What will Popple River, Wisconsin's second-smallest town, do with a 5,000% increase in state funding?
TOWN OF POPPLE RIVER - The five town board members in Popple River, the second-smallest town in Wisconsin with just 43 year-round residents, are making a wish list.
The town has needs and wants. They need to maintain their 28 miles of road and provide emergency services amid rising costs. They want to replace cracked windows in the nearly century-old town hall and add indoor plumbing, so poll workers no longer have to use an outhouse.
"There's always places to spend money in a small community," said Mary "Sissie" Sullivan, the board chairwoman of Popple River. "If it costs $150 to replace a window, and you don't have $150 in your town checkbook, that becomes an issue."
Popple River is located in the heart of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, where cabins are nestled into the Northwoods trees. The town has two main roads and one business — a pub and brewery owned by Wade and Katie Haen, both newly elected members of the town board.
The board may be able to check off more of their wish list soon. Popple River is in line to get a massive increase in the funding the town receives from the state — a 5,070% increase, to be exact.
The type of aid boosted for towns like Popple River is known as shared revenue. It's a stream of funding the state sends to counties, towns, villages and cities that local governments can use freely. Earlier this summer, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican leaders reached a compromise to boost that funding after over a decade of no increases.
That deal gave a minimum 20% increase to municipalities with a population under 110,000. Counties and the state's two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, will receive at least a 10% increase in shared revenue.
But the formulas in the new law favor Wisconsin's tiniest communities. Cedar Rapids in Rusk County, the smallest town in Wisconsin, will receive the highest percentage increase, at 5,748%. At least a dozen towns are getting increases of 1,000% or more.
Since 2012, Popple River has received $606 each year in shared revenue from the state — an "eyedropper into a bucket," Sullivan said. Under the new agreement, the town is set to receive a total of $31,329 in 2024 and $32,056 in 2025, though that won't pay for everything on their list.
"This new funding is a great windfall for us," Sullivan said. "I'm extremely grateful for the shared revenue increase because I do think we were possibly overlooked in the past."
Many towns will use shared revenue for rising fire and EMS costs
Popple River expects to spend $5,000 of the about $30,000 available for their wish list projects. That's because they need $25,000 to cover the costs of their EMS service — which comes from neighboring Florence County — switching from volunteers to full-time employees. Previously, the cost was $600 a year, the same amount the town originally got from the state.
Popple River receives fire services from the volunteer department in Long Lake. If the department "happens to go full-time, and we get another hefty increase, then that's another hurdle we're going to have to cover. We don't control how much that's going to be," Sullivan said.
Municipalities can use shared revenue for virtually any purpose, but most communities are expected to put it toward rising fire and EMS costs. Increased service calls from an aging population and difficulty recruiting volunteers have led many departments in Wisconsin to switch to full-time staffing, a report from the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum found.
Relying on volunteers is "historically how towns have managed to be so frugal," said Joe Ruth, government affairs director for the Wisconsin Towns Association. "You're seeing a shift, more so in towns than elsewhere, where they've already made some of these changes, away from volunteers in fire and ambulance and towards more paid on-call or full-time employees."
Ruth added the shared revenue payments alone won't be enough to fill emergency services gaps. Local governments will receive the payments in July and November over the next two years. In 2025 and beyond, the additional shared revenue amounts will be tied to growth in state sales taxes, meaning payments could decrease if there is an economic downturn.
While Popple River is optimistic the payments won't drop back down to $600, it is difficult to plan ahead.
"If we wanted to, as a board, (vote) that in 2026, we're going to put indoor plumbing in, and we're going to save this much each year because this is what's going to come in — we can't do that. We would have to leave that as a flexible, floating date until we could get enough money for a down payment and make payments on indoor plumbing," Sullivan said.
While towns see massive gains, some cities feel strains
Just how did Popple River get such a large percentage increase after getting so little? It's a question the board members wondered themselves.
For communities like Popple River with fewer than 5,000 people, the formula makes a calculation based on the municipality's population and adds $30,000. That means some towns that were getting only a few thousand dollars per year will now receive much more, though the new amounts may not cover all of their costs.
In total, those smallest communities will see a shared revenue increase of 64.8%, compared to a 17.3% increase for municipalities with more than 30,000 people, the Wisconsin Policy Forum found in an analysis of the state budget and shared revenue agreement.
Even towns larger than Popple River are undoubtedly the winners of the shared revenue deal. Before the new law, towns received an estimated 5.6% of the $753 million sent each year to counties and municipalities in Wisconsin. Now, they will receive about a tenth of more than $1 billion in shared revenue — amounting to a 157% increase.
Compare that to villages and counties, which are getting about 55% increases over the current amounts. Cities will see around a 20% increase.
While the shared revenue law provides a funding boost for every local government, not all will benefit equally. Milwaukee is getting a 10% increase in shared revenue: an additional $21.7 million to the $217 million they received initially. And while the compromise enabled sales taxes to rise in the Milwaukee area, it came with additional strings for the state's largest municipality.
That included eliminating much of the power of the civilian board that oversees the city's police and fire departments, which led the Fire and Police Commission's chair and vice chair to resign in protest.
"I think what it shows is we need a (shared revenue) formula that can be more thoughtful for the diversity of entities that we have in our state," said Sen. Lena Taylor, a Democrat representing Milwaukee. "A five thousand percent increase for that community is probably only holding them over for a few years. We're giving them that increase but still not giving them the tools they need to go forward while we're saying we have this tremendous surplus."
More: The Milwaukee sales tax bill comes with big strings attached. Here are 5 changes coming to the city.
Back in Popple River, Sullivan said funding differences and decisions about whether to spend, keep or return the state's now-$4 billion budget surplus to taxpayers are "in the political world that I try to stay out of."
"It's very generous of the state. I will always be appreciative, and I'd rather be appreciative than critical," Sullivan said of the shared revenue increase. "We're just trying to keep our little small town afloat."
Projects include indoor plumbing, replacing equipment storage sheds
Walking into Popple River's town hall reveals glimpses of its past. There's a wood stove inside that provided the building's heat until just four years ago, a records book filled with the town's history and a wall hanging honoring World War II veterans, where town supervisors can find the names of their ancestors.
Behind the town hall is a small white outhouse, where daddy longlegs sit in cobwebs just behind the wooden door. Building an addition with indoor bathrooms and a kitchenette is a "big-ticket item," Sullivan said.
When elections are held, three poll workers — "a majority of them in their 70s or plus" — sit in the town hall with no running water, town clerk Katie Haen said. They are required to stay for 13 hours, even if the town's about 28 registered voters all arrive within the first hour. The poll workers walk through snow and ice in winter and mucky conditions in spring to use the outhouse.
But building a more modern facility means "a new well has to be dug in order to do that, and those are very expensive," treasurer Sue Schallenberg noted.
Near the town hall sit aging, rusting storage sheds that house highway signs, road salt and gravel. Popple River's wish list includes acquiring land to construct new buildings for its road equipment, which is "old enough for Social Security," Sullivan said.
"The last tire I replaced was $950," said Popple River supervisor Dale Nichols, who also directs roads and maintenance for Popple River. Nichols found one 40-year-old piece of machinery that grades gravel roads and occasionally plows snow on Craigslist. "You go look at a new grader, you're talking a couple hundred thousand dollars," he said.
"I think that kind of illustrates how we have to go about doing business, looking on Craigslist for a bargain," Schallenberg said.
While the town has received grants that help with costs, funding opportunities through the state are competitive. Popple River officials are grateful for the $10,000 grant they just received from the neighboring Forest County Potawatomi Community, which will pay for road signs like school bus stops and ATV crossings. The town will use "every dime plus" to cover the hardware, metal posts and labor costs to put them up.
Towns may be more strained for transportation aid in the next two years, after increases to the $2,734 per-mile payments most towns receive were vetoed from the state budget. Half a mile of new blacktop, plus shoulder and gravel work, totals about $54,000 for Popple River.
"That's what it cost a year ago, and it goes up every year," Nichols said.
With more funding, the town could mow ditches twice a year instead of once a year, which helps drivers spot wildlife roaming near the road. Creating an inventory of about 60 culverts for replacement, which requires buying the drainage tunnel and repairing the road on top, is also on the list. Projects that increase safety and security are the first priority.
At the bottom of the list is replacing Popple River's welcome signs, some of which are faded or used as target practice by bored teenagers. The signs greet visitors to their slice of "paradise" where everyone pitches in and "people wave and use all their fingers," Sullivan said.
"That'd be a 'nice to have,'" she said. "If we have extra money, we'll do that."
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What will Wisconsin's second-smallest town do with a 5,000% increase in state funding?
