Fiscal Facts

In 2021, Wisconsin’s combined state and local governments counted just less than 277,800 full-time equivalent employees, the fewest relative to the state’s population in at least two decades.

Wisconsin towns have leaned more heavily on property tax revenues to fund local services in the past three decades as state aid increases have slowed and town borrowing has risen to record levels.

Fire and emergency medical service (EMS) agencies across Wisconsin are stressed, facing fiscal challenges, increasing service demands, tightening labor markets, and upheaval related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new Wisconsin Policy Forum analysis finds areas for potential economic improvement in Kenosha County that local policymakers and business and civic leaders may wish to consider.

Tight constraints on state and local revenue paired with an unprecedented stream of federal aid have created a fiscal paradox for Wisconsin’s two largest school districts — bolstering their near-term finances while leaving the future deeply uncertain.

Weekly Fiscal Facts are provided to Wisconsin Newspaper Association members by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research

Passenger volumes on commercial flights in Wisconsin increased in 2021 after the freefall of a year earlier, but continued to trail pre-pandemic levels to a greater extent than the nation.

Employment in Wisconsin arts and cultural sectors has rebounded substantially from the COVID-19 pandemic, due in part to an unprecedented federal and state relief effort.

While unprecedented levels of federal pandemic relief have swept into Wisconsin since 2020, the combined aid to its state and local governments ranks in the bottom 10 states when measured as a share of annual spending.

Total state financial aid to college and university students in Wisconsin has lagged or declined in the last decade, leaving students to shoulder more of the cost of education – and undermining a tool to stem the state’s higher education enrollment declines and workforce challenges.