Election time

Somehow, 2 Minute Sidebar was nominated for this week's "best blog" runoff at MKE online. (This blog was notified via a comment written here). I have since petitioned acquaintances to vote on my behalf, and when pressed I have claimed that my blog is at least "okay" and "marginally readable." This alone should place it among the top thirty percentiles.

Voting is open until Thursday. Loyal reader 3XHAR opines:

I voted... but I'm not certain I voted for the right one. The holes on the left didn't match up with the verbiage on the right. So I voted for two different ones, hoping one of them was yours. Then I got some kind of error. I demand someone in charge determine who I voted for with subjective, ever-changing criteria! Only then will justice be done!

Thaa Reverend adds:

I like 2 Minute Sidebar so much, I voted twice! You think they'd log IP addresses and such to prevent ballot box stuffing, but this is Milwaukee we're talking about.

Admittedly, if I had time to burn I would engage in all manner of shenanigans to skew the vote in my favor. But I don't care to spend my time that way, and it isn't nearly important enough.

Not that there aren't any important elections going on today -- for it is an election Tuesday in Wisconsin, the first one since the big presidential one in November. I think that the biggest statewide race is for head of the Department of Public Instruction (i.e., the state school superintendent). Don't expect a large turnout.

Low turnouts though spell opportunity for the proponents of local school spending referenda. Since the direct beneficiaries of school spending increases always turn out to vote for the money, low turnout of the property tax paying rank and file tends to increase the chances for any given referendum's success. And in Wisconsin, it is not unheard of for essentially the same rejected school spending referendum to appear on the ballot for three or four elections in a two-year period, vying for a magic combination of stealth and voter apathy that will squeak it through. The process resembles the following:

"We would like an extra fifteen million dollars. Will you pay for it?"
"No."
"Now?"
"No."
"How about now?"
"No."
"But what about now?"
"... Oh, fine."

--- [pause one election cycle] ---

"Another eight million dollars?"
"No."

As school expenditures often constitute half or more of local property tax levies, they are primarily responsible for the property tax bills that non-Wisconsinites find astounding. It actually happens in this state that first-time homeowners who take out a 30-year mortgage may pay half that again in property taxes. Which is to say that if their mortgage payment is $1000, their property tax liability divided out monthly can be $500.

For example, let's consider a home purchase with a 30-year mortgage using 20% down at 5% (a rate that was obtainable in the last couple years). The monthly payment will be about $5.37 per thousand borrowed. Let us further assume that the tax assessment will be based on 90% of the fair market value. Therefore, to find the mill rate that will result in monthly property tax liability of $2.865 per thousand borrowed (half the mortgage payment), multiply by eight-ninths to get $2.387 per thousand valuation, and then by twelve to get an annual $28.64 per thousand valuation (a mill rate). Again, this is probably news to out-of-state readers, but a handful of Wisconsin communities do have property tax rates this high or even higher (e.g. West Allis in Milwaukee county, Fitchburg in Dane county). The overall average mill rate for Milwaukee County is about $26.

But by now I'm way off-topic. Vote for 2 Minute Sidebar. Thank you.