HOWARD (NBC 26) — Wisconsin Republicans have released their full proposed bill to increase state shared revenue. That could mean more money for your community.
A memo from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau said $176.4 million in aid would be given to municipalities across the state. The money will go toward law enforcement, fire protection and essential services in communities.
Municipalities would be divided into three categories: populations less than 5,000, populations between 5,000 and 30,000 and populations more than 30,000.
Communities in all of these categories would receive at least a 10% increase in state funding.
The Village of Howard is one of those communities. Village of Howard Administrator Paul Evert said that under this proposal, the village could see their state shared revenue "increase by almost half a million dollars."
He said this is about a 92% increase from the $544,000 that the village currently receives.
“We would be able to move forward with the seven additional firefighters with this increase," Evert said. "It doesn’t cover all of that increase, but because it was an ambulance service addition as well in that, between the revenues we expect from the ambulance and this additional funding, we can add a number of cross-trained paramedic firefighters we had planned if the referendum had passed."
Evert said this could be a big win for the village because shared revenue was previously cut, and now the village is underfunded because of its rapid growth in recent years.
The Villages of Suamico and Hobart would also see an increase in state funding.
Village of Suamico Administrator Alex Kaker said he is “thankful the state has acknowledged and worked hard to rectify the broken shared revenue formula." He also said he hopes to see the proposal "approved within the next state budget.”
$50 million would also be distributed to counties across the state.
The memo said the funding will begin in 2024. After then, counties and municipalities will still receive the same amount as the year before, as well as money from the newly-created supplemental county and municipal aid program that will based off of the rate in growth of state sales tax.
As of now, the proposal needs to be voted on still before communities see more money.
“We certainly hope this passes because this really would be a big game changer for us," Evert said.
