The Recombobulation Area is a 19-time 21-TIME! Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer.
From Marquette University professor Dr. Phil Rocco, an expert in intergovernmental finance and the lead author of The Recombobulation Area’s Milwaukee Press Club GOLD award-winning series, “The legislative battle over Act 12”:
When Wisconsin overhauled its shared revenue system in the summer of 2023, it was billed as a once-in-a-generation deal. In a state riven by partisan conflict, it represented a rare moment of compromise, and a legislative deal that boosted funding for local governments to support critical local services that residents rely on everyday — everything from streets, sewers, parks to police, fire protection, and EMS — by nearly 20%.
Our series covered every twist: the competing plans, the winners and losers, the sausage-making at the Capitol, and what the final bill actually meant. The series also highlighted the important relationship between state and local government in Wisconsin. Like their peers elsewhere, local governments in Wisconsin are not masters of their own fate. The state determines what revenue sources local governments may access, limits their ability to levy taxes, and mandates the provision of key services.
Since 1911, in exchange for preempting counties and municipalities from accessing certain revenue sources, the state has turned back a portion of its revenue to local governments. Yet in the early 2000s, the state legislature effectively stopped updating the program to account for inflation pressures. Thus even as state sales and income tax revenues had tripled since the early 2000s, the state’s funding for County and Municipal Aid had dropped in real terms by over $120 million. The predictable result was a combination of rising property taxes, service cuts, and a surge in municipal debt. Act 12 represented a major victory for local officials who had tried for years to reverse the situation. But there were strings attached – new restrictions on how state funds could be used, new preemptions of local authority, and a new formula that disadvantaged the state’s largest metros.
We’re revisiting the Act 12 series now because the fight over shared revenue has now landed squarely in the race to succeed retiring Gov. Tony Evers. Milwaukee County Executive, who helped to negotiate the historic deal, is now the Democratic nominee for governor. He faces Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany, who is already hammering Crowley over Milwaukee County’s budget conditions, characterizing the County Executive work on the landmark bill as, “(begging) the legislature to let him nearly double the sales tax.”
In short, the state’s relationship to local governments — and funding for the public services those governments provide — is on the ballot. To understand the stakes, we should start with how we got here.
Revisit this award-winning series, with articles listed chronologically. These articles were published between May and June of 2023:
Dan Shafer is an independent journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He worked with Civic Media from 2024 to 2026. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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