All right.

Good evening.

We'll call the July 14th, 2026 meeting of the Finance Committee to order.

We do have a quorum this evening.

Alderman Anderson is out of town.

Next on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please rise.

One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Next item on our agenda is public comment.

Are there any members of the public that wish to address the finance committee this evening?

All right.

Seeing none, we'll move to item number 4A, which is approval of minutes for the meeting on the 30th.

Are there any changes to those minutes from the committee?

All right.

Seeing none, those minutes are approved through unanimous consent.

Our business item tonight, item number 5A, is a matter of report.

And this is a shared revenue presentation by Representative Scott Allen.

Scott approached me a couple months ago and asked to come in to speak to the Finance Committee to give the committee a little bit of background on shared revenue and give give us an opportunity once Scott is done with his presentation to certainly ask questions that we may have around funding formulas and perhaps things that we'd like to see changed as it relates to how municipalities are funded.

The mayor is also here this evening, so thank you for joining us, Alicia.

So with that, Scott, you are our sole agenda item this evening.

The floor is yours, and like I said, once you're done, we'll certainly take it take any questions from the committee as we have them.

So thank you for coming this evening.

And again, the floor is yours.

Oh, thank you.

And uh is your mic on, Scott?

I don't know.

Is there a way to turn it on?

Should be a button at the base.

There we go.

There we go.

Testing.

There we go.

Well, thank you.

And thank you for your hospitality.

Uh thank you for certainly putting me on the agenda.

I never expected to be the only item here.

Um, but that's great.

And uh hopefully uh this begins a conversation, uh, begins to spark some ideas where some there can be a broader conversation, uh, not just within the city hall confines, but uh maybe throughout our state, because uh certainly uh there's a there's a need for awareness of what's going on.

Uh this uh this presentation is titled Walkshaw is getting squeezed out of shared revenue formulation formulations, which you guys are all very familiar with.

Um I don't think I need to introduce myself.

Uh I think you all know me, uh, but there are extra handouts over here, so if anybody wants to take another one, feel free.

Uh I'm about to give you a uh about 175 years worth of Wisconsin history compacted into about 20 minutes.

So you can imagine it's pretty high level.

Uh this is the history of shared revenue in the state of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin as a state has been sharing revenue with its local units of government since 1911.

It was a challenge to get to that, and it's been a challenge ever since.

There are primarily five eras to uh the shared revenue funding and sharing of revenue in our state, but we have to go back really before that to understand how we got to this point.

And we all know our nation's history from the Boston Tea Party to today.

Uh we as a country revolted against taxation without representation.

From our founding, we have had a disdain for large administrative states who exert authority through taxation, whether it be the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, or the Townsend Act, from the very beginning, we have disliked taxation and the administrative state that comes with it.

Since its founding in 1848, Wisconsin started with taxation only at the local level and taxed all personal property.

What resulted was a disaggregated taxing system that experienced, quite frankly, discrimination against foreigners, uh, biased valuations, and ineffective tax collections.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, we had in this country an overall progressive shift.

Perhaps it was accelerated by the panic of 1893, in which we saw a four-year depression with unemployment rates reaching as high as 25 percent.

The Republican Party was largely split between traditional conservatives and progressives at the time, or progressive Republicans.

The re progressive Republicans believed it was the government's responsibility to create jobs.

As a result, we saw a coalition between the progressive Republicans and the Social Democrats around the topics, including taxation and redistribution of wealth.

During this era, Wisconsin's governors served, if you recall, a two-year term.

In 1894, Nils Haugan, who you see on your screen, was the candidate for the progressive Republicans.

Robert LaFollett was the candidate in 1896, 1898, winning the elections in 1900, 1902, and 1904.

He was succeeded by a couple of progressive Republicans, including Francis McGovern, also shown here.

LaFollett appointed Haugan along with Keenan to a tax commission.

Together they worked with the likes of Adams and Van Heese around the concept of the Wisconsin idea that the university, with its intellectual experts, should benefit all the people of Wisconsin.

Well, this novel idea began a long arc of a movement toward central planning where policy problems are, quote, solved with scientific management, empirical research, and technical expertise, and contrast significantly with decentralized local control and to a degree the principles of democracy and federalism.

Eventually, this group brings the idea of an income tax to the voters of Wisconsin who approve a constitutional amendment in 1908.

In 1911, the income tax was finally approved by the legislature and signed by then Governor Francis McGovern.

And, coincidentally, it preceded the United States income tax.

It was the first income tax in the country.

As a country, we would see a further expansion of the professionalization of government and expansion of central government solutions in the 1930s under the New Deal and the 1960s under the Great Society.

In the early 1900s in Wisconsin, the debate was not about what the taxes were for.

Everyone knew that they would be used to fund county and local government.

The debate was about how to justly and efficiently administer taxation.

The original design is what they called return to origin, and it was to compensate locals for the elimination of the personal property tax that they had in place originally.

And the original allocation of this income tax was that 70% would go to local units of government.

70% of the tax that was collected from that local unit of government would return to that local unit of government.

20 percent would be to the local county, and only 10 percent to the state government for the purposes of administering the taxes.

In Wisconsin, this was the start of what could be called credentialism, where bureaucratic experts are hired at the state level to administer programs.

This system of sharing revenue existed in the state of Wisconsin for about three generations.

In 1970, Wisconsin held its first election for governor for a four-year term.

And that year, Democrat Patrick Lucy was elected.

His lieutenant governor, Martin Schreiber, served as the Senate president.

Not quite sure why, but the Republicans controlled the Senate.

Back then, the law was that the lieutenant governor would serve as the President of the Senate.

So effectively, the Democrats set the agenda in the Senate.

And the Assembly was in control of the Democrats.

In his second term, Lucy, if you recall, would ascend to serve in the Carter administration, and Schreiber would take over as governor.

This era brought with it a significant revision in what had been shared revenue at this point.

A lot to read on this slide, so I'll go a little bit slower.

In the first Lucy term, we would see a wholesale replacement of the return to origin and a movement to complex formulas and the introduction of what's called equalized value.

Of course, another task force was used to provide the so-called expertise needed.

The movement was toward a quote, needs-based allocation.

The central government could better determine which local government had higher needs than another.

In the second term under Schreiber, partly under Lucy, but then under Schreiber, we saw the legislature create for the first time ever the Joint Finance Committee.

We saw the legislature exert its power and authority.

Along with it, we saw more reforms to the shared revenue shared tax program.

The net result was that the automatic funding that existed in the shared revenue program from the income taxes that were collected.

The net result was that the program was the automatic funding was eliminated.

And shared revenue became a legislative allocation.

Again, consistent with the aggregation of power with the joint finance committee.

Tax-based equalization becomes the norm, and the legislature, through its professional advisors, made tweaks to fine-tune the distributions.

Political decisions are masked with complex algorithms and professional number crunchers.

Instead of returning money to where it came from, the legislature would return the money to where they felt it should go.

Elections had consequences, and to the victory the spoils.

By cleverly crafting formula and baking favoritism into the shared revenue pie, winners could be rewarded for decades rather than a single term.

For decades, the Wisconsin economy grew, and along with it, sales and income tax collections.

Central government grew and did not share a proportionate interest in the state taxes collected with local governments.

Local governments had but one choice, and that was to raise property taxes.

The growing animus of voters pushed the state to take action, and then in the early 2000s, for the first time, we saw levy limits imposed.

Later in that decade, the United States experienced one of the worst recessions of all time, known as the Great Recession.

The sobering reality of declining tax revenue forced drastic actions on the part of the Doyle administration, and shared revenue was not spared.

Drastic measures continued in the early years of the Walker administration, and all total, shared revenue allocations declined from nearly $1 billion in 2003 to only $753 million in 2019.

Mind you, there was not a corresponding reduction in the number of units of local government.

There was not a revolution of technology or innovation in local government or a dramatic reduction in the local government workforce.

There was simply a reduction in revenue shared by the state, along with a local taxation ceiling imposed on top.

After nearly two generations since the previous major reform, there was a perfect storm in the Wisconsin political dynamic that opened the door of opportunity for change.

During that period of time, we saw a significant demographic shift, where we went from all areas of the state growing to, well, to rural areas in the city of Milwaukee actually experiencing population decline.

The toll of levy limits based on new construction and the stagnation of state shared revenue created political pressure, the political pressure necessary for some kind of modification to the shared revenue program.

Now, coincidentally, both the city and the county of Milwaukee were experiencing extreme financial problems due to underfunded pension plans, which brought both units of government to the state begging for authorization for an additional local sales tax.

Rural legislators had already crafted a plan for a supplemental aid embellishment to the shared revenue program, and soon realized that, hmm, maybe by pairing it with a solution to the city and county of Milwaukee troubles, they could find a path to victory for their legislation.

Taking advantage of a sympathetic governor, they passed the supplemental aid program with the sales tax solution attached, and of course, the governor signed it.

My suggestion in caucus to actually fix the formula was very quickly dismissed, as I was told in no uncertain terms that the purpose of the legislation was simply to provide more funding for small rural communities.

Well, that is exactly what the legislation did.

It provided more funding for rural communities.

It provided the sales tax authorization that was so desired by the city and county of Milwaukee.

And it provided the justification that the Republicans needed to support the bill by targeting law enforcement, fire, and EMS.

The one big benefit of the Act is that it created a local government fund that is funded by increases in sales tax revenue collections.

Now, as sales tax revenue grows, so does the local government fund.

This being the first time since the early 1970s when a total funding was tied to some sort of formula of state revenue tax collections.

So that's the one shining piece in this legislation was that it linked that and created the local government fund.

So what are the net effects?

The city and county of Milwaukee continue to receive the lion's share of shared revenue.

That's the blue portion of your chart.

Rural and small communities in the state benefit greatly by the supplemental aid, that's the pink portion.

And mid-sized communities like Waukesha see very little benefit from the supplemental aid or even the underlying shared revenue distribution.

While the 2023 Act 12 Act 12 provides a much needed increase in funding by the State to local units of government, you'll notice on the bottom right-hand corner, the little pink blip is the additional revenue provided by the State through the supplemental aid program.

The fact is, after many years of neglect, the supplemental aid program is only a small step in the right direction.

I think it is at the local level where most citizens experience the greatest impact of government and receive the most tangible benefits.

The unspoken and clearly understood premise of the very first shared revenue program, the return to origin, was that the purpose of income tax was to more efficiently fund local government.

We might speculate that although well-intentioned, the hubris of the monster's creator was inevitable.

And those who take power become intoxicated with it.

The question is how.

And Green Bay was property value poor.

So the quote need in Green Bay was greater than Waukesha.

That solution has been baked into the pie of shared revenue for decades.

Do streets cost more in Green Bay?

Do fire trucks cost more?

I I might be wrong, but I suspect that the cost of labor is actually higher in Waukeshaw than it is in Green Bay.

Central government formula just cannot adequately account for unique local circumstances.

With the very real squeeze between limited shared revenue and levy limits, many communities, especially mid-sized cities like Waukeshaw, will resort to operating referenda.

Will they be able to make a compelling case to the voters?

Well, that remains to be seen.

As long as there are demographic changes and corresponding economic changes, there will be regional inequalities.

Public safety, well, that's always been one of the highest objectives for local taxpayers.

And demand often surpasses people's willingness to pay taxes.

Demand for EMS is a great example.

The most problematic situation, however, is the inevitable pressure of state government bureaucracy to grow.

And that competes with local service delivery.

Will the people of Wisconsin reconcile these competing interests?

If history is our teacher, reconciliation will mean growing centralized government at the expense of local power.

As I mentioned at the start, this presentation is a very high-level quick overview of shared revenue in Wisconsin.

We could have invested 20 minutes of conversation on any one of these slides that I've shown here today.

If you'd like to dive deeper into the weeds, uh this is just a small stack of some of the reports that we've reviewed.

We've got the full set of resources that were used to research this presentation.

If you go to repalon.com, you click on the shared revenue tab, you can dive deeper into those weeds.

If you'd like the a copy of this PDF uh, an emailed copy, just to email me at rep.allen at L E G I S.wi.gov, and we're happy to supply those.

I appreciate your time and attention, and certainly the uh opportunity to be here today, and I will do my best to answer any questions.

Great.

Well, Scott, thank you very much for the for the background and the information.

Um I'll turn it over to the Finance Committee, the four of us here this evening if there's any questions for Rep Allen?

Alderman Matthews.

I have a lot of questions.

I'll limit it out.

Um the delta that we have in the reasoning and and I'm asking you to speak, you know, not knowing what when the we set the levies back, back in the 70s, 80s, when the levies were actually set.

What was the mentality that a rural community would get more revenue or get more taxation than somebody that was populated?

Because, like you had mentioned, obviously streets don't cost much more space, might be an issue for you know uh public safety, I would imagine.

But what was the logic to the best of your knowledge of why a smaller community would need more revenue to grow?

Was it a minimum level of service, minimal level of amenities?

What's your take on that?

Uh if you recall, uh the Democratic Party and their source of power in the 1970s is was different than it is today.

And there back in the 1970s, they really did build a coalition between urban interests and uh agricultural interests.

Uh that's eroded over time.

Now they're predominantly urban interests.

So I think again, the formula was baked in uh that would reward their constituencies when they are in positions of power, very similar to the Republicans controlled the majority in the legislature in 2023 when the supplemental aid program was adopted, and the controlling interest in the Republican caucus, uh, which rejected my suggestion for a rework of the formula was largely rural areas.

So you see, they benefited the rural areas benefited the most from the supplemental aid, and uh they were also one of the biggest beneficiaries back in the 1970s as well.

So it's really about the coalitions that were put were put together.

And then the obvious question, how do we fight this?

How do how do we go?

How do how do we, you know, the city administrator, the mayor, the council, how do we what's the best way to go after this to get our fair?

Waukeshaw is landlocked, and if a lot of the levy is based off of growth, we we can't.

We really can't outside of going up.

How do we combat that?

How do we fight for that?

What can we do in the future?

Because we're in a unique situation, maybe more than most on here where we can't expand physically outside.

Yeah, it's certainly about coalition building.

Um just similar to the 2023 modification that created the supplemental aid program without the perfect storm of the city and county of Milwaukee needing the sales tax advantage, it probably wouldn't have gotten through the legislature.

Well, it might have gotten through the Republican controlled legislature, but it probably wouldn't have been signed by the governor.

So, and even then we can speculate about whether it would have made it through the Senate.

Um it really is about building the coalitions that are necessary.

Uh so who represents the interests of those that are in the population between 30 and 50,000, or even if even if we bumped it up to 110,000, those constituencies need to form a coalition together in order to move that interest forward.

That's step number one.

Step number two, in my estimation, it's going to be easier uh to amend or tweak or modify the supplemental aid program with some spins or twists to it, than it's going to be to do an overhaul of the shared revenue program.

Now, why do I say that?

Uh those interests that are currently benefiting from both programs are not going to want to see a great modification.

They're not going to agree to it.

Uh so that's the hard part is once you bake it into the statute, getting a modification to it is much more difficult.

Uh even if it's even if it's not fair, right?

And we would all agree that it's not fair, it's not a good system.

But there's winners and there's losers.

Those that are winning aren't going to say, oh, sure, just take a portion of what we're getting, because you know, we want to make things fair in Wisconsin.

They're not going to do that.

So when you got populations over 110, which is primarily Madison and Milwaukee, Green Bay is getting close but not quite there.

Um they're going to stick together to protect their the interests that they represent.

So it's really about finding a path forward uh where you can build a coalition to get the job done.

Uh and and I think again, I think it'd be with that local government fund growing as now part of the formula from the sales tax collections, there's going to be more available resources to maybe tap into that.

Not a significant amount more, but maybe we can craft a careful thing that that addresses some of these disparities.

Great question.

Other questions for Scott from the committee.

Older person Wiggerson.

Um I want to thank you for coming and explaining all of this.

This is a hot button for me.

Um I guess I would ask, um, because we've had um I and I completely agree with you know, the the cities that are getting the larger dollar amount, they're not going to be ready to be like, oh, sure, we're gonna give up our portion.

I guess I would like to know though, how often does it really come up for discussion with those representatives that are elected to represent the city and county of Waukesha, specifically Campinga, who just announced today that he's going to be running for county executive.

Um Senator Julian Bradley, um, who was um just became my senator this this round because he was redistricted to take over my portion of Waukeshaw.

I haven't heard a single thing from him on this.

Um so I'm just kind of interested, and if you hear the irritation in my voice, it's not you, Scott personally.

Understand I just, you know, we we are giving a huge amount of money and we don't get it back.

I think on the county level, when I attended the county um financial meetings that the late Paul Farrell had last year when they were doing the county budget, um we give what 1.5 or 1.6 billion dollars to the state as a county and only get back about 60 million.

So I would think that those representatives would be interested in knowing what the city uh the constituents of Waukeshaw think and would hope that they would be going to bat for us and every chance they get have something to say.

So I guess I'm curious to know um how often it comes up for discussion.

And again, I'm not irritated at you.

Please understand that.

I just this is just a real hot button for me.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um, one of the things that um that I think would be something that might be worth pursuing is sort of what I'll call a hold harmless provision that would uh sort of use an element of the return to origin concept, whereby you know, we keep the formulas in place that are in place, but maybe we take a portion of that growing local government fund and we add a hold harmless provision such that um counties and localities are are provided a proportionate guarantee of a certain minimum percentage of the revenue that they send.

To me, that seems like a prudent measure.

Again, I can think it's a great idea all day long, but if I can't convince my fellow legislators of it, it doesn't make a hilla beans difference.

And and that's what I would say about you know the Waxha County delegation, let's say, um, and and why maybe you don't hear them talking about it much, because they understand the realities of this graph that's in front of you.

You know, well, who are we going to get convinced to to give up you know their share, right?

So why why would I why would I even talk about that as a legislative possibility if it doesn't have a snowball's chance in HE double toothpicks, you know?

Um so it I think that would be the defense, if you will.

And it's it's very frustrating for them as well.

And imagine imagine being one of those representatives, as I have been, and to hear it from you know both sides, you know, to hear locals complain about, well, hey, we're not getting our fair share.

I know.

I know.

I know, right?

And and there's not a darn thing I can do about it.

That's very frustrating.

Thank you.

Yep.

I think Scott, for me, I think it share a lot of the same sentiment that Doreen and Dale share.

I said the one thing that I've come back to a number of times is from a levy limit standpoint, you know, as you know, we're constrained the net new construction.

And last year that was 1.66 percent.

So that's what this council can consider in raising revenue, raising taxes is 1.66 percent when all of our expenses, and that's primarily labor, is going up between three to ten percent.

And my dad used to joke with me about running government like a business, and I said, Well, dad, what is it what is a business do when all your expenses go up?

And he would pause and eventually come around to the realization that well, maybe you need to raise your price a bit.

And that's the challenge that we have is you know, I've always said in this job that we are the trenches of government.

We're cops and firefighters and cutting grass and opening libraries and all the things that we do, you know, shoveling streets and plowing roads, and that costs money.

And I still think, and I will, you know, tell this to any constituent I have, that I think what you pay in property taxes in the city of Waukesha, you get a pretty good return on that.

But Dale hit a good point in that we're landlocked.

And we're landlocked because in some respects water, which we needed, but we're also landlocked because the legislature made a horrible decision with the town of Windsor legislation that let these towns become villages with virtually no bars to really jump over.

So now you have the the town of Waukeshaw that's now a village, and the opportunity to grow into that area is is gone because they're a village.

So in terms of throwing out ideas, I there has to be some type of consideration for landlocked communities like us, and whether that's a multiplier of net new construction, something.

But you are correct in that some at some case this count at some point this council is going to be be faced with a very tough decision to go out for referendum or make a drastic cut to services.

And when 80 percent of our budget is people and 80 percent of that 80 percent is police and fire, it's a very difficult decision to make because Waukeshaw is definitely a public safety town.

So I think in in terms of just rendering some ideas or throwing out some suggestions to those that are willing to listen, it's it's that.

The other thing that's been challenging for all of us, myself included, is with the expenditure restraint program, I get questioned all the time like, well, why don't you do more with the county, or why don't you?

Can we stop for a second jerk to talk about the uh landlocked situation?

I have had some conversations with the Fiscal Bureau about crafting some legislation that would address the landlock situation.

Uh and I could I invite your help because the the part that we were struggling with was how to precisely define landlock, because we have to put that definition in statute.

And so I don't have the answer to that based upon our last conversation.

That's sort of the the point that we were at as to okay, how do we define what landlocked is and then once we define what landlocked is, then what would be the what would be the revenue enhancing formula or trigger for those.

So how would you know is it a matter of uh uh uh an increase in in levy limit authority under the levy limit pro levy limit program, or would it be uh in some sort of uh uh extra supplementation in the supplemental aid program?

Like what would that trigger if if if you're a landlocked community?

So I invite your your participation if you want to begin to sort of brainstorm that.

Perfect.

And I know um the mayor mentioned to me today before she she's off to tribute Tuesday, uh, but she'd mentioned that she's working with a variety of other mayors to present the legislature with some ideas, and Tony and I will make sure that we we bring that provision up or that idea up uh around providing the legislature some guidance on what is landlocked, because that's us.

Yeah, and I don't know if you've identified other communities that are in the same boat, and I don't even know how many communities are in the same boat.

Correct.

And I I think City of Milwaukee would probably be the biggest example, but to your point, I think we'd have to really take a look at that and see what other communities are because as other communities to go down a quick tangent, as other communities around us go and need to look to Lake Michigan for water, they're gonna be faced with many of the same challenges that we are.

Um the other point that I wanted to make this evening was uh the the point around where folks ask me about you know, why doesn't the city you know do more with the school district?

Why don't you consolidate services?

Why don't you do this, that, and the other thing?

And I have to go back to them with a very tough rationale around some of the limitations with the expenditure restraint program.

And that is, and this is very basic example, so bear with me that say, for example, we partnered with the town or village of Waukesha, the town of Waukesha, to do something, plow roads.

Completely hypothetical, right?

And we agreed that they'll pay us $10 a year to plow all their roads.

Well, the challenge is that I just the city, we just can't take that ten dollars of revenue and just add it to the pot.

With the way the ERP law is written, I have to eliminate, we have to eliminate $10 of expenditure at the same time.

So it's a it's it's net nothing.

So there's no incentive for communities like us or any community to partner with a county, a school district, a town or a village because the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Well, and to further complicate matters, the funding amount in the extent expenditure restraint program has not been increased over the last 20 years.

And you know, I know a lot of communities have thought about just opting out of the program.

And the city of Walks, we've had that conversation as a council and as a finance committee internal and internally over the years about do we just opt out?

So far, the the there's still benefit for us to stay in the program.

But there's a lot of nuance in ERP, and there's a lot of nuance in levy limits that is there for really no good reason.

And that's a lot of things, and and I've a lot of us have talked to you and other legislatures about this over the years, and that's one of my frustrations is you know, the the inability for us to really work together with other units of government, and we don't have time to go down the whole home rule rabbit hole, but there's also a lot of provisions in the home rule law that prevent us from doing that.

So like Doreen said, I really appreciate you coming in this evening, and those were really the two points that I wanted to make tonight was the some limitations around working with other communities and then the fact that we're landlocked.

Um with that, um I'll turn it over, Mr.

Brown.

Did you have any comments or any questions?

Sure, thank you for the opportunity.

Um I think that all Rand Piper hit on exactly the thing that comes to mind, which is that when you talk about ERP levy limits and state shared revenue, those are kind of the foundations of our intergovernmental revenue.

Um then you throw in kind of levy limits with that, which uh property taxes make roughly 60, 65 percent, I believe, of our general fund budget.

And it creates a situation where we don't have a lot of opportunities to figure out how to adjust our budget according to the rising costs and operating our business, right?

The city's business, the public's business.

So I guess the thing that it leaves me thinking about is what solutions do you have in mind to address kind of the fact that you identified ERP, the funding hasn't been adjusted for 20 years.

State shared revenue before this latest supplemental program.

It added actually hasn't been adjusted, it decreased over the course of probably what 20, 30 years.

So it seems that we're getting almost yeah, the funding is going up in a real dollar sense, but once you adjust for inflation, it's probably more than likely decreasing.

So again, it's it's more about, I think to the chair's uh point, what are the solutions, the ideas that maybe have, and you alluded to this as well, maybe have some window of opportunity to at least start a conversation and figuring out how we can assist you and your role in getting some of those things to move forward.

Yeah, like the ERP.

I had Fiscal Bureau do some modeling on the ERP.

Unfortunately, again, this is sort of the political reality.

Unfortunately, um it's not just these population 30,000 to one 10,000 communities that are participating in the ERP.

So if we increase the ERP amount, the larger communities are also going to benefit, and they're already benefiting substantially already.

Um that proposition, if brought forward, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's close, um, would not appeal to my Republican colleagues.

It's just the reality.

Uh or if we designed a program that, you know, let's say the Democrats were in charge and it increased funding for the rural communities, might not appeal to them.

So these are the political realities is that I have to, with every possible scenario, I have to run the numbers to see who are the where are the political alliances that we can pull together.

And sometimes when I think I have a clean solution, it gets muddy real quick.

And so that's the hard part is that there's, you know, it's it's finding the common interest of these communities that are in this middle range that have a vested interest in in improving this situation and have a justifiable cause to do so.

And if we can find those commonalities, maybe then we could craft a piece of legislation that would append to the supplemental aid program to provide targeted relief for those communities.

Which I guess leads to my next question, which is in conversations with other representatives.

Um are they hearing some of the same concerns from the municipalities they represent about the local government funding framework?

So in other words, is this something that is widely acknowledged amongst your colleagues, or it's isolated to communities with populations between 30,000 to 110,000 as an example.

Yeah.

Many many of my colleagues that are in Waukesha County represent uh a host of communities that fall in the five to 30,000 range.

And you see they benefited, you know, pretty significantly from the supplemental aid program.

And they were already doing much better than we are in the original share, or not the original, but the existing shared revenue program.

So many of them uh have their communities quite pleased with the supplemental aid program.

Um there's very few that that have expressed a similar degree of angst or frustration as I have.

Okay.

Okay.

Thanks.

Scott, again, thank you for for coming in this evening.

Um I think you you know exactly what how we feel, and I think you have a very good idea where we're where we're coming from, and we hope that uh the anyone who ends up in your chair after the next election continues to hear this and we can make some progress because this is this is a challenge for us.

And it's not that we all just want to sit up here and raise everybody's taxes.

That's not the case at all.

We have a responsibility to make sure that cops show up and firefighters show up and uh whatever you put out put out at the curb disappears, et cetera, et cetera.

And um that the reality of that that takes money.

And unfortunately, it's just be it's just becoming more and more expensive.

So we have certainly appreciate the conversation and you coming in this evening.

I also want to um thank Alderperson Micklitz, Alderman Camacho, and Alderman Van Trieste for joining us this evening.

And um with that, we'll move to item number six, which is communications, Mr.

Brown.

Denise?

No communications.

So as we know, we are in the throes of budget season.

So make sure that the 25th of August is firmly on your calendar for the our six o'clock show and tell at the City Garage.

Scott, you are more than welcome to attend that as well or have a member of your team attend.

Um and since you're here, I would implore um I would ask you to implore your colleagues to attend that meeting as well because it's a great primer on our capital budget and a really cool opportunity to see a lot of the equipment that we're looking to.

I was there last year.

You were there last year.

Thank you.

Yep, thank you, Scott.

Um, any referrals from the committee?

Any objection to adjourning?

With that, we are adjourned.

Thank you, folks.