Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Monday, December 2, 2019 l 8A
It’s Wisconsin’s newest lottery: Your zip code determines whether you will pay $85 or up to $253 when you regis-ter your car or SUV next year.
The City of Madison’s decision to levy the highest “wheel tax” in the state—$40 per vehicle—renews a debate over local governments using a revenue-raising tool they have had since the 1960s, despite a state bud-get that boosted spending on state and local transportation systems.
“Some of us home-owners over 60 years old are being taxed out of our homes,” one Mad-ison resident emailed city officials. The Wis-consin State Journal reported the email.
“Cut spending, please. The wheel tax is yet another tax on those of us who most vulner-able…Cut all spending but police and fire.”
If that Madison homeowner drives a Chevy Impala, they will pay $153 to register it next year: $85 to state gov-ernment, $28 to Dane County, and $40 to the city of Madison.
If they drive an environ-ment-friendly electric car—a Tesla or Chevy Volt, for example—add a state-government surcharge of $100, bringing the total registration fee to $253. If they drive a Toyota Prius hybrid, the state’s surcharge would be $75, bringing the total fees to $228.
But, if they live in a community just outside Dane County without a wheel tax, they will pay $85 to register their Chevy Impala next year.
A State Department of Transporta-tion Website says
11 of the 72 counties now levy wheel taxes that range from $10 (Chippewa and St. Croix counties) to $30 (Eau Claire and Milwaukee counties). A 12th county—Langlade—starts a $15 wheel tax next year.
25 cities, towns and villages now levy wheel taxes that range from $10 to $30. Madison will be the 26th when its $40 tax starts Feb. 1.
Local governments in Rock County with wheel taxes are Janesville, Evans-ville and Beloit, $20 each, and Milton $30.
Some of smallest municipalities—Tigerton, population 709; Iron Ridge, 899; Gillett, 1,386, and the Town of Arena, 1,494—now levy $10 or $20 annual wheel taxes.
Madison officials say the $40 wheel tax will raise about $7.8 million, which will be used to pay for new rapid-tran-sit bus routes and other transportation programs.
“I don’t want us to miss our oppor-tunity to invest in the things that will make us a greater city than we are,” Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said. “I’m sorry, but the vehicle registration fee is the way to make those investments. I don’t want that to be the answer, but it is.”
Curt Witynski, deputy director of
the League of Wisconsin Municipal-
ities, said local governments adopt
wheel taxes “because their transporta-
tion needs continue to be greater than
the revenue they have available under
property taxes and state aids.”
“While it is true the state increased
transportation funding for local gov-
ernments, that was after significant
cuts in 2011 to general transporta-
tion aids and shared revenue,” he said.
“The [current state] budget finally fully
restored the 2011 cuts.”
Overall, he said, general transpor-
tation aid for cities and villages “is
funded at levels only slightly higher
than 2010 .”
And, Witynski said, funding formu-
las that determine how the increase in
state aid is spent favor towns.
He gave this illustration:
“The new local transportation grant
program … set aside $75 million for
local governments to compete for.
Towns receive 39%, or $28.8 million.
Counties receive 36%, or $26 million.
And cities and villages receive 25%, or
$18.5 million. So, 600 cities and vil-
lages will be competing for $18.5 mil-
lion.”
Some Republican legislators have
sponsored bills requiring that voters
approve a referendum before a local
government can levy a wheel tax.
Bad idea, Witynski said:
“The Legislature should continue to
allow locally elected officials the dis-
cretion to make this policy decision.
Local voters can take action at the
spring elections, if they are dissatisfied
with the enactment or implementation
of a local vehicle registration fee.”
Counties do not have to pass a refer-
endum to levy a 0.5% sales tax surtax,
Witynski noted.
In 2017, counties collected $377.5
million from local sales taxes and local
wheel taxes totaled $30 million.
Referendums are also not required
before a community can adopt a room
tax, Witynski added. Room taxes
totaled $99.5 million in 2017.
“Why require a referendum for local
vehicle registration fees, but not for
these other taxes?” Witynski said.
Steven Walters is a senior producer
for the nonprofit public affairs channel
WisconsinEye. Contact him at
What a horrible, horrible trag-edy—times two.
Jiterria Lightner and her three kids, ages 4, 3 and 2, were at the Charlotte Douglas International Air-port on their way home from a trip to Florida on Sept. 25. While Jiterria sat less than 15 feet away, trying to arrange a ride home, her kids were in a little space between the escala-tor and the stairs.
It was the freakiest of freak acci-dents. “They were between the stairs and the escalators when he was car-ried up on his arm up the escalator,” Jiter-ria’s lawyer, Michael Greene, said. “It appears that he was trying to reach over to grab the stair rail-ing and when he tried to grab the rail-
ing, that’s when he took the unfortu-nate fall.”
Jaiden Cowart, 3, was rushed to the hospital where he died. While originally this was labeled an acci-dent, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department decided last week to take out three misdemeanor war-rants against the mom, charging her with child abuse.
If she is found guilty, she could face a maximum of 150 days in jail.
Of course, if this was really about a mom not supervising her kids, how does taking her away from them for 150 days make things better?
Obviously, it doesn’t. That’s why I don’t think it’s really about a lack of supervision. I think it’s about fear. The fact that this truly could happen to any of us is so scary, we can’t deal with it. So, instead, we—or at least the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police—pretend that no, this only happens to terrible parents who are crimi-nally abusive. Not to saintly you and me.
It echoes the way we used to blame rape victims: “She was asking for it by wearing that outfit. I would never be raped because I don’t ask for it.” Our fear made us twist the victim into the perpetrator, or at least the accomplice.
Here, our fear that something this horrific could happen out of the blue (at the end of a vacation, even! Something the mom did to make her kids happy) seems to turn a normal person in a normal circumstance into the depraved author of her own grief. If she’s a terrible mom, then this tragedy serves her right, and the universe still seems fair. We can breathe a sigh of relief.
Except, we can’t. Not when the authorities can pretend bad things only happen to bad people.
When that is society’s assump-tion, parents feel compelled to heli-copter. They know they cannot count on sympathy and support if, God forbid, an unpredictable tragedy occurs. Remember the mom whose child fell into the gorilla enclosure? Surely that was as unpredictable as this sad airport story. And yet, many people reacted as if of course all moms should be on high alert any-time their child is at the zoo, because it is so darn common and so very likely that their kids could fall into a cage. Hindsight, fear and a deep unwillingness to recognize the fick-leness of fate combined into a storm of hate and victim-blaming.
As lawyer Greene put it: “This is one of those incidents that could’ve happened to any one of the mem-bers of this community, and, unfor-tunately, the decision came down to charge her with a crime.”
Unfortunate, indeed. And chilling.Lenore Skenazy is president of Let
Grow, founder of Free-Range Kids and author of “Has the World Gone Skenazy?”
Sid Schwartz, Editor
Ann Fiore, Chief Copy Editor
Andrew Broman,
Opinion Page Editor
The Gazette Letters PolicyThe Gazette welcomes letters to the editor.
Letters should be typed or clearly legible and limited to 250 words, as calculated by our com-puter system. They may be edited for brevity, clar-ity, good taste and libel. We do not publish anon-ymous letters or poetry. Write as often as once every 30 days. Please include your full name and signature, complete address and a daytime phone number. Mail to: Letters to the Editor, The Gazette, 1 S. Parker Drive, P.O. Box 5001, Janesville, Wis. 53547-5001. You can also email your letter to [email protected].
Mary Jo Villa, Regional President and Publisher
Pam Schmoldt, Regional Director of Financial Operations
Sidney H. Bliss, Publisher Emeritus
OPINION The Gazette
174 years of community service ... since 1845
1 South Parker Drive • P.O. Box 5001Janesville, Wis. • 53547-5001 • 608-754-3311
www.gazettextra.com
GazetteThe
WISCONSIN’S BEST NEWSPAPER
OTHER VIEWS
STATE VIEWS
OUR VIEWS
Past Gazette publishers
Robert W. Bliss, 1937-1992 Sidney H. Bliss, 1937-1959
Harry H. Bliss, 1919-1937Howard F. Bliss, 1883-1919
STEVEN WALTERS
LENORE SKENAZY
Speak your mindWrite a letter to the editor
What are your thoughts? Send us a letter about this or any other current issue. Address letters to: The Gazette 1 S. Parker Drive P.O. Box 5001 Janesville, WI 53547-5001 or send e-mail to: [email protected] (word limit 250 words)
To Cyber Monday. Feel free today to buy from Amazon and other
e-commerce web-sites without any local ties—but then don’t com-plain about a lack of brick-and-mor-tar retail options in Janesville. Shopko became the latest Janesville retailer
to succumb to the pressures of online retail, and it won’t be the last if res-idents neglect to pay attention to how they spend their money. Nobody wants (or should want) to live in a city spotted with vacant buildings, but that’s the future Amazon and other e-commerce sites are creat-ing. They’re sucking money out of the area along with the jobs that brick-and-mortar retailers provide. Shop-ping local means avoiding Cyber Monday (unless it’s for a local store).
To “Christmas” arguments. Please, not another debate over
whether to say Christmas or holi-day. Surely, the Leg-islature has more important things to do than argue with Gov. Tony Evers about whether the “holiday tree” at the Capitol is a “Christ-
mas tree.” This is one of those cul-ture battles that wastes a lot of time and rarely results in people chang-ing their minds. There’s a lot of unfin-ished business at the Capitol, and lawmakers aren’t pursuing it when they author resolutions as the Assem-bly did last month taking a position on the Capitol’s conifer. Let’s focus on important issues, such as legislation to help the homeless.
To a bipartisan legislative moment. Fortunately, the great
tree debate hasn’t completely con-sumed state gov-ernment. The Leg-islature managed to pass and Evers signed last week leg-islation to help the homeless, though homeless advocates
say much more needs to be done. The bill, co-authored by Rep. Amy Loudenbeck, R-Clinton, will allow 17-year-olds to stay unaccompanied at homeless shelters. It’s a small step, but nonetheless a bipartisan one. The Assembly also passed a bipartisan bill to provide more grant funds to homeless shelters. Unfortunately, this bill remains stuck in the state Sen-ate, where Majority Leader Scott Fitz-gerald has held it up for partisan rea-sons. Fitzgerald is apparently more concerned about the holiday tree, calling it “PC garbage.”
To new YMCA Board of Direc-tors member. The appointment of
Janesville School
District Superinten-
dent Steve Pophal
to the Y’s board is
an encouraging
sign that the YMCA
has put behind it
the reign of former
CEO Tom Den Boer.
As readers might
recall, Den Boer sought to remove
members who disagreed with him or
asked too many questions, fostering
distrust between the Y and the com-
munity. Since Den Boer’s departure,
the Y has worked to reclaim that lost
trust. Bringing Pophal to the board
was a smart move because many kids
who use the YMCA also attend local
schools. The two entities’ missions
overlap, and we hope they continue
to explore ways to work together.
When tragedy strikes, blame
the mom
More communities turning to wheel tax to fill budget gaps
