The Joint Finance Committee Comes to Platteville

Council President Eileen Nickels, Council President Pro-Tem Barb Daus and I had the opportunity to speak today before the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance. Legislative advocacy is one of the duties of a City Manager. Platteville residents were well represented at the hearing. Also in attendance were UW-P Chancellor Dennis Shields, Platteville School Superintendent Connie Valenza, Chamber of Commerce Director Kathy Kopp, Main Street Director Jack Luedkte, PAIDC Board President Pete Mumm, and Grant Count Board Chair Bob Keene as well as numerous other residents and faculty.

We are grateful to Senator Howard Marklein and Representatives Travis Tranel and Todd Novak for bringing the Committee to our corner of the state! Speakers are limited to 2 minutes – and believe me - it goes fast! The content of my testimony is highlighted below for those who are curious:

Thank you for visiting Platteville today. We are excited to have you in our community and on campus at UW-P. We appreciate that you have a difficult job to do and we applaud you for taking the time to reach out your constituents as you begin your deliberations.  

We have a number of exciting projects underway (or recently completed) in the City Platteville that are due – in part - to state and federal assistance. Those projects include:

• The Library Block project – featuring a new 72 room Holiday Inn, public library and Neighborhood Health Clinic. The project was the recipient of WHEDA new market tax credits.
• The David Canny Rountree Branch Trail – now paved and lighted thanks to a DNR grant.
• A new 34-unit apartment complex, a result of WHEDA housing tax credits. 
• The City purchased a former downtown auto dealership with CDBG and WEDC grants. We now have a proposed 71 unit mixed use project under review for additional tax credits.
• An EDA grant helped us to expand our industry park.
• A $300,000 loan forgiveness program from the DNR will assist us in replacing lead service lines on private property.

For the most part, these projects have all been public-private partnerships. We worked very hard to leverage every state and federal dollar possible with City resources and support from our local businesses and non-profits.  Tax increment financing has also played an important role as one of the few economic development tools available to cities.

From the City’s perspective, this hasn’t been easy. And my guess is that for some of you, that might be the intent. As a rural community with lower growth rates, we have struggled under the levy limits placed on us by the State and from diminished state aid. As a city that has just crossed the threshold of MS4 stormwater regulations, we have no idea how we will fund these new expensive mandates. Exempting stormwater utility fees from levy limits or using “new construction” versus “net new construction” would help.

Now we are troubled by the prospect of the dark store tax loophole and elimination of personal property taxes placing an even greater tax burden on our residential homeowners. We hope that you will close the dark store loophole and make sure that if personal property taxes are eliminated, a plan is in place to make sure the burden isn’t shifted to homeowners.

I know that you know that our infrastructure is deteriorating. The increase in costs to replace roads has been considerably higher than our levy limits. As a result, we both borrow more and fix fewer roads.  While we appreciate Governor Walker’s increase in the budget in road funding for rural areas, we believe that this is a quick patch on a problem that needs long term, sustainable funding solution. We would like to see the budget go further in addressing our systemic transportation problems.

Decreased funding through the Municipal Services Program has also been significant challenge for Platteville. At the same time UW-P was the fastest growing university in the system, our aid to assist with university-related costs declined from 80% to 40% of costs incurred. 

That isn’t to say that we don’t love UW-P. The University pumps almost 8 million dollars into our local economy each year.  We couldn’t imagine our town without UW-P's robust engineering programs that tie back to our mining legacy. That is why we think it is critical to fund the new engineering building and the remodeling of Boebel Hall. It makes no sense to us for the State to be considering adding engineering programs at other campuses, when these projects have not been addressed. Engineering programs are expensive, let’s be smart with our resources and maintain the excellent, well-established program that already exists here in Platteville. Go Pioneers!