The Finance Committee met 07/24/2023. Beyond receiving a presentation on the 2022 Audit, they discussed and voted on Resolution 7-R-23 which expressed support for Wisconsin Act 12.
The resolution as originally submitted, thanked, without caveat, a number of politicians for passing Act 12 which increased the amount of shared revenue local municipalities received. Elected officials listed by name in the resolution included Speaker Robin Vos, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, Governor Tony Evers, and local representatives Lee Snodgrass and Dave Murphy.
A new version of the resolution, authored by Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6), removed the names of all politicians other than Governor Tony Evers and instead thanked “all the mayors, local government officials and the League of Wisconsin Municipalities” for lobbying for changes to shared revenue. It also thanked the state legislature in general terms, while removing specific names, for passing Act 12, but, at the same time, also expressed concern that Act 12 “contains further limits on local control related to public safety, public health and allowing our citizens to express their views via advisory referenda.”
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) one of the authors of the original resolution said that the original language had been taken from a template provided by the League of Wisconsin Municipalities but the new version “basically takes the template and elevates it to a level of making a much more sincere statement.”
The original resolution by a vote of 3-2 was amended so that it was replaced with the new version. That new version was also approved by the committee by a vote of 3-2. In both cases Alderpersons Brad Firkus (District 2) and Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) case the dissenting votes. Alderperson Hartzheim has consistently opposed resolutions that make statements but don’t do anything, of which she categorized this particular resolution.
Alderperson Firkus agreed to an extent with Alderperson Hartzheim’s position. Beyond that he felt that the passage of Act 12 “is more close to an admission of the mistakes made in the last decade. Because this—I mean, we’re back to where we were now 14-15 years ago. And that’s not even taking into account inflation from that time period. […] [I]t’s more about saving face, I think is my feeling on this. I just don’t feel like we should be patting them on the back for doing the bare minimum to be able to say they did something. I know this—a lot of people worked hard and a lot of people are trying to say this is a historic win. I don’t see it that way myself.”
I’ve prepared a complete transcript of the discussion for download.
Alderperson Meltzer kicked off the conversation by explaining that Alderperson Fenton had prepared an amended version of the resolution that made “a much more sincere statement” and expressed gratitude for the time Alderperson Fenton had put into it.
Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14), the coauthor of the original resolution, said that he had served on Council for a number of years and know how much work had gone into getting shared revenue reform in Wisconsin. His reason for signing onto the resolution was the “Therefore Be It Resolved” portion which called for sending a message to the state Legislature thanking them for increasing funding for the shared revenue program. He was open to passing an amended version.
Alderperson Fenton explained she had concerns with the original resolution.
- It included the names of some but not all of our local representatives.
- Although it increased shared revenue to municipalities it also removed control from cities and allowed less flexibility about decisions on public safety and public health.
- The formula that was applied gave different weight to municipalities of different sizes “and is extremely punitive to the largest cities in Wisconsin, particularly Milwaukee who is in a real fiscal crisis right now.”
Additionally, she “wanted to really, really give credit to Mayor Woodford and all the other mayors in the state and the work that the League [of Municipalities] has done, traveling all over the state and to make our case. […] [W]e need to remind ourselves that this isn’t the state just sitting on a pot of money that just appeared. This is money that is paid by our citizens into as income tax to the state. […] But when they leave cities to put the burden of property taxes or referendums to tax themselves more, so I didn’t want that to just go unsaid. So, I think rather than mentioning legislators, piecemeal, just leaving them all out, and then adding the acknowledgement of our mayors etc. is—I think it’s a better document.”
Alderperson Hartzheim opposed both versions of the resolution. “My opinion has always been, as an alderman, has always been that a non-action type of resolution is less of what I feel that we should be doing as aldermen in the city. So, this is taking time away from the things that are vital to us as aldermen.”
Alderperson Croatt believed there was action tied to the resolution. He also thought that it would not take much staff time to send a copy of the resolution to legislators. He supported this resolution given the number of years it took to enact changes to shared revenue.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) thought that the effort to pass Act 12 seemed like it was directed toward fixing something “that was broken on purpose. However, I think it’s important to give credit where credit is due. And we did the hard work to get this shared revenue along with mayors and other representatives. And I think that we should be thankful and express our thanks. She also saw the resolution as resulting in an action. “We lobbied for this through the League of Municipalities, but also individually. And so I don’t see this as inaction. I see this as stating an action as Alder Croatt said but also stating how we feel about things moving forwards so that we know where we start next time.”
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) appreciated the substituted version. “I do believe that this was a massive cooperative effort. And I think that it is worthy of saying thank you to listening to us. And that is a big deal. I know in this chamber, one of our colleagues at one point had made a comment that it would never happen. When we talked about wanting more and expecting more from the state, it would never happen. Those were the words we all heard together. It did happen, because we worked hard at it and they listened. So with that in mind, the amended version, in my opinion is perfectly acceptable, perfectly acceptable to say, if we work together, good things can happen.” [While I can’t speak to the specific Council debate that Alderperson Alfheim was referencing, I was reminded of some of the things that were said during the discussion last year on Resolution 5-R-22.]
Alderperson Patrick Hayden (District 7) had concerns about thanking “them” [I wasn’t sure if them entailed everyone who passed Act 12 or just a specific group of people] when municipalities were receiving a different percentage of shared revenue based on their population. He did not feel the sharing of revenue was being done in an equitable way. “I feel like smaller communities are getting a larger share of the pie than we’re getting and our dollars won’t go as far.”
Alderperson Firkus finished up the discussion by saying that the changes in revenue sharing put things back to where they were 14-15 years ago, if they did not take into account inflation over that time period. He thought that passing Act 12 was “more about saving face, I think is my feeling on this. I just don’t feel like we should be patting them on the back for doing the bare minimum to be able to say they did something. I know this—a lot of people worked hard and a lot of people are trying to say this is a historic win. I don’t see it that way myself. So I am going to vote against this.”
The committee went on to vote 3-2 to pass the resolution with Alderpersons Van Zeeland, Fenton, and Croatt voting in favor of it and Alderpersons Firkus and Hartzheim voting against it.
[For what it’s worth, I think that by combining criticism of the limitations Act 12 places on municipalities with an expression of gratitude for the passage of Act 12, the language of the substituted resolution fails as either an effective criticism or a sincere expression of thanks. It comes off as passive aggressive and, as a result, not particularly genuine. My assumption is that, fortunately, this resolution will most likely be read by staff members for various politicians and then filed away never to be seen again, so, in that respect, it’s unlikely to have any impact whatsoever. But if it were actually read by the legislators to whom copies will be sent, it seems as likely as not to result in them viewing Appleton in a negative light after reading such a passive aggressive resolution.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1110588&GUID=ADD7DE9F-28EA-40DD-A210-6439A3BFF06C
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