A little-noticed provision in a big financial aid package for local governments might force Milwaukee County to choose between helping tenants avoid eviction and supporting museums and arts groups. The language also could affect the future of American Family Field and the Mitchell Park Domes.
But what that provision actually means is a mystery, because its Republican sponsors aren’t talking.
The Assembly is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the legislation, which would increase shared revenue – local governments’ cut of state taxes – statewide. With voter approval, the bill also would allow the city of Milwaukee to impose a 2% sales tax and let the county increase its sales tax from 0.5% to 0.875%.
City and county officials have pleaded for that sort of help to avoid an impending “fiscal cliff” that could force them to chop services and lay off workers.
But after rejecting a shared revenue and sales tax plan in Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ budget, GOP lawmakers introduced a financial aid bill with a whole ball of strings attached, including dictating how much local governments spend on public safety, forcing police officers back into Milwaukee Public Schools, disempowering the Milwaukee Fire & Police Commission and prohibiting local advisory referendums.
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Among those restrictions is one that limits both the city and the county to spending no more than 5% of their total annual budgets on culture, entertainment and partnerships with nonprofits. For 2023, that cap would be $85.8 million of the city’s $1.72 billion budget and $68.7 million of the county’s $1.37 billion budget.
However, the provision includes some major exemptions. It doesn’t apply to the county’s parks, zoo, transit system or health services, or to private schools operating under city charters. City budget officials don’t believe it applies to the Milwaukee Public Library, either, says Jeff Fleming, spokesman for Mayor Cavalier Johnson.
Excluding the parks, zoo and library, the remaining cultural and entertainment spending wouldn’t meet the 5% threshold, city and county officials say.
The biggest cultural spending item in the 2023 county budget is $3.5 million in operating support for the Milwaukee Public Museum; a 2022 pledge of $45 million to building a new public museum was a one-time commitment, county budget officials say. Another $3.4 million in operating assistance and $1 million in capital spending goes to three art museums, the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, the Milwaukee County Historical Society and the University of Wisconsin Extension. County support of arts groups totals $407,000, compared with $250,000 for the city Arts Board.
Fleming says the spending cap won’t affect the city. Chief city lobbyist Jim Bohl says it “was aimed at the county,” which raises the question of why the city was included at all. But the county doesn’t expect any “future budgeting difficulties” from the provision either, says Brandon Weathersby, spokesman for County Executive David Crowley.
However, that doesn’t account for the other part of the provision — the one that limits spending on nonprofit partnerships. The bill doesn’t define what constitutes a partnership; local budgets don’t specify how much money will go to nonprofits; and local officials don’t track how many contracts are awarded to nonprofits and how many to for-profit businesses.
“What did they mean with that clause?” asks Phil Rocco, associate professor of political science at Marquette University. “This is a very vaguely styled provision without a lot of explanatory matter.” It also seems contradictory, because a different part of the same bill encourages partnerships with other local governments and nonprofits, Rocco adds.
A crucial question is whether the bill’s authors intended to count federal or state funds that local governments pass along to nonprofits and others, often outside the budget process, say City Comptroller Aycha Sawa and Wisconsin Policy Forum President Rob Henken. Including such funds would throw tens of millions more dollars into the equation, such as the city’s Community Development Block Grants, they say.
Another important question is how broadly to interpret the bill’s exemption for county health services, Rocco says. Since Crowley often links reducing poverty and racial disparities to improving health, county officials could argue that many of their programs are health-adjacent. For services contracted by the Department of Health and Human Services, “how do you draw the line between health and human services?” Rocco asks.
Included in that human services spending are some eight-figure contracts from the county’s eviction prevention program, fueled largely by federal funding. One nonprofit, Community Advocates, has contracts to provide emergency rent assistance to tenants to avoid eviction, while others provide lawyers for tenants in the eviction process. A Community Advocates spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Eviction-fighting efforts have been targeted before by the Legislature, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported. A 2019 investigation found that lawmakers who were also landlords, primarily Republicans, were pushing through landlord-friendly laws. One of those landlords, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, said at the time that the practice wasn’t a conflict of interest but rather an example of citizen legislators bringing their real-world experience to lawmaking.
Vos, a Rochester Republican, is a co-sponsor of the shared revenue legislation. His spokeswoman didn’t respond to emails seeking comment. Neither did two of the bill’s primary sponsors, Reps. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) and Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Irma). The bill’s third sponsor, Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek), wasn’t available for comment, and nor was Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield), a former Milwaukee alderman and two-time mayoral candidate who is also a co-sponsor, their aides said.
Still more questions surround how the provision would apply to projects that haven’t happened yet.
After Republicans tossed Evers’ plan to pay for renovation of the Milwaukee Brewers’ stadium, Vos said he would like to see a new plan that shares the cost with city and county governments. Bohl says city officials have discussed that issue with the Brewers and would be prepared to seek an exemption from the spending cap if it becomes law.
Meanwhile, county officials have spent years debating how to rehabilitate the glass domes of the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory. One option under discussion is spinning it off from the parks system to nonprofit management. If that happens, the Domes could conceivably wind up in the same category as other cultural institutions receiving county assistance, and therefore count against the cap.
But until the bill’s sponsors clarify what the spending cap means, local officials can only guess at how it will affect city and county programs.
