The Wisconsin Constitution states, “The rule of taxation shall be uniform.” Though certain exceptions to this rule have been written into the state charter, this principle generally requires that properties of equal value within a given municipality are subject to the same tax levy. To achieve that equal treatment – often known as uniformity – the values of the properties must be assessed at the same share of their market value. That in turn calls for professional, consistent, and impartial assessment.
That principle is particularly challenging to achieve in Wisconsin, where property assessment is divided among more than 1,840 cities, villages, and towns. As the Forum pointed out in a 2023 brief and as we will discuss, most states around the nation handle all or much of the property assessment process at the county level. In Wisconsin, each municipality is responsible for assessing the property in its territory, which is notable since our state has many more municipalities than the average state, including more than 1,200 towns with generally small populations and limited budgets and staff.
In Milwaukee County alone, there are 10 cities and nine villages, each of which are responsible for assessing property values each year and transmitting them to the state Department of Revenue. These 19 municipalities – ranging from the city of Milwaukee to smaller, quieter communities such as the village of River Hills – use a mix of in-house assessors and contract firms to separately determine property values. Though this approach maximizes local control, it also limits economies of scale, leads to quite different approaches among neighboring communities, and may at times affect the accuracy and uniformity of assessments.
This study seeks to determine whether improvements to this function might be feasible by promoting various forms of collaboration or consolidation among municipalities in Milwaukee County. In doing so, we are searching for opportunities to control costs but more importantly to arrive at more accurate assessments for taxpayers. The report is supported by a state Innovation Planning Grant from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR) that went to the village of Bayside, which is serving as the fiscal agent on behalf of the 19 municipalities in the county.
In our research, we examined state DOR data and surveyed each municipality in the county to learn about their numbers of parcels and property values as well as their assessment practices, cost, and approach. We interviewed municipal and county officials as well as contract assessors to better understand how the system currently works and the potential impacts of various proposed changes.
Our research questions included:
- What are the strengths and problems within this current system?
- What obstacles and opportunities exist for collaboration or consolidation across municipalities?
- How could communities maximize the benefits of collaboration while minimizing drawbacks?
As with all our work, the Wisconsin Policy Forum is not insisting upon any particular change to the current system. Instead, we hope our report will provide new insights for local leaders and taxpayers as municipalities seek the best way to meet their constitutional mandate of delivering accurate and uniform property values for their residents and businesses.