Question: Which unit of local government - cities, towns or villages - was most hurt by the economic collapse? Answer: Wisconsin's shrinking cities.A new state Department of Revenue report on equalized property values statewide said that Wisconsin cities lost $22.14 billion from their tax rolls between 2008 and 2012. For every $11 in property Wisconsin cities could levy property taxes on in 2008, $1 was gone within four years.But some Wisconsin cities fared much worse than the 9.4% average four-year drop in the property of all cities statewide. Milwaukee, for example, lost a staggering 18.1% of its tax base, or $5.83 billion in property value, in that period. Kenosha lost 17%, or $1.15 billion in property value. Other Wisconsin cities and their tax-base losses, were: Waukesha, -12.8%, $797 million; Racine, -12.5%, -$517 million; Beloit, -12.2%, -$211 million; Green Bay, -11.6%, -$740 million; Janesville, -10.8%, -$475 million; Wausau, -7.7%, -$214 million; and Appleton, -1.9%, -$77 million. Two other cities - Eau Claire and La Crosse - more or less kept their tax base intact over those four years, although that's no major victory since property values had marched steadily upward annually for decades. Eau Claire lost 0.7% of its tax base; La Crosse, -0.19%. Why is the dramatic drop in the property value of cities in Wisconsin - and across the nation - important?
"Cities are important in this country," said Andrew Reschovsky, professor of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's La Follette School of Affairs and a visiting professor at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. "Cities tend to drive economic policy." Reschovsky, part of a research team that studied the decline in property taxes in cities across the nation, including Milwaukee and Madison, said cities "tend to have concentrations of the most needy residents" - residents who frequently have less work skills and who stay unemployed the longest.
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