Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening. We'll call the July 14th, 2026 meeting of the finance committee to order. We do have a quorum this evening. Alderman Anderson is out of town. Next on our agenda is the pledge of allegiance. Please rise. Next item on our agenda is public comment. Are there any members of the public that wish to address the Finance Committee this evening? All right, seeing none, we'll move to item number 4A, which is approval of minutes for the meeting on the 30th. Are there any changes to those minutes from the committee? Seeing none, those minutes are approved through unanimous consent. Our business item tonight, item number 5A, is a matter of report. This is a shared revenue presentation by Representative Scott Allen. Scott approached me a couple months ago and asked to come in to speak to the Finance Committee to give the committee a little bit of background on shared revenue and give us an opportunity once Scott is done with his presentation to certainly ask questions that we may have around funding formulas and perhaps things that we'd like to see changed as it relates to how municipalities are funded. The mayor is also here this evening, so thank you for joining us, Alicia. So with that, Scott, you are our sole agenda item this evening. The floor is yours, and like I said, once you're done, we'll certainly take any questions from the committee as we have them. So thank you for coming this evening, and again, the floor is yours. Is your mic on, Scott? Should be a button at the base. There we go.

Testing. There we go. Well, thank you. And thank you for your hospitality. Thank you for certainly putting me on the agenda. I never expected to be the only item here, but that's great. And hopefully this begins a conversation, begins to spark some ideas where there can be a broader conversation, not just within the city hall confines, but maybe throughout our state because... Certainly, there's a need for awareness of what's going on. This presentation is titled, Waksha is Getting Squeezed Out of Shared Revenue Formulations, which you guys are all very familiar with. I don't think I need to introduce myself. I think you all know me. But there are extra handouts over here, so if anybody wants to take another one, feel free. I'm about to give you a... About 175 years worth of Wisconsin history compacted into about 20 minutes. So you can imagine it's pretty high level. This is the history of shared revenue in the state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin as a state has been sharing revenue with its local units of government since 1911. It was a challenge to get to that and it's been a challenge ever since. There are primarily five eras to the shared revenue funding and sharing of revenue in our state. But we have to go back really before that to understand how we got to this point. And we all know our nation's history from the Boston Tea Party to today. We as a country revolted against taxation without representation. From our founding, we have had a disdain for large administrative states who exert authority through taxation, whether it be the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, or the Townsend Act. From the very beginning, we have disliked taxation and the administrative state that comes with it. Since its founding in 1848, Wisconsin started with taxation only at the local level and taxed all personal property. What resulted was a disaggregated taxing system that experienced, quite frankly, discrimination against foreigners, biased valuations, and ineffective tax collections. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, we had in this country an overall progressive shift. Perhaps it was accelerated by the panic of 1893, in which we saw a four-year depression with unemployment rates reaching as high as 25%. The Republican Party was largely split between traditional conservatives and progressives at the time, or progressive Republicans. The progressive Republicans believed it was the government's responsibility to create jobs. As a result, we saw a coalition between the progressive Republicans and the Social Democrats around the topics including taxation and redistribution of wealth. During this era, Wisconsin's governors served, if you recall, a two-year term. In 1894, Nils Haugen, who you see on your screen, was the candidate for the Progressive Republicans. Robert La Follette was the candidate in 1896, 1898, winning the elections in 1900, 1902, and 1904. He was succeeded by a couple of Progressive Republicans, including Francis McGovern, also shown here. La Follette appointed Haugen along with Keenan to a tax commission. Together, they worked with the likes of Adams and Van Heese around the concept of the Wisconsin idea that the university, with its intellectual experts, should benefit all the people of Wisconsin. Well, this novel idea began a long arc of a movement toward central planning where policy problems are, quote, solved with scientific management, empirical research, and technical expertise, and contrasts significantly with decentralized local control and, to a degree, the principles of democracy and federalism. Eventually, this group brings the idea of an income tax to the voters. of Wisconsin who approve a constitutional amendment in 1908. In 1911, the income tax was finally approved by the legislature and signed by then Governor Francis McGovern. And coincidentally, it preceded the United States income tax. It was the first income tax in the country. As a country, we would see a further expansion of the professionalization of government and expansion of central government solutions in the 1930s under the New Deal and the 1960s under the Great Society. In the early 1900s in Wisconsin, the debate was not about what the taxes were for. Everyone knew that they would be used to fund county and local government. The debate was about how to justly and efficiently administer taxation. The original design is what they called return to origin. And it was to compensate locals for the elimination of the personal property tax that they had in place originally. And the original allocation of this income tax was that 70% would go to local units of government 70% of the tax that was collected from that local unit of government would return to that local unit of government. 20% would be to the local county, and only 10% to the state government for the purposes of administering the taxes. In Wisconsin, this was the start of what could be called credentialism, where bureaucratic experts are hired at the state level to administer programs. This system of sharing revenue existed in the state of Wisconsin for about three generations. In 1970, Wisconsin held its first election for governor for a four-year term. And that year, Democrat Patrick Lucey was elected. His lieutenant governor, Martin Schreiber, served as the Senate president. Not quite sure why, but the Republicans controlled the Senate. Back then, the law was that the lieutenant governor would serve as the president of the Senate. So effectively, the Democrats set the agenda in the Senate. And the assembly was in control of the Democrats. In his second term, Lucy, if you recall, would ascend to serve in the Carter administration, and Schreiber would take over as governor. This era brought with it a significant revision in what had been shared revenue at this point. A lot to read on this slide, so I'll go a little bit slower. In the first Lucy term, we would see a wholesale replacement of the return to origin and a movement to complex formulas and the introduction of what's called equalized value. Of course, another task force was used to provide the so-called expertise needed. The movement was toward a, quote, needs-based allocation. The central government could better determine which local government had higher needs than another. In the second term, under Schreiber, partly under Lucy, but then under Schreiber, we saw the legislature create for the first time ever the Joint Finance Committee. We saw the legislature exert its power and authority. Along with it, we saw more reforms to the shared revenue, shared tax program. The net result was that the automatic funding that existed in the shared revenue program from the income taxes that were collected, the net result was that the program was, the automatic funding was eliminated. and shared revenue became a legislative allocation, again, consistent with the aggregation of power with the Joint Finance Committee. Tax-based equalization becomes the norm, and the legislature, through its professional advisors, made tweaks to fine-tune the distributions. Political decisions are masked with complex algorithms and professional number crunchers. Instead of returning money to where it came from, the legislature would return the money to where they felt it should go. Elections had consequences, and to the victor go the spoils. By cleverly crafting formula and baking favoritism into the shared revenue pie, winners could be rewarded for decades rather than a single term. For decades, the Wisconsin economy grew, and along with it, sales and income tax collections. Central government grew and did not share a proportionate interest in the state taxes collected with local governments. Local governments had but one choice, and that was to raise property taxes. The growing animus of voters pushed the state to take action, and then in the early 2000s, for the first time, we saw levy limits imposed. Later in that decade, the United States experienced one of the worst recessions of all time, known as the Great Recession. The sobering reality of declining tax revenue forced drastic actions on the part of the Doyle administration, and shared revenue was not spared. Drastic measures continued in the early years of the Walker administration. In all total, shared revenue allocations declined from nearly $1 billion in 2003 to only $753 million in 2019. Mind you, there was not a corresponding reduction in the number of units of local government. There was not a revolution of technology. or innovation in local government or a dramatic reduction in the local government workforce. There was simply a reduction in revenue shared by the state along with a local taxation ceiling imposed on top. After nearly two generations since the previous major reform, There was a perfect storm in the Wisconsin political dynamic that opened the door of opportunity for change. During that period of time, we saw a significant demographic shift where we went from all areas of the state growing to, well, to rural areas in the city of Milwaukee actually experiencing population decline. The toll of levy limits based on new construction and the stagnation of state shared revenue created political pressure, the political pressure necessary for some kind of modification to the shared revenue program. Now coincidentally, both the city and the County of Milwaukee were experiencing extreme financial problems due to underfunded pension plans, which brought both units of government to the state begging for authorization for an additional local sales tax. Rural legislators had already crafted a plan for a supplemental aid embellishment to the shared revenue program and soon realized that, hmm, maybe by pairing it with a solution to the city and county of Milwaukee troubles, they could find a path to victory for their legislation. Taking advantage of a sympathetic governor, they passed the supplemental aid program with the sales tax solution attached, and of course, the governor signed it. My suggestion in caucus, To actually fix the formula was very quickly dismissed as I was told in no uncertain terms that the purpose of the legislation was simply to provide more funding for small rural communities. Well, that is exactly what the legislation did. It provided more funding for rural communities. It provided the sales tax authorization that was so desired by the city and county of Milwaukee. And it provided the justification that the Republicans needed to support the bill by targeting law enforcement, fire, and EMS. The one big benefit of the act is that it created a local government fund that is funded by increases in sales tax revenue collections. Now, as sales tax revenue grows, so does the local government fund. This being the first time since the early 1970s when a total funding was tied to some sort of formula of state revenue tax collections. So that's the one shining piece in this legislation was that it linked that and created the local government fund. So what are the net effects? The city and county of Milwaukee continue to receive the lion's share of shared revenue. That's the blue portion of your chart. Rural and small communities in the state benefit greatly by the supplemental aid. That's the pink portion. And mid-sized communities like Waukesha see very little benefit from the supplemental aid or even the underlying shared revenue distribution. While the 2023 Act 12 provides a much needed increase in funding by the state to local units of government, you'll notice on the bottom right hand corner, the little pink lip is the additional revenue provided by the state through the supplemental aid program. The fact is, after many years of neglect, the supplemental aid program is only a small step in the right direction. I think it is at the local level where most citizens experience the greatest impact of government and receive the most tangible benefits. The unspoken and clearly understood premise of the very first shared revenue program, the return to origin, was that the purpose of income tax was to more efficiently fund local government. We might speculate that although well-intentioned, the hubris of the monstrous creator was inevitable, and those who take power become intoxicated with it. I would assert that it's time for local governments to reassert themselves. The question is how. Before we turn our attention to that speculation, let's look at some specific local examples. In the upper left-hand corner, you see Waukesha County total shared revenue from 2000 to 2025. Upper right-hand corner is the city of Waukesha. Lower left is the city of Janesville. And on the bottom right, you'll see the city of Green Bay and their experience relative to shared revenue dating, like I said, all the way back to the year 2000. You can see that total revenue from the state, they all experienced a significant increase as a result of Act 12. But let's take a look at a comparison between, say, Green Bay and Waukesha. Although there are differences in population and home values, the overall total assessed values are relatively close. You'll notice 8.65 versus 9.07, that's billions of dollars. That's the total assessed value. It is the total value upon which local property taxes are levied. Yet we see that Green Bay receives four times the amount of shared revenue as Waukesha. That's because back in the 70s, it was determined that Waukesha was property value rich and Green Bay was property value poor. So the, quote, need in Green Bay was greater than Waukesha. That solution has been baked into the pie of shared revenue for decades. Do streets cost more in Green Bay? Do fire trucks cost more? I might be wrong, but I suspect that the cost of labor is actually higher in Waukesha than it is in Green Bay. Central government formula just cannot adequately account for unique local circumstances. With the very real squeeze between limited shared revenue and levy limits, many communities, especially mid-sized cities like Waukesha, will resort to operating referenda. Will they be able to make a compelling case to the voters? Well, that remains to be seen. As long as there are demographic changes and corresponding economic changes, there will be regional inequalities. Public safety, well, it's always been one of the highest objectives for local taxpayers. And demand often surpasses people's willingness to pay taxes. Demand for EMS is a great example. The most problematic situation, however, is the inevitable pressure of state government bureaucracy to grow, and that competes with local service deliveries. Will the people of Wisconsin reconcile these competing interests? If history is our teacher, reconciliation will mean growing centralized government at the expense of local power. As I mentioned at the start, this presentation is a very high level, quick overview of shared revenue in Wisconsin. We could have invested 20 minutes of conversation on any one of these slides that I've shown here today. If you'd like to dive deeper into the weeds, this is just a small stack of some of the reports that we've reviewed. We've got the full set of resources that were used to research this presentation. If you go to repallen.com, you click on the shared revenue tab, you can dive deeper into those weeds. If you'd like a copy of this PDF, an emailed copy, just email me at rep.allen at legis.wi.gov, and we're happy to supply those. I appreciate your time and attention and certainly the opportunity to be here today, and I will do my best to answer any questions.

Great. Well, Scott, thank you very much for the background and the information. I'll turn it over to the Finance Committee, the four of us here this evening, if there's any questions for Rep. Allen. Alderman Matthews.

I'll limit it out. First thing is, The delta that we have in the reasoning, and I'm asking you to speak, not knowing what, when we set the levies back, back in the 70s, 80s, when the levies were actually set, what was the mentality that a rural community would get more revenue or get more taxation than somebody that was populated? Because like you had mentioned, obviously streets don't cost much more. Space might be an issue for public safety, I would imagine. But what was the logic, to the best of your knowledge, of why a smaller community would need more revenue to grow? Was it a minimum level of service, minimum level of amenities? What's your take on that?

If you recall, the Democratic Party and their source of power in the 1970s was different than it is today. And back in the 1970s, they really did build a coalition between urban interests and agricultural interests. That's eroded over time. Now they're predominantly urban interests. So I think, again, the formula was baked in that would reward their constituencies when they are in positions of power, very similar to the Republicans controlled the majority in the legislature in 2023 when the supplemental aid program was adopted. And the controlling interest in the Republican caucus, which rejected my suggestion for a rework of the formula, was largely rural areas. So you see they benefited, the rural areas benefited the most from the supplemental aid, and they were also one of the biggest beneficiaries back in the 1970s as well. So it's really about the coalitions that were put together.

And then the obvious question, how do we fight this? How do we go? How do we, you know, the city administrator, the mayor, the council, how do we, what's the best way to go after this to get our fair? Waukesha is landlocked. And if a lot of the levy is based off of growth, We can't, we really can't outside of going up. How do we combat that? How do we fight for that? What can we do in the future? Because we're in a unique situation, maybe more than most on here, where we can't expand physically outside.

Yeah, it's certainly about coalition building just similar to the 2023 modification that created the supplemental aid program without the perfect storm of the city and county Milwaukee needing the sales tax advantage. It probably wouldn't have gotten through the legislation. Well, it might have gotten through the Republican controlled legislature, but it probably wouldn't have been signed by the governor. And even then, we can speculate about whether it would have made it through the Senate. So it really is about building the coalitions that are necessary. So who represents the interests of those that are in the population between 30,000 and 50,000, or even if we bumped it up to 110,000? THOSE CONSTITUENCIES NEED TO FORM A COALITION TOGETHER IN ORDER TO MOVE THAT INTEREST FORWARD. THAT'S STEP NUMBER ONE. STEP NUMBER TWO, IN MY ESTIMATION, IT'S GOING TO BE EASIER TO AMEND OR TWEAK OR MODIFY THE SUPPLEMENTAL AID PROGRAM WITH SOME SPINS OR TWISTS TO IT THAN IT'S GOING TO BE TO DO AN OVERHAUL OF THE SHARED REVENUE PROGRAM. WHY DO I SAY THAT? those interests that are currently benefiting from both programs are not going to want to see a great modification they're not going to agree to it uh... so that's the hard part is once you bake it into the statute getting a modification to it is much more difficult uh... even if it's even if it's not fair and we would all agree that it's not fair it's not a good system but there's winners and there's losers Those that are winning aren't going to say, oh, sure, just take a portion of what we're getting because, you know, we want to make things fair in Wisconsin. They're not going to do that. So when you've got populations over 110, which is primarily Madison and Milwaukee, Green Bay's getting close but not quite there, they're going to stick together to protect the interests that they represent. So it's really about finding a path forward where you can build a coalition to get the job done. And I think, again, I think it'd be with that local government fund growing as now part of the formula from the sales tax collections, there's gonna be more available resources to maybe tap into that, not a significant amount more, but maybe we can craft a careful thing that addresses some of these disparities. Great question.

Other questions for Scott from the committee? older person with your son.

I want to thank you for coming in explaining all of this this is a hot button for me. I guess I would ask because we've had. I you know I completely agree with you know the the cities that are getting the larger dollar amount they're not going to be ready to be like oh sure we're going to. give up our portion. I guess I would like to know, though, how often does it really come up for discussion with those representatives that are elected to represent the city and county of Waukesha, specifically Campinga, who just announced today that he's going to be running for county executive. Senator Julian Bradley. who just became my senator this round because he was redistricted to take over my portion of Waukesha. I haven't heard a single thing from him on this. So I'm just kind of interested, and if you hear the irritation in my voice, it's not you, Scott, personally. Understand, I just, you know, we are giving a huge amount of money, and we don't get it back. I think on the county level, when I attended the county meeting, financial meetings that the late Paul Farrell had last year when they were doing the county budget. We give what 1.5 or $1.6 billion to the state as a county and only get back about 60 million. So I would think that those representatives would be interested in knowing what the city, the constituents of Waukesha think and would hope that they would be going to bat for us and every chance they get have something to say. So I guess I'm curious to know how often it comes up for discussion. And again, I'm not irritated at you. Please understand that. This is just a real hot button for me. Thank you.

Yeah. Well, one of the things that I think would be something that that might be worth pursuing is sort of what I'll call a hold harmless provision that would sort of use an element of the return to origin concept whereby we keep the formulas in place that are in place, but maybe we take a portion of that growing local government fund and we add a hold harmless provision such that Counties and localities are provided a proportionate guarantee of a certain minimum percentage of the revenue that they send. To me, that seems like a prudent measure. Again, I can think it's a great idea all day long, but if I can't convince my fellow legislators of it, it doesn't make a hill of beans difference. And that's what I would say about the Waukesha County delegation, let's say, and why maybe you don't hear them talking about it much, because they understand the realities of this graph that's in front of you. Well, who are we going to get convinced to give up their share, right? So why would I even talk about that as a legislative possibility if it doesn't have a snowball's chance in H-E double toothpicks, you know? So I think that would be the defense, if you will. And it's very frustrating for them as well. Imagine being one of those representatives, as I have been, And to hear it from both sides, to hear locals complain about, well, hey, we're not getting our fair share. I know, I know, I know, right? And there's not a darn thing I can do about it. That's very frustrating. Thank you. Yep.

I think, Scott, for me, I think you share a lot of the same sentiment that Doreen and Dale share. I said the one thing that I've come back to a number of times is, from a levy limit standpoint, as you know, we're constrained in that new construction. And last year, that was 1.66%. That's what this council can consider in raising revenue, raising taxes, is 1.66% when all of our expenses, and that's primarily labor, is going up between 3% to 10%. And my dad used to joke with me about running government like a business. And I said, well, Dad, what does a business do when all your expenses go up? And he would pause and eventually come around to the realization that, well, maybe you need to raise your price a bit. and that's the challenge that we have is you know i've always said in this job that we are the trenches of government we're cops and firefighters and cutting grass and opening libraries and all the things that we do you know shoveling streets and plowing roads and that costs money and i still think and i will you know tell this to any constituent i have that i think what you pay in property taxes in the city of waukesha you get a pretty good return on that But Dale hit a good point in that we're landlocked. And we're landlocked because, in some respects, water, which we needed. But we're also landlocked because the legislature made a horrible decision with the town of Windsor legislation that let these towns become villages with virtually no bars to really jump over. So now you have the town of Waukesha that's now a village. And the opportunity to grow into that area is gone because they're a village. So in terms of throwing out ideas, there has to be some type of consideration for landlocked communities like us. And whether that's a multiplier of net new construction, something. But you are correct in that at some point this council is going to be faced with a very tough decision to go out for referendum. or make a drastic cut to services. And when 80% of our budget is people and 80% of that 80% is police and fire, it's a very difficult decision to make because Waukesha is definitely a public safety town. So I think in terms of just rendering some ideas or throwing out some suggestions to those that are willing to listen, it's that. The other thing that's been challenging for all of us, myself included, is with the expenditure restraint program, I get questioned all the time, like, why don't you do more with the county?

Can we stop for a second to talk about the landlocked situation? I have had some conversations with the Fiscal Bureau about crafting some legislation that would address the landlocked situation. And I invite your help, because the part that we were struggling with was how to precisely define landlocked, because we have to put that definition in statute. And so I don't have the answer to that. Based upon our last conversation, that's sort of the point that we were at as to, okay, how do we define what landlocked is? And then once we define what landlocked is, then what would be the... revenue enhancing formula or trigger for those. So how would, you know, is it a matter of an increase in levy limit authority under the levy limit program, or would it be some sort of extra supplementation in the supplemental aid program. Like what would that trigger if you're a landlocked community? So I invite your participation if you want to begin to sort of brainstorm that.

Perfect. And I know the mayor mentioned to me today before she's off to tribute Tuesday, but she mentioned that she's working with a variety of other mayors to present the legislature with some ideas. And Tony and I will make sure that we bring that provision up or that idea up. around providing the legislature some guidance on what is landlocked, because that's us.

And I don't know if you've identified other communities that are in the same boat, and I don't even know how many communities are in the same boat. Correct.

And I think City of Milwaukee would probably be the biggest example, but to your point, I think we'd have to really take a look at that and see what other communities are. Because as other communities, to go down a quick tangent, as other communities around us need to look to Lake Michigan for water, they're going to be faced with many of the same challenges that we are. The other point that I wanted to make this evening was the point around where folks asked me about why doesn't the city do more with the school district? Why don't you consolidate services? Why don't you do this, that, and the other thing? And I have to go back to them with, with a very tough rationale around some of the limitations with the expenditure restraint program and that is and this is very basic example so bear with me that say for example we partnered with the town or village of waukesha the town of waukesha to do something plow roads completely hypothetical right and we agreed that they'll pay us ten dollars a year to plow all their roads well the challenge is that the city, we just can't take that $10 of revenue and just add it to the pot. With the way the ERP law is written, I have to eliminate, we have to eliminate $10 of expenditure at the same time. So it's net nothing. So there's no incentive for communities like us or any community to partner with a county, a school district, a town, or a village because the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Well, to further complicate matters, the funding amount in the expenditure restraint program has not been increased over the last 20 years.

And, you know, I know a lot of communities have thought about just opting out of the program. And the city of Waukesha, we've had that conversation as a council and as a finance committee and internally over the years about, do we just opt out? So far, there's still benefit for us to stay in the program. But there's a lot of nuance in ERP, and there's a lot of nuance in levy limits that is their problem. for really no good reason. And a lot of us have talked to you and other legislatures about this over the years, and that's one of my frustrations is the inability for us to really work together with other units of government. And we don't have time to go down the whole home rule rabbit hole, but there's also a lot of provisions in the home rule law that prevent us from doing that. So, like Doreen said, I really appreciate you coming in this evening. And those were really the two points that I wanted to make tonight was... there's some limitations around working with other communities and then the fact that we're landlocked. So with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Brown. Did you have any comments or any questions?

Sure. Thank you for the opportunity. I think that Alderman Piper hit on exactly the thing that comes to mind, which is that when you talk about ERP levy limits and state-shared revenue, those are kind of the foundations of our intergovernmental revenue. And then you throw in kind of levy limits with that, which property taxes make roughly 60, 65%, I believe, of our general fund budget. And it creates a situation where we don't have a lot of opportunities to figure out how to adjust our budget according to the rising costs in operating our business, right? The city's business, the public's business. So I guess the thing that it leaves me thinking about is what solutions do you have in mind to address kind of the fact that you identified ERP, the funding hasn't been adjusted for 20 years, state shared revenue before this latest supplemental program, that it actually hasn't been adjusted. It decreased over the course of probably, what, 20, 30 years. So it seems that we're getting almost, yeah, the funding's going up in a real dollar sense, but once you adjust for inflation, it's probably more than likely decreasing. So again, it's it's more about I think to the chairs point What are the solutions the ideas that maybe have and you alluded to this as well? maybe have some window of opportunity to at least start a conversation and Figuring out how we can assist you in your role and getting some of those things to move forward.

Yeah, like the ERP I had fiscal bureau do some modeling on the ERP. Unfortunately, again, this is sort of the political reality. Unfortunately, it's not just these population 30,000 to 110,000 communities that are participating in the ERP. So if we increase the ERP amount, the larger communities are also going to benefit and they're already benefiting substantially already. That proposition, if brought forward, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's close, would not appeal to my Republican colleagues. It's just the reality. Or if we designed a program that, let's say the Democrats were in charge, and it increased funding for the rural communities, might not appeal to them. So these are the political realities is that I have to, with every possible scenario, I have to run the numbers to see where are the political alliances that we can pull together. And sometimes, when I think I have a clean solution,

It gets muddy real quick.

And so that's the hard part is that it's finding the common interest of these communities that are in this middle range that have a vested interest in improving this situation and have a justifiable cause to do so. And if we can find those commonalities, maybe then we could craft a piece of legislation that would append to the supplemental aid program to provide targeted relief for those communities.

Which I guess leads to my next question, which is in conversations with other representatives, are they hearing some of the same concerns from the municipalities they represent about the local government funding framework? So in other words, is this something that is widely acknowledged amongst your colleagues or it's isolated to COMMUNITIES WITH POPULATIONS BETWEEN 30,000 TO 110,000, AS AN EXAMPLE.

YEAH. MANY OF MY COLLEAGUES THAT ARE IN WAUKESHA COUNTY REPRESENT A HOST OF COMMUNITIES THAT FALL IN THE 5 TO 30,000 RANGE. AND YOU SEE THEY BENEFITED, YOU KNOW, PRETTY SIGNIFICANTLY FROM THE SUPPLEMENTAL AID PROGRAM. AND THEY WERE ALREADY DOING MUCH BETTER THAN WE ARE IN THE ORIGINAL SHARED, OR NOT THE ORIGINAL, BUT THE EXISTING SHARED REVENUE PROGRAM. So many of them have their communities quite pleased with the Supplemental Aid Program. So there's very few that have expressed a similar degree of angst or frustration as I have. Okay. Okay. Thanks.

Scott, again, thank you for coming in this evening. I think you know exactly how we feel, and I think you have a very good idea of where we're coming from, and we hope that anyone who ends up in your chair after the next election continues to hear this, and we can make some progress, because this is a challenge for us, and it's not that we all just want to sit up here and raise everybody's taxes. That's not the case at all. We have a responsibility to make sure that cops show up and firefighters show up and whatever you put out at the curb disappears, et cetera, et cetera. And the reality of that, that takes money. And unfortunately, it's just becoming more and more expensive. So we have certainly appreciate the conversation and you coming in this evening. I also wanna thank Alderperson Miklitz, Alderman Camacho, and Alderman Van Trieste for joining us this evening. And with that, we'll move to item number six, which is communications. Mr. Brown, Denise.

No communications.

So as we know, we are in the throes of budget season. So make sure that the 25th of August is firmly on your calendar for our 6 o'clock show and tell at the City Garage. Scott, you are more than welcome to attend that as well, or have a member of your team attend. And since you're here, I would implore... I would ask you to implore your colleagues to attend that meeting as well, because it's a great primer on our capital budget and a really cool opportunity to see a lot of the equipment that we're looking to replace. I was there last year. You were there last year. Yep. Thank you, Scott. Any referrals from the committee? Any objection to adjourning? With that, we are adjourned. Thank you, folks.