Tuesday, April 04, 2006

New Version of the Revenue Amendment Released

A substitute revenue amendment was just released.

After a quick read, it appears the only significant change is the addition of a section relating to the sports districts in Wisconsin (see page 9 of the substitute amendment). The section allows the sports districts pertaining to Miller Park and Lambeau Field to exceed the revenue limits with a majority vote by the governing body in order "to retire debt or for the defeasance of debt."

It does note that the debt must have been incurred prior to January 1, 2008, which would preclude any other districts that might be created in the future.

More background on this change for sports districts can be found here.

The definition of "revenue" was also broadened in the new version (see page 3 of the substitute revenue amendment). Nothing too significant, but "interest and penalties imposed on late or delinquent payments" of taxes and "payments in lieu of taxes" were added to the definition.

I'll do a more thorough read of the new version tonight to see if I can spot anything else. If I missed something, I'm sure others will catch it.

1 Comments:

Blogger Seth Zlotocha said...

Good catch.

I see your point about the "This section takes precedence over any other provision of this constitution that conflicts with this section" line at the end dramatically impacting the ability of local districts to provide an adequate eduction.

Since this amendment would trump the equal funding clause of the constitution, unequal and inadequate districts are exactly what we'd have.

And educational funding is just the start of how this amendment could transform the entire state constitution.

April 07, 2006  

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