Madison, WI – On Wednesday, Senate Republicans approved the next state budget and passed legislation repealing Wisconsin’s 151 year-old personal property tax.

“Today is a great day for Wisconsin,” said Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Saukville) the Senate vice chairman of the Joint Finance Committee. “The Republican budget reduces the size and scope of government, lowers taxes, and provides historic levels of funding to K-12 schools. This budget is pro-taxpayer, pro-education and fiscally sound. It continues a decade-long effort by legislative Republicans to prudently manage Wisconsin’s finances.”

“This budget spends $17.9 billion on K-12 schools over the next two years; that is more money than the state has ever spent – by a long shot – on K-12 priorities in a budget. Those who argue it is not enough are playing games because the facts and figures show that Republicans take K-12 education seriously,” Stroebel said. “I continue to expect more accountability, and demand better outcomes, from our K-12 education system.”

“We have invested historic amounts of state money in special needs education and we used a portion of new federal education dollars to reward school districts that were open for in-person education,” Stroebel pointed out. “Republicans increased the special needs reimbursement rate from an average of 10% of a district’s costs to 30% of a district’s costs.”

In conjunction with the budget, the legislature also passed a full repeal of the personal property tax.

“It is not often that government chooses to completely and totally eliminate a tax, but that’s exactly what legislative Republicans have done to the 151 year-old personal property tax,” Stroebel noted. “This tax is inefficient to administer, inefficient to comply with, and represents an outdated approach to tax policy. Eliminating this tax eventually results in a $200 million a year savings for small business owners across Wisconsin.”

The budget also lowers the state’s second highest income tax rate from 6.27% to 5.3%, which will save the average Wisconsin family $1,000 a year on their state income taxes. “The personal property tax repeal, income tax cut, and a property tax relief measure mean the Republican budget lowers taxes by $3.4 billion,” Stroebel said. “That’s a long way from the $1.5 billion in tax and fee hikes that were proposed by the governor at the beginning of this process.”

“This is a good budget for Wisconsin and I hope Gov. Tony Evers does the right thing and signs it into law,” Stroebel concluded.

Sen. Duey Stroebel represents the 20th Senate District which includes portions of Ozaukee, Washington, Fond du Lac, Sheboygan and Calumet counties.

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