Weekly Fiscal Facts are provided to Wisconsin NewsMedia Association members by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. The Wisconsin Policy Forum logo can be downloaded here.
Net operating spending for all Wisconsin cities and villages rose 4.4% on a per capita basis in 2024, outpacing the rate of inflation due in part to an influx of state aid to municipalities.
This came after passage of 2023 Wisconsin Act 12 delivered the largest increase in decades for shared revenue, the state’s largest form of general aid to cities and villages, as well as towns and counties.
The subsequent increase in municipal operating spending the following year occurred across its four
largest categories: general government rose by 12.4%, street maintenance by 5.3%, fire and EMS by
7.1%, and net police by 5.6%. All outpaced the 2.9% rate of inflation in 2024.
These are among the findings from the Forum’s annual update to our Municipal DataTool. The tool
provides interactive data on municipal government spending and services for all 607 cities and villages in Wisconsin – from the village of Yuba (population 52) to the city of Milwaukee.
The four largest categories of municipal net operating spending – general government, street
maintenance, fire and EMS, and police — are identified collectively as basic spending. (General
government spending includes legislative, legal, general or financial administration, and general
building or plant spending.) Net basic spending grew 7.0% in 2024, to $797 per capita. This
outpaced inflation and marked the largest annual increase in the last decade.
Notwithstanding the large increase in 2024, net basic spending growth throughout Wisconsin
has lagged the rate of inflation over the long term. Since 2015, net basic spending has risen
25.1%, while inflation during that same period was 29.6%.
From 2015 to 2024, fire and EMS spending grew by 31.1%, which may be an indicator of the
financial and staffing pressures on the state’s EMS and fire service providers, as analyzed in
recent Forum work. General government spending netted a 36.6% over that same time period,
The remaining two categories of basic spending, street maintenance and police, grew but at
more modest rates – 22.0% and 20.2%, respectively.
Following passage of 2023 Wisconsin Act 12, shared revenue aid to cities and villages rose
19.3% to $901.5 million in 2024, an increase of $146 million. This followed many years with
relatively little change in shared revenue. The average per capita shared revenue amount
increased 18.3% to $204.
General obligation debt grew 5.0% in 2024 to $9.24 billion, the largest proportional increase
since 2020. However, debt as a share of the state limit fell again to 31.6%, reflecting a larger
rise in property values, which are used to calculate the state cap. This continues a progression
of decline from 42.5% in 2016, the high point in our dataset.
This information is a service of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. Learn more at wispolicyforum.org.
