How to Complain about Your Property Tax Bill

If you’re a property owner in Madison, Wisconsin, you may still be feeling salty about the bill that arrived from the city this past December: that much-talked about property tax bill. No one likes seeing a big bill come their way, even when we know it’s going towards valued community services that we rely on. The time-honored tradition of complaining about taxes comes with some risks though. 

If you look at your bill, you’ll notice that the Madison Metropolitan School District receives both the largest amount of your taxes and shows the highest year-over-year-tax increase. It looks like school spending is the biggest driver of increased cost. Incidentally, that’s exactly the conclusion our Republican-led legislature wants you to draw. The anger that often accompanies this "common sense" conclusion helps provide cover for the truth: 

The Republican-led legislature is underfunding public schools. Intentionally. And they will continue to do so until we make them stop. 

Madison voters overwhelmingly passed two school referendums put forward by the district in November 2024. A $100 million Operational Referendum passed with 69% approval, and the $507 million Facilities Referendum with 72%. These referendums were put forward because Madison schools have faced a gap of more than $20 million dollars between state-enforced revenue limits and inflation. Further undermining the budget is a woefully inadequate reimbursement rate for special education (31% in 2024) and a state formula that only counts a 4K child as “half” a student. 

Madison was far from the only district forced to go to referendum just to keep their schools running. In 2024, a total of 241 referendums were put forward by more than one-third of all school districts in the state, breaking all previous records. As in Madison, the majority of these were put forward to address funding gaps between state limits and rising inflation. As in Madison, the majority were approved, demonstrating the high value communities across the political spectrum place on their public schools. Admirable? Yes. Necessary? No. 

Should it really be a ballot question to keep our schools running? Especially when our state legislature continues to sit on a budget surplus that could plug these gaps? The Republican-led legislature doesn’t want public schools to survive and they’re looking to convert whoever they can to their side. It just so happens that shifting the cost of public education to property taxes is an excellent way to seed anger, suspicion, and doubt -- and it's a tactic that works in Waukesha and Madison. 

Does this mean there’s no good way to complain about your taxes? Far from it. Madison Metropolitan School District Superintendent Joe Gothard and the leaders of the four other largest public school districts in Wisconsin are now putting their voices forward to turn the tide on this and we should too. Take a minute to add your name now to a petition of the Wisconsin Public Education Network that demands that legislators uphold their promise to increase special education reimbursement. Contact your state representatives and tell them how this surplus should be used to fund our schools and bring tax relief to local payers, and encourage your family and friends to do this too. 

And perhaps most important, the next time you hear a neighbor complain about how much they’re paying to fund the school system, enthusiastically join in by telling them about the real reason we're in this mess.

Families for Justice is a network of people working to dismantle white supremacy in Dane County and beyond through multi-generational community organizing and direct action. Learn more here.