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• Hudson -- Lower home values won't decrease property taxes
• Hudson, New Richmond voters say they want action on health care

By Randy Hanson

rhanson@rivertowns.net

If you think a decrease in the market value of your home will lower your property tax bill, you could be disappointed when the bill arrives in late December.

Hudson resident Roger Schlemmer recently inquired of Mayor Dean Knudson whether the assessed value of property was going to be reduced to reflect lower market values. He received what to him was a disappointing response.

"As long as values have generally and uniformly decreased, there is no tax advantage for you in decreasing your assessment," Knudson replied in an e-mail to Schlemmer.

Schlemmer shared the e-mail with the Star-Observer, thinking it would be instructive for other city residents.

"The housing values are definitely down across the board, as are general real estate values for commercial, industrial and even vacant land," Knudson said.

But the city will use the assessed values from last year again this year, he said, because the purpose of assessments is simply to divide the property tax burden among the various properties.

"For example, if we cut your assessment by 5 percent electronically, and did that for your neighbors on either side and across the street, the effect would be that we all still pay exactly the same in taxes as we did last year," the mayor explained.

Knudson went on to say that he has proposed cutting city residents' property taxes through the budget process.

"We have put in place a hiring freeze. And we are moving toward a dramatic reduction in the cost of health insurance for city employees that will take our cost next year from $1.5 million down to $1 million," Knudson continued. "I have proposed a 5 percent tax cut for this year, which will translate to a real tax break for you on your December tax bill."

Schlemmer told the Star-Observer, "I feel that the mayor is making an effort to protect us, and maybe this is the best we can hope for."

Voters in the city of Hudson said overwhelmingly in a Nov. 4 advisory referendum that they want the Wisconsin Legislature to make affordable health care available to all state residents.

By a margin of 4,851 to 1,769, Hudson residents said lawmakers should enact legislation by Dec. 31, 2009, guaranteeing every Wisconsin resident affordable health care coverage with benefits that are substantially similar to those provided to state legislators.

Hudson's 73% approval of the question was similar to the support it received in a total of 16 cities and six counties across the state.

In all, 411,361 Wisconsin residents voted yes on the question and 144,120 said no. The percentage breakdown was 74.1% to 25.9%.

Dane County, home to Wisconsin's capital city of Madison, was the largest governmental entity to hold a referendum on health care reform. Its residents supported the question 176,770 (73%) to 63,765 (27%).

The referendum question, worded identically in of the each 22 local governments, was promoted by Citizen Action of Wisconsin, a progressive advocacy organization supported by a host of labor unions and economic, social justice and environmental organizations.

In order to get the question on the ballot in each of the cities and counties, Citizen Action had to obtain the signatures of citizens equal to 15% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election.

In northwestern Wisconsin, the question also was on the ballot in the cities of Eau Claire, Menomonie, New Richmond and part of River Falls, and the counties of Polk and Washburn.

It won in a landside in all of those cities and counties, too. New Richmond supported the question 2,923 (79%) to 779 (21%). It ran into the most resistance in Polk County, where voters nevertheless approved it 14,232 (66%) to 7,179 (34%).

See next week's Hudson Star-Observer for more on the story.