MADISON, WI (WTAQ) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court, by a 5-2 vote, rules Brown County’s half-percent sales tax is legal.
The tax, implemented in 2018, funded the new Resch Expo, road and infrastructure improvements, the county jail, museum, libraries and parks. The Brown County Taxpayers Association challenged the tax, arguing that the sales tax is illegal because state law only allows counties to impose sales taxes to reduce property taxes — not fund new spending.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed,” said Rich Heidel, the president of that association. “We still do believe that the statute in question here is very simple. Perhaps you’d have to be a lawyer to misconstrue it.”
The Supreme Court’s majority opinion held that “because the County’s ordinance does in fact directly reduce the property tax levy by funding projects that would otherwise have been paid for through additional debt obligations, we determine that the ordinance is permissible.”
That works for Andy Phillips, a lawyer who worked on the case with Brown County.
“A dollar of sales and use tax proceeds that is used on a capital project is a dollar the county doesn’t have to borrow to fund that project,” Phillips told WTAQ. “Then they would have to pay all the costs and interest, so it’s a savings to the Brown County taxpayer.”
With justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Patience Roggensack, Rebecca Dallet, Brian Hagedorn and Jill Karofsky in favor and justices Rebecca Bradley and Annette Ziegler dissenting.
Heidel says they intend to ask legislators to change the law.
WTAQ’s Rob Sussman contributed to this report.
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