Part 2: South 27th Street Corridor Project Flunks Geography

Part 1: The South 27th Street Corridor’s Impact on The Franklin School District

As we reported in Part One yesterday, the billing, collection and distribution of each of the three Franklin school districts’ (Franklin Whitnall and Oak Creek-Franklin Joint) tax levies is processed by City of Franklin Treasurer Cal Patterson’s office in November of the levy year, for use in the following year.  The Franklin Treasurer’s Office gathers the levy information and produces tax bills for all taxable properties, collects those amounts, and remits them to the tax jurisdictions in accordance with Wisconsin State Statutes.  In other words, the City of Franklin acts as a clearing house for the three school district tax levies collected from Franklin taxpayers.  For example, in 2008, according to the Franklin Treasurer’s Office $2,312,202 was remitted to the Whitnall School District, $4,264,165 to the Oak Creek-Franklin District and $29,476,874 to the Franklin School District.

PAGE TWO. . .

A map of the City of Franklin’s Public School Districts illustrates the size and locations of each of the city’s three districts.In 2003 a Fact Sheet pertaining to the 27th Street Project points out:

The cities of Franklin and Oak Creek recognized the economic potential of the South 27th Street Corridor and agreed to form a cooperative alliance… to pursue their goals to grow the property tax base, create jobs, and spur economic activity for the area.

This fact sheet also points out:

The South 27th Street Corridor is a smart, thoughtfully planned project that will result in a win-win for both Oak Creek and Franklin.

If, as Franklin city leaders and their Oak Creek counterparts claim, and indeed, “The South 27th Street Corridor is a smart, thoughtfully planned project that will result in a win-win for both Oak Creek and Franklin,” taxpayers must also ask their city leaders exactly what sort of impact in dollars and cents, will this “win/win” development have on Franklin’s ever-growing school tax levy?  According to city officials the project will “…grow the property tax base, create jobs, and spur economic activity for the area.”

For this to be a true  “win/win” for both cities, then the financial impact on school taxes should have also been carefully and thoroughly evaluated and the results included in the decision-making process before moving forward with any plans.  If the location of this development negatively impacts either city’s school tax levy, especially Franklin’s, it should have been a deal–breaker.

The Oak Creek–Franklin School District (green) occupies portions of the West (Franklin) and East (Oak Creek) sides of South 27th Street (South 27th Street Corridor Project).

In an undated 132-page document entitled SOUTH 27TH STREET CORRIDOR PLAN prepared by: Schreiber/Anderson Associates, in cooperation with: Ruekert/Mielke BEST Real Estate, Inc., I was not able to find a comprehensive assessment of the impact–positive or negative—of the development on the City of Franklin’s School Districts, especially the Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School District.

Since 2000 Franklin taxpayers living in the Oak Creek-Franklin School District, bordered in Franklin on the West side of South 27th Street, have paid $28, 944,445 in school taxes(Source: State of Wisconsin Department of Revenue Statement of Taxes).  To be sure, Oak Creek taxpayers in this same school district, whose western boarder begins across the street from Franklin’s side of 27th Street have paid their share of this tax levy, as well.  When this yet to be officially un-named development—remember “BOOMGAARD?—begins to take shape, from a businesses perspective, this same scenario will continue to play-out year–after-year-after-year, due to the placement (straddling the Oak Creek-Franklin School District) of this development.

Had Franklin city leaders had the vision to promote and develop such a project wholly within the City of Franklin, specifically within the Franklin School District, the “…goals to grow the property tax base, create jobs, and spur economic activity for the area,” would occur solely in the City of Franklin, benefiting both the city and the Franklin School District.  In the same nine-year period (2000-2008) that the Oak Creek-Franklin School District rightly received $28,944,445 in school taxes from Franklin taxpayers in that district, the Franklin School District received $214,874,744 from taxpayers in the Franklin School District.

Tomorrow: Push The South 27th Street Project and Oak Creek Under The Bus