6. The school board of the school district that is located in the first class city must ensure that 25 school resource officers are present at schools in the school district during school hours and that a reasonable number are present during other school-related activities, and that, beginning in the 2025-26 school year, the school board must consider the statistics required to be collected on violations of municipal disorderly conduct ordinances and certain crimes, as further described below, to allocate the school resource officers to specific schools in the school district.

7. Under current law, project costs for a tax incremental district (TID) in the city of Milwaukee may not include direct or indirect expenses related to operating a street car in the city of Milwaukee. The bill also excludes expenses relating to developing or constructing a street car from inclusion as project costs in a TID in the city of Milwaukee, with the exception of development and construction costs for a project referred to as the Lakefront Line.

8. Current law authorizes the FPC of a first class city to prescribe general policies and standards for the police and fire departments and to prescribe rules for the government of the members of the departments. Also under current law, an FPC of a first class city consists of seven or nine members selected by the mayor. The bill requires that of those members at least one is selected from a list provided by the employee association that represents nonsupervisory law enforcement officers and the employee association that represents fire fighters. Individuals included in these lists must be residents of the city, must have professional law enforcement experience or professional fire fighting experience, respectively, and may not be currently employed as a professional law enforcement officer or fire fighter, respectively. The bill also transfers authority for the control and management of the police and fire departments from the FPC to the chief of each department. Policies established for the control and management of the departments may be modified or suspended by a two-thirds vote of the common council.

Among the requirements and limitations that apply to a county in which a first class city is located are:

1. The total amount of spending for cultural or entertainment matters or involving partnerships with nonprofit groups is limited to not more than 5 percent of the total county budget.

2. Net new program spending or position authorizations may occur only upon a two-thirds vote of all of the members of the county board.

Under current law, beginning with the property tax assessments as of January 1, 2018, machinery, tools, and patterns, not including those items used in manufacturing, are exempt from the personal property tax. However, beginning in 2019, the state pays each taxing jurisdiction an amount equal to the property taxes levied on those items of personal property for the property tax assessments as of January 1, 2017.

Under the bill, beginning with the property tax assessments as of January 1, 2024, no items of personal property will be subject to the property tax.

Under current law, generally, public utilities, including railroad companies, are subject to a license fee imposed by the state instead of being subject to local property taxes. This bill creates a personal property tax exemption to the license fee for railroad companies in order to comply with the requirements of the federal Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act.

The bill also makes a number of technical changes related to the repeal of the personal property tax, such as providing a process whereby manufacturing establishments located in this state that do not own real property in this state may continue to claim the manufacturing income tax credit.

The bill prohibits a political subdivision, which means a county, city, village, or town, from discriminating against or providing a preference in hiring or contracting based on race, color, ancestry, national origin, or sexual orientation unless it is required to receive federal aid.

Beginning in the 2024-25 school year, the bill requires public high schools and private high schools participating in a parental choice program to collect statistics on violations of municipal disorderly conduct ordinances and certain crimes, including homicide, sexual assault, burglary, battery, and arson, that occur on school property or on transportation provided by the school. The high school must collect statistics about the crime or disorderly conduct only if 1) it occurred on a weekday between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.; 2) it is reported to law enforcement; and 3) a charge is filed or citation is issued. The bill further requires that the collected statistics be reported to the Department of Public Instruction and included on the annual school and school district accountability report. In addition, the bill clarifies that DPI may not consider crimes statistics reported by a school or school district for purposes of determining a school or school district’s performance on the annual school and school district accountability report.

The bill requires political subdivisions to certify to DOR that the political subdivision is maintaining a level of law enforcement and fire and emergency medical services that is at least equivalent to that provided in the previous year. County and municipal aid to political subdivisions that do not satisfy the maintenance of effort requirement are reduced by 15 percent.

The bill prohibits a county or municipality from holding an advisory referendum.

The bill requires DOR to annually produce a comparative local government spending report from information DOR annually collects from counties, municipalities, and public officers regarding the collection of taxes, receipts from licenses, and the expenditure of public funds and to create and maintain a web page on its Internet site to display the information contained in the report.

The bill prohibits a local health officer from issuing a mandate to close a business in order to control an outbreak or epidemic of communicable disease for longer than 14 days unless the governing body of the governmental unit in which the order is intended to apply approves an extension. Under the bill, no approved extension may be longer than 14 days.

Generally under current law, local levy limits are applied to the property tax levies that are imposed by a political subdivision in December of each year. Current law prohibits any political subdivision from increasing its levy by a percentage that exceeds its “valuation factor,” which is defined as the greater of either 0 percent or the percentage change in the political subdivision’s equalized value due to new construction, less improvements removed.

Also under current law, if a political subdivision transfers to another governmental unit the responsibility to provide a service that it provided in the previous year, the levy increase limit otherwise applicable in the current year is decreased to reflect the cost that the political subdivision would have incurred to provide that service. Similarly, if a political subdivision increases the services that it provides by adding the responsibility for providing a service transferred to it by another governmental unit that provided the service in the previous year, the levy increase limit otherwise applicable in the current year is increased to reflect the cost of that service. The bill repeals both of these provisions.