The Winnebago County Courthouse in Oshkosh, July 18 2025. PC: Fox 11 Online
WINNEBAGO COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Winnebago County is taking the first step toward a new half percent sales tax.
“At Tuesday’s county board meeting, I’ll be given a presentation on an overview of how the local county options sales tax works, what other counties do, the different things that it’s used for,” said Winnebago County Executive Gordon Hintz.
Winnebago County is currently the only county in Northeast Wisconsin, and one of two counties in the entire state, to not have a sales tax.
Hintz said the county is taking preliminary steps, with the actual decision months away. It comes as the county is looking for money to help fund repairs to government buildings.
The sales tax would also come with a reduction in property taxes for residents.
“So the way state law works is the local county sales tax option has to be used towards property tax relief or to fund services that would be funded by the property tax,” Hintz said.
Hintz said that as of now, about 30% of sales tax revenue comes from non-residents.
People that come to Winnebago County for EAA or for Lifest, events like that. They use our services, but they are subsidized by property taxpayers.
But Rob Kleman, president and CEO of the Oshkosh Chamber, said the sales tax may cause problems in a time of rising costs and inflation.
“From our perspective, generally, it doesn’t seem like maybe the timing is right now from that perspective — from working families, from businesses that are seeing rising costs as we speak,” he said.
Still, the Chamber is willing to keep an open mind for the plan.
“If you can guarantee that that’s being utilized to reduce property taxes, that could be a good thing. So let’s see exactly what comes of this and where the proposal heads,” Kleman said.
While discussions are ongoing, the Chamber and Hintz both say there’s plenty of wiggle room before the sales tax is implemented and that public input is welcome.
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