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Milwaukee is the economic engine of the state. With Summerfest recently starting and Harley-Davidson Homecoming Festival topping the summer calendar, tens of thousands of tourists will be visiting and spending their dollars. The city also draws visitors regularly as it is also home to the Milwaukee Bucks and Brewers, and the Milwaukee Art Museum.
But with all those resources, Milwaukee still routinely finds itself as one of the worst places socioeconomically for Black people in the U.S.. Wisconsin also incarcerates Black people at one of the highest rates in the country annually.
As this month is the two-year anniversary of the enactment of Act 12, the major shared revenue deal that looked to change the way the state redistributed tax revenue to municipalities across the state.
Act 12 chose to punish its way out of financial problems. The solution was not only anti-Black, it was outdated and misanthropic. The state now sits on a $4 billion surplus. Wisconsinites who are united in seeing a better quality of life for themselves need to work on repealing Act 12, and to create legislation that is life affirming.
The people have spoken before
This is possible, because recent history proves public resistance can help reverse legislation they oppose.
In 2011, upward of 100,000 people mobilized to protest the austere Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill (A10) that was aimed to gut labor by the state legislature. The reaction was intense. Some occupied the state capitol. Many Democratic legislators left the state to avoid voting for the bill.
And yet, the similar Act 12 bill will arguably be just as damaging to communities across the state. It received barely a peep of protest and certainly no global attention and solidarity. Act 12 was so egregious that it requires everyone’s attention this budget season.
There was a fiscal cliff that led to the passing of the Act 12 Bill. Act 10 left intact the collective bargaining power of the public safety services, which really means the law enforcement unions, with their outsized strain on local budgets.
A very peculiar turn
Most municipalities, and certainly Milwaukee, developed holes in their budgets that they needed to fill, so they turned to the unimaginative solution of a regressive sales tax – the burden mostly carried by the poor.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers proposed a more generous statewide shared revenue plan that would’ve left Milwaukee leaders room to fill their budget holes with more flexibility to address future financial strains.
But a peculiar thing happened in Milwaukee. The Democratic Mayor of Milwaukee Cavalier “Chevy” Johnson and Democratic County Executive David Crowley ignored the Governor’s plan, and instead lobbied for the Republican proposal.
Whether they lacked political will or imagination, or had their eyes on a higher office, they nonetheless endorsed Act 12, an anti-Black piece of legislation that cemented the organized abandonment of Milwaukee and other municipalities.
In this 2024 research, the concept of organized abandonment by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics and professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is best described as “the intentional disinvestment in communities leading to the gradual disappearance of safe housing, reliable jobs, clean water, healthy food, and a social safety net
Taking away key resources
When laws take away these necessary services, then naturally Act 12 fills in the gap with bolstering the carceral state of law enforcement, courts, jails and prisons. This undermines the ability to use those budgetary resources on housing, health care, infrastructure, and more socioeconomic measures.
At the time, Johnson and Crowley argued that Act 12 would save the city and county from a fiscal cliff. But Act 12 mandated that cities with over 20,000 people must maintain a certain level of police force, and if they failed to reach the quota, then revenue would be taken away.
Prior to passage, Milwaukee police accounted for nearly 50% of the city budget. Now, Milwaukee is coerced annually to grow sworn officers on the rolls or else lose 15% of their state funding.
Even though the bill was targeted at Black Milwaukeeans, it impacted about 41% of the state’s population in more than 40 municipalities. Madison faces a $22 million hole in its 2025 budget due to the law enforcement mandate. In cities like Appleton, Eau Claire and Janesville, police budgets dwarf every other general fund department. Newer analysis shows that Act 12 is benefiting smaller Republican municipalities disproportionately.
Milwaukee Mayor Johnson in 2024 conceded that his attempt to stave off fiscal ruin by endorsing Act 12 was a failure. He addressed the Common Council to share his 2025 budget and admitted, “Provisions of Act 12 are in force, leaving non-public safety departments to absorb, disproportionately, necessary belt-tightening.” With zero sense of irony, he completely left out of his analysis how the police have effectively defunded many of the municipalities in order to inoculate themselves from ever being defunded.
Republican Speaker of the State Assembly Robin Vos confirmed this inoculation effort during a floor debate. “We have a maintenance of effort requirement, so that you can’t defund the police.”
A growing budget hole
Unfortunately, 2026 projections show a widening budget hole that proves Act 12 exacerbated the original problem. In addition to the financial woes imposed, Act 12 removed public accountability on policing when it defanged the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission.
The mayor, along with Crowley, for over two years have been working in tandem with the state GOP to pass a shared revenue bill that generates more resources via regressive sales tax to help balance the city and county’s struggling budget.
The bulk of both budgets are allocated toward the carceral state (police, sheriffs, courts, jails and detention centers). Neither Johnson nor Crowley seek to reduce the carceral state budget and both seek to actively expand it.
In doing this, they ignored a shared revenue plan from Gov. Evers that was more equitable to Milwaukee but all municipalities and counties throughout the state. ACT 12 is cementing anti-Blackness in legislation in a place that has suffered deep organized abandonment.
It must be reversed.
Nate Gilliam is the co-founder and director of Milwaukee Freedom Fund and a Public Voices Fellow of Transformative Justice with The OpEd Project.
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