Budget and Finance Basics Yunji Kim Assistant Professor/Extension Specialist

AI Summary

This document is an educational presentation on budget and finance basics for town officials, delivered by Yunji Kim from UW-Madison at the 2019 Spring Town Officials Workshop. The presentation covers why local budgets matter (including the Wisconsin statutory requirement for towns to prepare and adopt annual budgets), constraints on budgets (including Wisconsin's levy limit established in 2005 that restricts annual property tax increases to net new construction or 0% since 2010), and procedures for exceeding the levy limit (requiring town board resolutions and either town meetings for towns under 3,000 population or referendums for larger municipalities). The document notes that levy limit overrides are rare, with only 19 approved referendums between 2006 and 2017, and provides penalties for exceeding the levy limit without proper procedures.