Report: Green Bay tax abatement losses rising swiftly

(The Center Square) – Green Bay has one of the fastest growing tax abatement losses in the country, according to a new report.

The city had just $191,000 in tax abatements in 2017 but that grew to $2 million in 2022, a 942% increase, according to numbers collected by Good Jobs First. The report listed Green Bay as having the third fastest-growing set of tax abatements for businesses in the country.

The abatements come through tax increment financing, which allows businesses to retain increases in property taxes in order to spend that money on property improvements.

“It’s vital that the public knows how much their communities and school districts lose to corporate tax abatements,” said Anya Gizis, Good Jobs First research analyst and the report’s lead author. “Only then can they begin to determine whether such giveaways were worth it and ask questions about what they got in return.”

The report shows that U.S. localities lost at least a combined $93 billion in abatements over the past five years with the annual losses rising by 28% and school districts losses rising even faster at 42% annually.

“These numbers are very conservative because some localities still fail to disclose this previously hidden tax-break spending,” the report said. “And we surveyed only the 50 states plus DC and each state’s five biggest cities, counties, and school districts.”

Tax abatement tax losses in Milwaukee for schools were at least $41.2 million over the five years of the report while Madison school losses were $32.3 million and Green Bay school losses were $3.7 million.

Green Bay has continued to add TIF districts in recent years in areas of downtown, near the Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field and elsewhere .

Green Bay plans to spend $4.27 million for a Green Bay Public Market project by On Broadway, with $1 million of the $3.3 million in development incentives available up front with the plan of having the market completed before Green Bay hosts the NFL Draft from April 24-26, 2025.

The public market TIF is scheduled to last 27 years.