Most older adults want to stay in their homes as they age. But owning a home is getting more expensive as property taxes surge.
Wisconsin homeowners last December saw the largest school property tax increase in more than three decades, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Property tax increases disproportionately affect older adults who rely on fixed incomes through pensions, savings and Social Security.
At a Northwoods Senior Breakfast this spring in Merrill, one group of attendees asked: How can older adults get help paying property taxes? Wisconsin Watch passed that question along to three experts:
Nicole Heckman, vice president of financial wellbeing at AARP Foundation.
Bekki Schmitt, director of Milwaukee’s Aging and Disabilities Resource Center.
Jenny Fasula, executive director of the Foundation for Rural Housing.
Here’s what we learned:
Where to start
The AARP Foundation offers an online tool to check eligibility for available assistance programs. Eligibility for assistance is often broader than people assume, Heckman said.
Aging and disability resource centers, or ADRCs, can provide information about local assistance programs and other savings opportunities. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services lists ADRCs by county online.
The Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s website lists the latest information on property tax assistance programs and eligibility requirements. Municipalities may also offer local aid.
“There are no great options for people who get behind on property taxes,” Fasula said. She wants to see the state expand assistance. Here are four existing Wisconsin programs to help offset or delay high property tax bills.
Homestead credit: This tax credit helps low-income homeowners and renters. People can get help claiming the credit through Volunteer Income Tax Assistance sites or AARP Foundation tax assistance programs. Inflation has reduced the value of the credit in recent years, as Wisconsin Watch has reported.
School property tax credit: Homeowners and renters can claim this nonrefundable tax credit along with the Homestead credit through their income tax return.
Property tax deferral loan program: Homeowners 65 and older can delay paying property taxes through the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. Borrowers repay the loan, plus interest, once the home is sold or transfers ownership.
Lottery and gaming credit: Eligible homeowners can apply online or through their county treasurer to receive a credit toward their property tax bills.
Q&Aging
Did we miss a helpful resource? Do you have a question about aging?
Public school advocates were euphoric about the deal Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders announced to boost special education funding and cut property taxes — until they read the details, and then the whole thing collapsed. (Getty Images)
“It really blew up our world,” public schools advocate Heather DuBois Bourenane says of the failed school funding and tax-cut deal that Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Tony Evers trumpeted as a “blockbuster” before it fizzled in the state Senate, ending in finger-pointing and recriminations.
“It was the first time the carrot had been dangled so close to public schools,” DuBois Bourenane says, describing the “moment of utter euphoria” when her group, the Wisconsin Public Education Network, made up of parents, teachers and school officials from every corner of Wisconsin, first heard about the deal. “It seemed like what we’d been fighting so hard for for so long was finally about to happen.”
But then DuBois Bourenane and the other members of her organization got the details.
The funding for special education was not locked in at 50% in the second year of the plan as they’d hoped. Instead of a “sum-sufficient” or guaranteed allocation to cover a set percentage of costs, the 50% was an estimate. If costs go up, that percentage would go down. As for the $300 million increase in general aid to schools, as a Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis explains: “the additional aid would provide property tax relief but not additional resources for school districts.”
Tax cuts made up the lion’s share of the deal — about 80% of the total $1.8 billion. Those included property tax cuts, interest earnings reductions, no tax on tips and overtime and, biggest of all, an $870 million income tax rebate that would have put $300 checks in the mail to people who earned enough money to qualify. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau projected that the deal would leave the state with a nearly $3 billion deficit.
Most of that deficit would be caused not by school spending, but by what Dubois Bourenane describes as a wasteful tax giveaway. “What the heck?” she says. “You’re wasting the surplus while pretending to fix the thing [school funding] you broke the worst!”
School funding in Wisconsin was broken by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s historic budget cuts. The damage has compounded each year for more than a decade and a half as school budgets haven’t kept pace with inflation. In such dire circumstances there were, DuBois Bourenane acknowledges, public school advocates who felt anything was better than nothing. But the two-year stopgap deal Evers and Republican leaders reached did not come close to fixing the long-term problem.
On the bright side, says Dubois Bourenane, at least politicians in both parties have stopped pretending the last several budgets actually funded schools sufficiently. The need to address the funding crisis in Wisconsin public schools has become a bipartisan talking point. Even Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany (who, as a legislator, voted for former Walker’s massive cut to schools) lists it as a top priority.
A recent Marquette poll showed that 80% of Wisconsinites who were contacted about the rushed deal right after it failed, with little time for discussion or analysis, and asked if they would like to receive $300 in the mail from the state, said yes. But voters deserve a full, public discussion of their options, and whether tax rebates worth $278 to most individual Wisconsin tax filers and $574 to most married joint filers, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, are worth putting the state in a $3 billion hole with no long-term fix for the school funding crisis.
DuBois-Bourenane wishes the Legislature would take up a bill introduced in March that would guarantee a 60% special ed reimbursement from the state, easing the burden on local property taxpayers, who have been filling the hole by passing local referendum requests at record rates, raising their own taxes as the state reneges on its obligation to fund schools.
But couldn’t committing the state to once again cover the real costs of public education put us in a deficit? Maybe, says DuBois Bournenane. “We’d have to cut money in other ways. But we would stop balancing the budget on the backs of children” — instead of acting as though the state can always avoid paying its biggest bill.
“There’s not really a surplus here,” she adds. “There’s just a pool of money that used to be used to fund public schools that now is not used at all.”
That’s the pool of money Walker “saved” by cutting funding for schools, and Evers and Republican leaders wanted to dole out over the next two years — 80% of it in the form of tax cuts and 20% to schools.
She finds Evers’ public expressions of frustration with Democrats for not supporting his deal mystifying. “It seems to me it’s a predictable problem he could have solved in advance by consulting with his colleagues on the deal before moving forward.”
But most of all, for public schools, kids and communities across Wisconsin, the whole thing was “incredibly cruel,” she says.
“If we were being led by adults they’d laugh it off and get back to the table and get a new deal,” she says. Instead, the long-term problems threatening public education in Wisconsin continue, with no real fix in sight.
“I know it doesn’t look like it from a distance, but it’s not about the money,” DuBois Bourenane says. “It’s about are the kids OK? Can we meet their needs?”
The answer, coming from districts that are facing steep cuts, growing class sizes, fewer extra curricular activities and school consolidations and closures, is no. The kids are not OK.
Compounding the damage is a looming crisis that was not part of the budget deal discussion at all. In 2026 all caps come off Wisconsin’s school voucher program. An unlimited number of families will be able to send their kids to private schools at taxpayer expense, and the funding for that program, under a law signed by Walker and supported by Tiffany, comes off the top of state funds. As school voucher programs have steadily grown in Wisconsin, most new students enrolled come from families that already had their kids in private school. The potential explosion in new families joining that group will put the current school funding crisis in a long shadow.
Still, DuBois Bourenane is optimistic Wisconsin can fix the problem. Her group is part of a lawsuit charging the state with failing its obligation to provide a “free, adequate public education” to all Wisconsin children.
She believes the problem could be solved right now, and that “it’s irresponsible to walk away from the table” after the budget deal disaster. And that the pride and anger of the politicians who don’t want to keep trying is hurting Wisconsin kids.
But she also sees a huge opportunity for voters to put pressure on the politicians running for office this fall to change the attitude in the statehouse and “elect people with more energy to do things for our communities.”
“I don’t think all is lost. We will fix it in the long run. But we could fix it now,” she says. “And we’re choosing not to.”
Gov. Tony Evers spoke to reporters during a visit to Barneveld middle and high schools Monday, where he spoke to students and staff about their mental health initiatives and announced a deal with Republican legislative leaders on school funding and tax cuts. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) — Wisconsin’s three leaders all of whom are set to retire this year — announced a $1.8 billion deal Monday to provide additional funding to Wisconsin schools for general aid and special education and tax relief in the form of rebate checks, property tax cuts and the elimination of taxes on tips and overtime.
The deal is the culmination of months of negotiations on how to use the state’s projected surplus to provide additional funding to schools and tax relief to Wisconsinites.
Negotiations kicked off at the beginning of this year after the general fund surplus was projected to be $2.37 billion at the end of the biennium, June 30, 2027 — about $1.5 billion higher than expected. However, they fell apart as Evers and Senate and Assembly leaders argued over the form that a proposal should take and a deal was not reached before the end of the regular legislative session.
According to a Department of Administration and Department of Revenue memo released Monday, the state’s general fund tax collections are tracking between $300 million and $350 million above the January estimates.
Evers said the school funding was the biggest win in the bipartisan agreement. The deal includes $300 million for special education funding and $300 million for school general aids.
“I think money for schools, that’s obviously the most important thing for me, but again, we’re in a position to actually compromise and have Republicans and Democrats, at least in the leadership level, getting something done,” Evers said.
Evers spoke to reporters during a visit to Barneveld middle and high schools where he spoke to students and staff about their mental health initiatives on Monday morning. He was there to highlight investments that have been made in schools. He noted that Barneveld is a good school district and said the deal reached by him and lawmakers would “make them an even better” one.
About $85 million will be used to guarantee schools get 42% of their special education costs reimbursed for the 2025-26 school year and the remaining funds will be used to guarantee a 50% reimbursement rate in 2026-27.
The 2025-27 state budget promised a 42% special ed reimbursement rate in the first year of the budget and a 45% rate in the second year, but the funds set aside were not adequate to meet those rates.
The state’s special education reimbursement is currently a “sum certain” appropriation, meaning that there is a fixed pot of money available for the costs. If schools’ costs exceed the amount set aside, then the rate of reimbursement is lower. A change to a sum sufficient appropriation would ensure that the amount available is enough to cover the promised rates.
Evers said negotiations couldn’t get to a sum sufficient appropriation for special education funding, but that negotiators used figures that should get the state to the promised rates.
“Next budget people have to ensure that it is sum sufficient, but we did not get across that bridge, unfortunately,” Evers said. “Look, we know what the numbers are, so it’s going to be 50[%].”
The deal will also increase funding for pupils participating in the choice, charter, special needs scholarship and open enrollment programs by $16 million.
The investment into general school aids comes after lawmakers declined to provide any new funding in the 2025-27 state budget and property taxpayers across the state saw increases in December. The $300 million is intended to help buy down school property tax levies, although the amount will not completely cover the $325 per pupil in additional school revenue limit authority that school districts have as a result of a previous Evers budget veto.
The agreement also includes $50 million meant to serve as property tax relief aid for the Wisconsin Technical College System beginning in 2026-27.
The Wisconsin Association of School Boards said in a statement that it was encouraged by the deal’s investments in special education and general aids, but cautioned that it would not completely fix schools’ financial issues.
“While these resources are important for public schools struggling with a declining level of state investment, it will not solve the longer-term problem,” WASB said. “The state has shifted away from providing inflationary increases in spendable resources for schools for 17 years. One state surplus deal cannot reverse that trend by itself.”
Evers spoke with students at Barneveld middle and high schools about mental health initiatives, including the cell phone ban he signed in 2025. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Joint Finance Committee is scheduled to take up the proposal on Tuesday, and it’s expected that the full Assembly and Senate will take up the proposal on Wednesday in a special session. Ever signed an executive order for the session Monday afternoon.
Vos said in a statement that legislators would be sending the surplus “back to help families with the pressure of increasing costs, reward hard work, and to continue investing in schools to help stabilize rising property taxes.”
LeMahieu said Repiblicans’ top priority was to send the surplus back to “hardworking taxpayers across the state.”
“This deal will provide immediate relief with $600 in surplus refund payments and provide permanent property and income tax relief for Wisconsin families,” LeMahieu said.
The deal will also provide $300 tax refunds for individuals and $600 refunds for married joint filers. Tax relief in this form was originally a Senate Republican proposal, though they had proposed rebates of $1,000 for married joint filers and $500 for individuals.
The deal also includes the elimination of taxes on tips and overtime — two proposals that Evers initially vetoed. The proposal will align state with federal law, though the state proposals differ as they are permanent changes rather than having a sunset date in 2028.
Evers expressed confidence that there are enough votes to get the deal through both houses and to his desk.
“I need a majority of each house, and whether that’s all Democrats, all Republicans or a mix, I don’t care,” Evers said. “I think it would be hard for anyone to say I’m not in favor of this…[when] as a result, my local school district gets screwed. I think that’s going to be a hard position for people to take.”
It’s already clear that not every member is on board as Democratic and Republican Senate lawmakers express concerns and opposition to the deal in statements.
Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said in a statement that from her perspective there is no deal. She said her caucus needs to see the full details of the “expensive proposal” before they say more.
“Three men who will not be in elected office next year have come up with this proposal which Senate Dems will be reviewing,” Hesselbein said. “Any proposal must pass both houses of the legislature and no one knows if Republicans have the votes to pass it.”
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) has not responded to a request for comment.
Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), who is also retiring this year, said in a statement that he “can’t support another bad deal cut by leaders that will never face the voters again.”
With an open race for governor and control of the state Legislature up in the air, some expressed concerns about leaders deciding to spend down the surplus when they won’t be around to deal with the consequences next year.
Democratic candidates for governor, Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) and former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan criticized the way lawmakers negotiated the deal and the contents of the deal.
“Budgets are difficult to negotiate and demand tough decisions, and that’s why I believe they must be done in public with input from Wisconsinites. It’s very disappointing that this one wasn’t, and we should expect all candidates for governor to commit to an open process,” Brennan said. “I’m all for putting money back in people’s pockets, giving our schools a much-needed boost, and providing some property tax relief, but this deal misses the mark in many other ways. It does nothing to address the cost-of-living crisis that is still crushing Wisconsin families on things like child care, health care, and gas and utility prices.”
Roys said the leaders had come to a “backroom” deal.
“This latest deal is the height of fiscal irresponsibility,” Roys said. “It spends a projected ‘surplus’ before it’s in the bank, even though that projection was estimated before Trump’s attack on Iran that disrupted our economy and caused gas prices to skyrocket. It gives a little one time money to public schools while permanently cementing unfairness in our tax structure. Worst of all, it blows nearly a billion dollars on an election year gimmick to send out rebates, squandering the ability of a new Democratic majority to make the long-overdue investments in our kids that they deserve.”
The critique on the transparency in the negotiation process comes after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, who is also campaigning for the nomination, was recorded saying she would craft the state’s next budget “behind a curtain.”
Evers told reporters that the negotiations with lawmakers was typical process.
“Well, sometimes you do things behind the curtain,” Evers said. “Leadership both from my staff and others on the other side met on a regular basis, and we kept others informed about that. Now, if… [Roys is] angry because we didn’t involve every legislator prior to, that doesn’t happen with a regular budget, too. So if she’s going to be governor, she needs to get used to it.”
He continued: “If she’s not going to support it, my question would be, ‘How do you run for governor of the state of Wisconsin and say to your schools, well, you know, this money of 42% and 50% for special education, I’m against that?’ That’s a tough one to run against.”
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