Fiscal Facts

Amid the crisis of the pandemic’s onset in 2020, Wisconsin cities and villages increased spending on police, fire, and EMS services, while reducing other expenditures.

The community school model, emphasizing links between schools and the communities they serve, has rapidly expanded in Wisconsin.

Enrollment in Wisconsin public and charter schools stabilized in 2021 but failed to recoup any of the decrease of more than 25,000 students that occurred the previous year.

Milwaukee stands out among its peer cities for its stark racial inequity in homeownership, with larger disparities in homeownership rates than 10 national peer cities.

As Wisconsin continues its economic recovery from the pandemic, total employment in the state has nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels.

More Wisconsin municipalities are reacting to mounting budget constraints by imposing a transportation fee on property owners based on estimated use of local infrastructure.

Wisconsin’s national rank on per-pupil school spending continues to fall, newly released data show.

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.