Data Centers and Property Taxes, One Year Later

A year ago, I wrote this provocative statement about Port Washington's data center deal. It is unfortunately true of all the data center deals in the state.

‍ ‍"The mayor wanted this project so that he can raise your taxes, not lower them."

One year later, the three communities with active projects are facing tough budget decisions related to their projects. This article checks in on the decisions they are making and what it means for their taxpayers. In this article, I will explain each municipality's unique situation and their reaction to it, and then for fun, I'll compare them all to a community that said "No Thanks" to a data center proposal in Fall 2025.

The Scorecard

Let's jump straight to the comparison. Then if you want the details, you can keep reading. Rating is my subjective measure of how each municipality dealt with their situation.

Max Possible Tax Bill Δ represents the maximum benefit to taxpayers available to the municipality from the data center valuation, if they choose to maximize taxpayer benefit. If data center valuation is in a TID, 0% tax bill increase is the best you can do. If outside of a TID, then a big reduction is possible.

Levy Δ is the year-over-year spending change. It includes general fund spending and debt service payments.

Your Actual Tax Bill Δ, though, is the objective measure of impact.

Translating some of those lines:

Beaver Dam could have kept tax bills flat. Instead, they chose to raise spending by 3%. With assessments also rising about 7% in the city, that means a 10% increase in city property tax.
Port Washington could have lowered city property tax by up to 12%. They chose to lower them 2.3% and spend the rest.
The village that said no did just fine, keeping the lid on spending and the total tax levy.

What can we interpret from these numbers?