Enhancing public policy reporting

The Public Policy Forum is launching a new project this fall that is somewhat distinct from our usual portfolio of public policy research, facilitation and deliberation.  It's called the "Excellence in Public Policy Reporting" fellowship, and we see it as our small contribution to enhancing both the quality and quantity of local government reporting in Milwaukee.

The project - which emanates from a grant by the Milwaukee-based Argosy Foundation - is a partnership between the Forum, the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (an online news service that focuses on Milwaukee neighborhoods), and Marquette University's Diederich College of Communication. 

Marquette will select two of its journalism graduate students each year to serve as Public Policy Reporting Fellows, working 10 to 15 hours per week for NNS covering local government news that is of interest to Milwaukee's low-income neighborhoods.  During the first semester of their year-long fellowship, the students will cover one or two topical news stories per week, while the second semester will be devoted to lengthier, investigative-type projects.  The Forum's role will be to use its knowledge of local government committee agendas and proceedings to guide the fellows on story ideas, as well as to advise them on contacts and research.

The project is aimed at improving the public policy reporting skills of budding journalists by exposing them to the halls of government and a professional journalism environment while in graduate school, and by adding the perspective of Forum staff who make their living researching and analyzing government data and programs.  We also hope that it will foment interest among journalism students in pursuing a career in local government reporting, as opposed to some other specialty.

In addition, we hope the project will fill a void by producing meaningful news coverage of local government issues that otherwise would have gone uncovered.  This is not a criticism of our traditional local news organizations, but a recognition that many have seen their news-gathering resources shrink.  In fact, our ultimate hope is that news stories written by the graduate fellows and published by NNS will be of such high quality and interest that they will be picked up by larger news organizations.

Additional information about the new fellowship can be accessed in this media release by the NNS. Also, details on the Forum's other fellowship - the Norman N. Gill Civic Engagement Fellowship - can be found here.

      

Wither Madison, wither Milwaukee?

As the Public Policy Forum’s 2010-2011 Norman N. Gill Civic Engagement Fellow, I am honored to be working on a year-long project that will examine how municipal governments in Wisconsin raise and spend their tax dollars. Over the next five months, I will be sharing some of my research with the blog. Ultimately, my research will lead to a paper that will discuss alternatives to financing municipal governments.

The Forum previously documented the fiscal problems that arise from the City of Milwaukee’s reliance on shared revenue from the state to fund its general purpose budget. Indeed, intergovernmental revenue represents about 45% of Milwaukee’s general purpose budget, which makes it the largest source of revenue.

The early stages of my research indicate that it is rare for a city to depend so much on intergovernmental revenue. Columbus, Oklahoma City, and Boston, for example, all offer different models that cities use to fund their general budgets without as much dependence on external revenue sources.

Columbus funds its general budget primarily through a city income tax. In Ohio, state law requires all municipalities to impose a flat individual income tax, and the maximum rate that a municipality can impose without voter approval is 1%. Columbus, through voter approval, imposes a 2.5% tax on earned income such as wages, salaries, and net business proceeds generated in the city. As a result, more than 70% of the general budget’s funding comes from the municipal income tax. Milwaukee, of course, has no city income tax.

Oklahoma City, meanwhile, funds its general budget mostly with a sales tax. It levies a tax of 3.87% on sales in the city, and about half of that revenue goes directly into the general budget. In fact, Oklahoma City uses property tax revenue only for capital projects (such as roads) and not for operating expenses. Milwaukee has no city sales tax.

Boston, meanwhile, funds more than 60% of its general budget through the property tax. The property tax rate in Boston is $11.48 per $1,000 of housing value, which is considerably less than Milwaukee’s $27.70. Boston benefits from having more expensive property; in 2010, the total assessed value of Boston’s property was $87.3 billion, compared to $28.9 billion in Milwaukee. This enables Boston to raise more money at a lower rate. Regardless, Boston has at least identified a main, locally-controlled tax base (property) to fund its operating expenses. Milwaukee, where property tax revenue is about 21% of the general budget, has not.

To be sure, these three distinct models to fund municipal budgets each have their own costs and benefits, which will be analyzed and discussed in my report. Yet, it is clear that Columbus, Oklahoma City, and Boston are relatively self-sustaining, while Milwaukee is enormously dependent on Madison for its survival.

The Forum is now accepting applications for the 2011-2012 fellowship year. For more information, go to the Norman N. Gill Civic Engagement Fellowship website. Applications are due April 30, 2011.

Applications now accepted for Norman N. Gill Civic Engagement Fellowship

The Public Policy Forum is pleased to announce a new initiative to promote civic engagement and local policy analysis, the Norman N. Gill Civic Engagement Fellowship. The goal of the fellowship is to encourage research leading to increased understanding of the functioning of local governments or leading to the development of programs or policies that assist a local government in addressing a critical issue or problem.

Norman N. Gill served as executive director of the Citizens' Governmental Research Bureau (now the Public Policy Forum) for over 40 years and maintained a life-long commitment to the greater Milwaukee community.

The fellowship will be granted annually on a competitive basis to a current student or recent graduate of any Wisconsin graduate degree program in law, economics, political science, public policy, public administration, urban planning, or a related field. The fellow will engage in a research project focusing on a timely and topical local, regional or state policy or governance issue of importance to Milwaukee and southeast Wisconsin.

The application, due July 21, is now available on the Forum website.