Fiscal Facts

Wisconsin communities spent about $1.28 billion on law enforcement in 2018, up from $353 million in 1986, an increase of nearly 60% after accounting for inflation.

Even as state sales tax collections overall slipped 10% for May amid the COVID-19 crisis, internet sales have shot upward as consumers flocked online.

In 2018, women continued to earn less than men for full-time work both locally and nationally. According to Census data, the median annual earnings of women in Milwaukee County was about 85% of the median among men. By comparison, women’s median annual earnings were just 79% of men’s nationally.

As school districts across Wisconsin enter budget season amid extraordinary financial uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Milwaukee officials offered a $1.2 billion “placeholder” 2021 budget that defers many key questions to be resolved later in the budget process.

Despite safer-at-home orders in place through May 26, many Wisconsinites already had become more mobile than in the opening weeks of the pandemic.

As the COVID-19 pandemic spurs Wisconsin schools to undertake an unprecedented exercise in virtual and distance learning, it also threatens to exacerbate the “digital divide” between students who have fast, reliable at-home internet access and those who do not. Data shows these children are in both cities and rural areas, and are disproportionately low-income and students of color.

Wisconsin school districts face extraordinary uncertainty in drafting next year’s budgets amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Key questions include whether and how schools will open this fall and whether the drop in state tax collections will mean a cut in state school aids.

In the April election, Wisconsin voters again approved the vast majority of school district referenda to increase local property taxes, despite the economic uncertainty linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic began causing traffic on Wisconsin’s roads to plummet even before the governor’s Safer at Home order was issued on March 24.

Among all Wisconsin local governments, its counties are likely to face the greatest fiscal challenges during this unprecedented COVID-19 crisis.