St. Francis has massive TIDs that encompass everyday homes and businesses. Increasing property values across the nation means higher taxes for us.
Your taxesWhat a TID really does
$238Mof city value walled off in TIDs, 2026
A TID (tax incremental district) freezes an area’s value and sends taxes on growth above it to a TID fund. That should be growth that happens only “but for” the TID, around specific projects.
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Our TIDs take in nearly half the city’s land, homes and businesses included, so ordinary growth and citywide revaluations land in them too. Walled-off value jumped from $34 million in 2016 to $238 million in 2026.
Think of it like dining out with your friendsThe city, schools, county, MATC and MMSD agree on the bill in advance. With how our TIDs are designed, the city orders lobster while taxpayers foot the extra bill.
On your tax bill, the TID charge is folded into the “Local” line. The city’s taxing-district sheet lists it on its own, as “TID #3–5”: 4.07 mills in 2025, or $1,018 on a $250,000 home. Through 2025, about 41% of TID money would otherwise have gone to the schools, 35% to the city and 15% to the county.
Source: DOR TID value statements 2016–2026, via increment sources; TID parcel acres, statewide parcel files; Dec. 2025 tax bill and taxing-district sheet; Wis. Stat. § 66.1105(4m)(c)1.a (“but for”).
Your taxesWhy our TIDs are a problem
42%of 2025 TID money came from unsubsidized property
Buildings that got TID deals supplied 58% of TID money in 2025. The other 42% came from homes, businesses and buildings the TIDs never paid for.
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New developers pay their property taxes, and most goes to the TID. But when your average Joe’s home in a TID gains $100,000 in value, who pays? We all do, again and again across our huge TIDs.
The city might say“Those buildings wouldn’t exist without TID deals.” That explains the 58%, not the 42%.
In 2025, homes already inside the TIDs sent $615,065 to the TID fund, and businesses already there sent $667,197. From 2016 to 2025, property that never got a TID deal paid $9.2 million into the TIDs. Over the TIDs’ full life, 2008–2036, it is projected to pay $34.4 million.
Source: increment sources database (Baker Tilly TID compilations, DOR parcel values), levies 2016–2025. Counting every year since 2008, subsidized buildings supplied 54%.
Your taxesIs this normal? No and yes.
20.1%of city value in TIDs in 2026, the county’s most
No Milwaukee County community has more value in TIDs, and only one has a higher tax rate. It was 17% in 2025; the model puts it near 25% in 2028 and 28% in 2030 with the Triangle.
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TIDs mortgage our present for promises of a bigger tax base and lower taxes later. If developers can’t build without public money, why is that our problem? This is common across the Midwest, so we can fix it together.
The real fix is in MadisonState law leaves cities few tools beyond TIDs. The city should rally our legislators to fix that. Money handed to developers, many out of state, leaves our community.
The city might say“If values rose without a TID, your taxes would rise anyway.”
Not quiteIf every property gains value at once, rates fall and bills stay level. Your taxes rise when a taxing body raises its levy, or when your value rises faster than everyone else’s. The next article looks at how new construction lets the city’s levy grow.
Right and left agree. The conservative MacIver Institute reported a nonpartisan Legislative Council finding: new construction inside a TID raises the mill rate for everyone. A 2026 University of Illinois Chicago study, covered by The New York Times, found about 98% of value growth inside Chicago’s TIFs would have happened anyway. The Lincoln Institute found TIF “often fails” at its main goal.
Source: WI DOR 2025 Statement of Changes in TID Value and Town, Village and City Taxes, via the peers database; DOR TIF Value Limit reports, 2025–2026; model: increment sources projections.
Your taxesThe broken promise of TIDs
$135–159a year back after the TIDs close (model)
TID 4 closes in 2030, TID 3 in 2033 and TID 5 in 2036. Of the $1,018 TID share on a $250,000 home, about $135 to $159 a year comes back.
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Rising values alone don’t raise taxes; a bigger levy does. TID growth is real growth that should become relief. Instead the city spends it without a referendum, and ties deals and debt to it, so TIDs can’t close early.
Back to dinner with our friendsOur friends’ appetites grow because we look richer: they hand us more of the check, school aid drops, and the city gets to raise its cost one last time.
The city might say“We need that money to run the city.”
Then ask votersThe way the school does, with a referendum.
The school’s aid formula shields us a little while the TIDs run, but at closure the state sees us as richer and cuts aid. The county, MMSD and MATC split their levies by value, so our share of their bills grows. Run your own numbers with your home’s assessed value.
Source: model built on DOR PC-202 2025, LFB 2024-25 school aid figures, Wis. Stat. § 66.0602(3)(dm), and Ehlers TID 3, 4 and 5 reports (Dec. 2024).
Questions, corrections, or a neighbor’s story about this? Talk about it on Connect St. Francis.