September 8, 2023 – Washington Co., WI – It’s become clear that County Executive Josh Schoemann doesn’t care about the voices of Washington County constituents—32,219 to be exact. This is the number of voters that supported Washington County sharing 20% of its annual (and growing) sales tax revenues equitably and annually with towns, villages and cities to fix our crumbling local roads.
Every community in Washington County will benefit from shared county sales tax. It’s important to know that Washington County has more than $9M in unallocated ARPA funds and another unplanned $1.168M arriving from the recently passed state revenue sharing.
These funds could cover the 20% requested until the sales tax grows enough where any gap is closed. It is mind boggling that the state legislature can come to a bi-partisan agreement on shared sales tax while our county refuses to listen to town, village, and city leaders, especially after the request of 76.76% of its electors.
Executive Schoemann is doing whatever he can to discount the April 2023 referendum question, instill fear in constituents and local leaders that sharing will result in property tax increases or cuts to public safety, threaten to reduce services, publicly reject Mid-Moraine Municipal Association, and specifically insult me.
Even worse, a significant majority of Washington County Board of Supervisors are unwilling to act on behalf of their constituents and for the betterment of their own municipalities because they only take direction from the County Executive. If supervisors were true representatives of their electors, they would do the right thing and include shared sales tax in the next biennial budget.
This topic matters. The voices of Washington County constituents’ matter. Please reach out to your local leaders to urge them to act on your behalf.
Mike Miller, Executive Director
Mid-Moraine Municipal Association,
Former West Bend Mayor
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