Residents of Brown County have a little extra money coming their way. Gov. Walker on Monday signed a bill that will return $17 million in excess taxes that the county collected to upgrade Lambeau Field. In the greater Milwaukee area, it’s been a different story when it comes to paying off Miller Park. Taxpayers here have been repaying the debt for nearly 20 years. The end date for the tax came and went.
It’s never an easy process, agreeing on public funding for a professional sports venue. Recently we saw the back and forth between state lawmakers and those from metro Milwaukee over a new Bucks arena. Years before the Bucks needed a new home, legislators hashed out a deal to build Miller Park for the Milwaukee Brewers. Back then Tommy Thompson was governor. He spoke about the struggle in 1995.
“I can assure you there where many fights when the city walked away, the county walked away, the state walked away and the Brewers walked away. Not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, but many times. And you know what happened? Every time somebody walked away, they would call us up again the next day and say let’s try again,” Thompson says.
It’s now been nearly 20 years since lawmakers passed legislation creating the Miller Park stadium tax. It added a tenth of a percent onto the local sales tax. The result is that consumers in five counties pay about $11 per person annually.
Originally, the debt was projected to be paid off in 2014 but Mike Duckett says the economy changed. Duckett is executive director of the Miller Park district.
“The sales tax was set up originally projecting a 5.5 percent growth rate in the sales tax. The legislature then understood the tax would then be collected approximately through 2014 to 2018. Somewhere in that window,” Duckett says.
Collections over last 10 years have fallen $132 million short, according to Duckett. He says two factors are largely responsible. One is that more sales have moved online where it’s difficult to collect taxes and two, the lingering effects of the Great Recession.
“We’re seeing about a 2 percent growth rate this year over last year in spending and retail sales and sales tax collection. It still isn’t great. It’s not the kind of growth that we saw more than a decade ago,” Duckett says.
Duckett says the only way the district can make up that money is by extending the sales tax. As for people comparing the situation here with the fact that the Lambeau Field tax is already retired, Duckett says the two cases are actually quite different.
“The Lambeau Field district also imposed a 10 percent ticket tax on all tickets for events at Lambeau Field. Miller Park has no such ticket tax,” Duckett says.
Duckett says he understands people are beginning to question whether the Miller Park tax will ever end and he assures them it will, and he can’t wait for the day.
“There’s skeptics that say we’ll never retire the tax, but our district board, they’re appointed officials that work as a volunteer for the community and they are just dedicated to protecting the taxpayers and retiring that debt,” Duckett says.
The tax is now projected to sunset in 2020.
