Wausau Friday Facts (4/7)

 


WAUSAU FRIDAY FACTS #4


Did “Bad” City Policy Hurt the
Wausau School District?


Yes, the evidence suggest it does.  And that should not be a surprise. The city's policy on Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) as a revenue capture tool takes away school district tax dollars. In addition, the city's relentless pursuit of higher taxes has likely played a key role in the defeat of the school district's 2025 referendum and in aggravating the district's declining enrollment. In fact, our schools may be the canary in the coal mine when it comes to the city's bad fiscal policy.

TIF laws allow the city to take tax dollars from the schools, the county and the technical college and, in theory, invest the money in ways that grow the tax bases for all.  The problem has been that the city has not been a good steward of those dollars.  It has not been investing wisely. The city has also designed multi-project TIF districts to be open for decades, rather than ones that complete a specific project and close with new tax base for all.

To begin, Wausau has spent $193.9 million for TIF districts that are in the 2026 budget.  Seventy-eight percent of that money has gone to the payment of interest, to the payment of administrative overhead and to a variety of infrastructure projects—none of which creates new tax base.  Moreover, the 22% that was directed toward developer incentives was—in most cases—not set up to bring in sufficient private sector matching dollars to be successful. 

For arguments sake, let us say that the city's TIF efforts created the full $462 million in new tax base and the $10.1 million in new revenue—although a significant part of the increase in valuations was simply due to inflation.  Is that not great?  Not really.  Consider that we spent $193.9 million to do it.  At $10.1 million in annual revenue, it will take us 19 years to nominally break-even and recover that original $193.9 million.  Clearly, that is not what the schools, the county and the technical college were hoping for as a return on investment for the money that they “lent” to the city.

Almost $2.9 million of the $10.1 million that the city has locked up in TIF districts belongs to the Wausau Schools.  Had the schools had their money in 2024 and 2025, the district may not have needed to go to referendum in 2025. More importantly, the city crushed any good will the school district might have had with voters by eating-up all of the savings that the school district had provided to taxpayers in the past 15 years. 


Those high city taxes are also making homes for growing families in Wausau less affordable, and people are going elsewhere.  K-12 enrollments are declining statewide.  The Wausau School District's enrollments are down over 10% in the last decade.  By contrast, the neighboring D.C. Everest Schools are off less than 2/10ths of a percent for the same period, bucking the statewide trend with migration from Wausau.

Should city government care about the schools?  Yes, good schools are always in the top five reasons why families move to a new community.  Also, city residents are school district taxpayers.  Short-changing the schools to benefit the city does not help city residents.  Clearly, city officials should be more aware of the ripple effects of their policies and give them due consideration in charting a path forward.


Do you agree or disagree? Feel free to register your comments on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/wausaudistrict6/


Wausau Friday Facts is a once-a-week presentation of factual data to inform residents about their city government. It is put out by the Friends of Keene Winters, Cathy Winters, Treasurer.


For more information about Keene Winters and his policy positions, please go to:

https://www.wausaudistrict6.com/fridayfacts



Location: Wausau, Wisconsin, USA

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