(WLUK) — Wisconsinites can soon expect to see a more expensive tax bill.
It’s a sizeable hike from last year, as a majority of school districts statewide raised their property tax levies.
All Wisconsin school district property taxes are rising 7.8% on December bills. That’s about $476 million.
“That’s a very large increase, historically speaking. That’s the largest annual increase in more than three decades, since 1992,” Wisconsin Policy Forum Communications Director Mark Sommerhauser said.
Wisconsin Policy Forum is the agency which released the report on the increased levies.
Last year’s statewide school levy increase was 5.7%; a significant bump since 2009.
Sommerhauser said the increase in school levies is partially due to decisions made in the last two state budgets. The state’s per pupil revenue limit on districts is $325 per year, but lawmakers decided to freeze general school aid, which typically helps cover this amount.
“If districts wanted to capture that additional funding, they had to increase their property tax levy to do so, and as we’ve seen, many of them did choose to do that,” Sommerhauser said.
He said state aid hasn’t kept up with inflation. Without this money, schools may have had to make additional cuts to staff and programs. K-12 levy increases are also being caused by the widespread passage of school referendums, many of which taxpayers passed.
“We had record numbers going to referendum last fall. We had record numbers in the April election. The impact of that is that, you know, we’re seeing those increases play out now on people’s property tax bills,” Sommerhauser said.
Several districts in Northeast Wisconsin recently went to referendum and passed them. This includes the Oshkosh Area School District, Unified School District of De Pere and the School District of West De Pere.
West De Pere’s was a $9.9 million referendum passed in April, helping pay for renovations.
Sommerhauser expects the trend of more referendums and higher taxes to continue.
“Your viewers can expect to see a similar increase 12 months from now in their property tax bill,” Sommerhauser said.
County property taxes are also seeing an increase of just over 3%. The Wisconsin Policy Forum said that number is in line with recent years.
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