Last month, the Marathon County Board approved its budget for 2024. First, let me compliment Lance Leonhard and, more importantly, some very persistent supervisors. The financial oversight and stewardship provided by Gayle Marshall, Dave Baker and others has ensured that Marathon County and its great employees will continue to provide basic county services while maintaining stellar fiscal responsibility.
But an opportunity was missed – a big one – an opportunity to actually cut taxes and allow the hard-working people of this county to keep a little bit more of what is theirs to begin with. What better way to show leadership than to tell the taxpayers, “We’re not ONE of the best run counties in the state, we ARE the best run county in the state. Here is your tax cut!”
Marathon County is in great financial shape, nowhere near the financial disaster that is Wausau. And true, the county can brag that its tax rate, otherwise known as the “mill rate” (the tax dollar amount per $1,000 of assessed value) went down, from $4.19 in 2023 to $3.99 for 2024. But property valuations (your assessments) are up 11 percent. That’s on top of an 11.34 percent increase the previous year. The county property tax levy (the total dollar amount that all taxpayers combined are responsible to pay the county) will jump to roughly $58 million from $54.8 million, the prior year. Let’s not kid ourselves, we WILL pay more taxes, 5.68 percent more.
Unlike Wausau, the county has a small debt burden relative to its overall budget and it maintains enormous “savings” funds, such as the general fund, the highway fund, the social improvement fund, the capital improvement fund and the debt service fund. These funds are all prudent and necessary, but how much savings is enough? Does a Marathon County budget of roughly $203 million with a debt of only $99 million require a savings of $183 million? Is the county raising taxes again just to pad these savings accounts? That money ultimately belongs to the taxpayer and could certainly have been used to lower the property tax levy, and ultimately, to lower our taxes.
This brings us to the missed opportunity. Before the budget was approved, Supervisor Baker proposed an amendment to reduce the levy by $1.5 million, to lower the tax increase from 5.68 percent to 2.95 percent, by using excess funds (budgeted money that was not spent) from the social improvement fund. The remaining 2.95 percent of the proposed increase represents “net” new construction and retiring TIF’s (Tax Increment Financing). In essence, this remaining 2.95 percent represents new taxes with new taxpayers to pay them. Thus, the $1.5 million reduction to the levy would essentially have left current and existing taxpayers with no tax increase. More importantly, it would have sent a welcome signal to taxpayers that tax levies, and ultimately taxes themselves, can go down. The amendment fell by only one vote. The tax-and-spend liberals on the board were predictable with their no vote, but it was especially disappointing that Kurt Gibbs, Jacob Langenhahn and Rick Seefeldt found themselves on the “no” side of the vote, as well.
Marathon County board should be commended for its good work overall, but it missed an opportunity to lead this state in the right direction. It missed an opportunity to say, “Thank you and Merry Christmas” to its taxpayers.
Orlando Alfonso of Wausau
Editor’s note: Wausau Pilot & Review gladly publishes commentary from readers, residents and candidates for local offices. The views of readers and columnists are independent of this newspaper and do not necessarily reflect the views of Wausau Pilot & Review. To submit, email [email protected] or mail to 500 N. Third St., Suite 208-8, Wausau, Wis. 54403.
