May 5, 2017


Legislative Initiatives

The last few weeks have, undoubtedly been some of the busiest, yet enjoyable, from a policy standpoint, of my tenure as your State Representative.  In addition to releasing several consequential legislative initiatives--two of which I have been working on for nearly two years--I had the opportunity to join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in providing much-needed assistance to those who are homeless.

Thank you to everyone who attended my in-district listening sessions, last month.  I appreciated your attendance and willingness to express your concerns regarding the budget and direction our state is heading.  I make it a point to keep your views and thoughts in mind before voting on legislation. As always, if you have comments, questions, concerns, or need assistance dealing with a state agency, do not hesitate to contact my office.

Homelessness agenda

As denoted, I joined my colleagues, this week, in supporting Assembly Bills 234, 235, 236, and 237, designed to eradicate homelessness in Wisconsin.  The aforementioned bills take crucial first steps in providing resources and direction for homelessness services and include the establishment of an interagency council on homelessness to better coordinate strategies and funding.

Addressing the issue of homelessness is a priority in the Assembly Republican Forward Agenda.  The bills were passed with bipartisan support in the assembly and were sent to the senate for final passage. 

In addition to the establishment of an interagency council on homelessness, these bills would allow the state to better utilize existing funds for combating homelessness, create a pilot program to provide funding for a community program designed to connect homeless adults with permanent employment, and authorize the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA) to prioritize chronically homeless individuals and families for housing vouchers. 

I came to Madison to make a difference in people's lives and to help individuals who may be down on their luck.  I look forward to seeing final approval of this legislation in the senate and having the governor sign this package into law.

Bonding for local governments

On Wednesday, May 3, 2017 public hearings were held in the Assembly Local Government Committee and Senate Committee on Economic Development Committee, on two bills I coauthored with Senator Duey Stroebel relating to bonding requirements for local units of government.

The first, Assembly Bill 168 (Senate Bill 123), ensures property taxes are properly distributed to local taxing entities, chiefly, schools, municipalities, counties, and technical colleges.  At this writing, most property tax payments made in December and January, are paid to, and collected by, municipal treasurers.  Municipalities retain a share of the property tax and distribute the remainder to other taxing jurisdictions. 

Due to the antiquated nature of the statute in which this is addressed--it has not been amended since 1991--Wisconsin's surety bond threshold is no longer sufficient to cover the state and county tax levy in the event a municipality is unable to distribute the property tax. 

Quite simply, this legislation updates Wisconsin State Statutes 70.67 to require municipalities to enact either an ordinance guaranteeing proper distribution of property taxes to other taxing jurisdictions, or to attain a surety bond in an amount not less than the total state and county property tax levy.

The purpose of Assembly Bill 169 (Senate Bill 122) is to make filing of official bonds permissive, not mandatory.  At this writing, state law stipulates that certain municipal officials must, as a prerequisite to assuming office, file an official bond.  The purpose of the bond is to protect the municipality and taxpayers against any loss of public funds which might occur when public officials fail to perform the duties of their respective office. 

Municipalities find these bonding requirements confusing and an unnecessary expense.  Many have justifiably asked why it is necessary to pay for bonds for various elected and appointed municipal officials when the municipality has also purchased employee dishonesty and other insurance coverage options to protect them and taxpayers against losses caused by employee wrongdoing.

Testifying before the Assembly Local Government Committee on Assembly Bills 168 and 169.

Testifying before the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Commerce, and Local Government on Senate Bills 122 and 123.

Waste heat recovery

This session, Senator Roger Roth (R-Appleton) and I drafted legislation to promote waste heat recovery in industries and manufacturing facilities throughout Wisconsin.  Waste heat is generated as a byproduct from all industrial processes that involve combining raw materials into a useable product.  Too often, heat energy is inadvertently vented through smokestacks and wasted.  Assembly Bill 204 would designate heat energy as a renewable resource as defined under Wisconsin's Renewable Portfolio Standards, or RPS, as it is colloquially known.

Including the new collection technology under RPS will encourage more industries and manufacturers to promote waste heat recovery procedures to lessen utility expenses and potentially use the recovered heat for future energy generation.  Investment in heat recovery equipment has provided both economic and environmental benefits to a number of states around the country.  Moreover, a number of our Midwestern neighbors (Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, and Michigan) have adopted language to define waste heat as a renewable resource or energy efficiency.  This legislation benefits local companies such as Charter Steel and Rockwell Automation.

This legislation was passed by the Wisconsin State Senate, this week and now heads to the Assembly for final passage.

Threshold Modernization Initiative

I recently coauthored the Threshold Modernization Initiative with Senators Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg) and Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg).  Competitive bidding has proven, time and again, to save taxpayers copious amounts of money on a myriad of capital improvement projects.  As the cost of these projects has increased--precipitated in part by inflation--the threshold for triggering competitive bidding has remained stagnant since 2005.  As a result, local governments have been required to competitively bid for small-dollar projects that in the past, would have fallen under the cap levels. This legislation increases the competitive bidding threshold for local governments from $25,000 to $75,000. Incidentally, Governor Walker's biennial budget proposed increasing the aforementioned threshold from $50,000 to $100,000 for state projects.

What is more, this bill requires that school districts employ competitive bidding on public works projects exceeding $75,000.  Current law exempts school districts from having to use competitive bidding. This bill, quite simply, requires school districts to become more fiscally responsible, by employing competitive bidding for large expenditures, chiefly capital improvement projects.  Additionally, the Threshold Modernization Initiative codifies best practices employed by innumerable school districts that currently have self-imposed bidding requirements.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Wisconsin taxpayers, in 2016, approved, via the referendum process, $1.34 billion in debt issuance for capital improvement projects.  Moreover, in 2017 alone, Wisconsin taxpayers approved more than $700 million via the referendum process; none of which were required to competitively bid their projects.  Ensuring that, going forward, these projects are subject to competitive bidding requirements, will potentially save taxpayers millions of dollars annually and ensure that school districts are using the lowest responsible bidder, analogous to their local government partners.

Exemptions to the bidding requirements will be made for emergencies or natural disasters.  In addition, this proposal retains the existing $25,000 threshold for horizontal public works projects.

Homeowners Rights Initiative

Senator Dave Craig (R-Town of Vernon) and I are introduced the Homeowners Rights Initiative, which affords property owners with the right to refuse entry by assessors into their home.

This legislation serves to affirm the right of property owners to refuse entry into their home and expressly provides for the right to appeal to the Board of Review, even if entry by the assessor had been refused.  This bill further provides that an assessor may not increase a property's valuation based the property owner's refusal to allow entry.  Additionally, this bill requires property assessors to provide a notice of "Property Owner Rights" to property owners when requesting to view the interior of a residence informing the owner of their rights.  Also, under this legislation property owners do not forfeit their right to come before the Board of Review to contest an assessment if the property owner does not provide income information to the assessor.

Further, the existing law (Wis. Stat 70.47 (7) (aa) prohibiting a property owner from appealing the Board of Review is currently being challenged in an amicus curiae brief submitted by the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) in Milewski v. Town of Dover. The case is currently awaiting a decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.  In the brief, DOJ argued that the statutory prohibition was "implicitly repealed" by the state legislature when the legislature adopted statute 70.05 (4m) which expressly states that a property owner may deny entry to an assessor.  This bill will address the problem so future property owners will know their rights and be able to exercise them without penalty. 

Testifying with Senator Dave Craig before the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Commerce, and Local Government on behalf of our Homeowners Rights Initiative.

Dark Stores

For the past two years, I have been researching the intricacies of the "dark store" assessment issue.  After two years of research and countless meeting with key stakeholders, I have released two bills designed to prevent a drastic tax shift from retailers to homeowners and municipalities.  This legislation affects communities across Wisconsin and is certain to generate copious media attention in the months ahead.  I unveiled these proposals at a press conference surrounded by legislators from both sides of the aisle and local mayors.

The first of these proposals, LRB 0373 that I coauthored with Senator Roger Roth (R-Appleton), codifies Wisconsin case law and guidance provide by the Department of Revenue's Wisconsin Property Tax Assessment Manual, to clarify that when assessors use sales of comparable properties for determining the value of a property, they must use properties that are within the same market segment and similar to the property being assessed with regard to age, condition, use, type of construction, location, design, and economic characteristic.  Our legislation adopts language from the aforementioned manual to exhibit best practices during assessments.

The second proposal, LRB 0372, that I coauthored with Senator Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg) relates to property tax assessments regarding leased property and seeks to overturn the 2008 Supreme Court decision, Walgreen Company v. City of Madison (2008), to convince courts that their assessed values should be less than half-of-the actual sale prices of the properties.  Attorneys representing single-tenant retail facilities maintain that the actual sale prices of the stores do not represent market value and underlying leases are not the most effective mechanism for determining the property's value for property tax purposes.

In 2016, for example, a single-tenant retail facility in Wauwatosa sold for $8.67 million.  Yet, the city is limited to assessing the property at $3.48 million.  The city assessor would like to assess the property based on the recent sale price, but is prohibited from doing so by the Walgreen Company v. City of Madison (2008) decision.  Indeed, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals recently relied on the aforementioned case to affirm that a single-tenant retail facility in Appleton should be valued at $1.8 million, much less than the city's $4.4 million assessment, which was based on an actual sale of the property.  Appleton must now make a $350,000 tax refund.

It is critical to the fairness of our tax system that all properties be assessed at fair-market value.  The purpose of this decision is simple: to ensure equity in the property assessment process and prevent more of the property tax burden from being shifted to homeowners.

Unveiling my dark store legislation at a bipartisan press conference.


This month in Madison


Earlier this month, I had the privilege of traveling to Washington, DC with other members of the Assembly Republican leadership team, to discuss state-related issues with members of the state's congressional delegation.  Collaboration between federal and state lawmakers pertaining to issues of greatest concern to Wisconsinites, is of paramount importance.

Members of the Republican Assembly Leadership team meeting with United States Representative Jim Sensenbrenner.

Assembly Leadership conversing with Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Paul Ryan.

Meeting with United States Representative Sean Duffy.

Meeting with United States Representative Mike Gallagher

Have a great week,


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State Capitol Room 309 North-PO Box 8952, Madison, WI 53708

(608) 267-2369

Email: Rep.Rob.Brooks@legis.Wisconsin.gov