MADISON – Representative Tony Kurtz (R – Wonewoc) released the weekly radio address on behalf of Wisconsin Legislative Republicans.
Back in the spring of 2022, a couple of rural legislators and I met and talked about some of the needs of rural Wisconsin, and how some of those communities have not grown. So the question was how do you try to help those communities?
The idea is we’re going to take one cent of the sales tax, 20 percent, and from that account, we will pay out to locals and then we’re going to add new money to counties, towns, villages, and locals.
Every community in the state of Wisconsin will see a minimum of a 10 percent increase. This new money, $227 million, will go toward core services – law enforcement, fire protection, emergency medical services, emergency response communications, public works, and transportation.
We’re also going to have a $300 million three-year pilot program called the Innovation Fund. The goal of the Innovation Fund is to have communities work together. Those two accounts will be tied to the growth of the sales tax in the state. So if the state does well, our locals are going to do well.
I personally am very excited about the future of this proposal and that it’s going to truly help a lot of our local governments.
