeze would cause immediate and massive harm to great schools
Another proposal, the "property tax freeze," would cause immediate and massive harm to Wisconsin’s great public schools. This “freeze” proposal establishes levy limits for cities, villages, towns, counties and technical college districts.

WEAC Position and Talking Points

• TABOR is fundamentally flawed and reckless fiscal policy. It will cause long-term, irreparable harm to Wisconsin’s great schools. Although the resolution’s proponents are attempting to rewrite the resolution to address some criticisms, the fundamental question remains. Is a constitutional amendment the appropriate way to achieve tax fairness or relief for Wisconsin’s taxpayers, or will it lock in existing inequities and tend to gradually make the system more regressive?
• In its report, “Ten Years of TABOR,” The Colorado-based Bell Policy Center concludes, “There are major structural flaws in the amendment that seriously impair the state’s ability to set budgetary and programmatic priorities and to respond to the changing needs of a growing state—or to crises such as the current economic downturn. TABOR has created a state government hamstrung by inflexible rules that make it less responsive and less effective.”
• Supporters have called the freeze “the bridge to TABOR.” The bill, however, offers a bridge to nowhere for Wisconsin’s children and will cause immediate and massive harm to Wisconsin’s great schools.

Additional information
Visit OnWEAC's Resource Page on Tax Gimmicks for more information on the freeze and TABOR.

Contact Bob Burke, WEAC Director of Government Relations at 800-362-8034 ext. 254 or by e-mail at burkeb@weac.org with any reactions, comments or questions.

Updated March 31, 2005