The Town of La Pointe and a half-dozen Town residents are asking Ashland County to return nearly $364,000 in property taxes for law enforcement services the County is failing to provide the township.
“They can’t keep our money if they’re not delivering the services they’re taxing us for,” says Glenn Carlson, Town Chair in La Pointe. “The County can’t have it both ways.”
The claim is in response to the County Board’s unilateral decision to terminate an agreement that, for 27 years, refunded a small portion of La Pointe’s property taxes. The refund helped La Pointe maintain its own police department, which provides necessary 24/7 coverage for people who live in, work in, or visit La Pointe. The agreement also freed sheriff’s deputies to concentrate on mainland communities, rather than add regular patrols and response in La Pointe. In order to reach La Pointe, Ashland County deputies must drive more than 20 miles – mostly through Bayfield County – then take a ferry or wind sled to and from Madeline Island.
Under Wisconsin law, sheriffs are legally responsible for law enforcement and must provide the same level of coverage throughout the county. Through its agreement with La Pointe, the County purchased law enforcement services from the Town that the County otherwise would have to deliver directly. By terminating the agreement for 2023, the County now is legally obligated to provide La Pointe the same level of patrol, response, and backup that it provides other communities in the County.
That is not happening, La Pointe says in its claim.
“The County is not providing any routine law enforcement,” says Town Administrator Michael Kuchta. “It has dumped its statutory responsibility entirely on the Town. But it no longer is paying the Town to take on that responsibility. That forces our residents to pay even more to handle the County’s responsibilities ourselves.”
“We need to guarantee the public safety of our community,” Carlson says. “We can’t do that if we’re forced to pay the County for services they are legally required to provide, but don’t.”
La Pointe is 2.7 percent of Ashland County’s population, but provides 20.1 percent of the County’s property-tax revenue. The Town’s claim for $363,654.63 is limited to the portion that La Pointe property owners pay into the sheriff’s patrol budget, the Town’s administrator says. The Town is not seeking any of the roughly $555,000 in additional money its taxpayers send to support the County’s 911 dispatch, emergency management, domestic violence prevention, jail, or other law enforcement activities, he says.
The Town filed its claim on March 8. Under state law, the County Board has six months to pay the claim or, alternatively, to provide adequate law enforcement services. If it does not, the Town could sue.
Meanwhile, the state Department of Revenue has scheduled a hearing on April 14 in Madison on a separate, but related, petition from La Pointe. The Town is asking the Department to permanently transfer a portion of the County’s tax levy to the Town’s tax levy. The Town cites state statutes, which say that if a county shifts responsibility for a service to another municipality, the tax levy that supports the service also must shift to the municipality.
