SUN PRAIRIE RISING

by Bill Connors

For years, the Sun Prairie city government’s property tax on the average value house increased 2.5% to 3.0% each year. In more recent years, the city property tax increase on the average value house has creeped up into higher percentages. In my opinion, that was a mistake.

For example, as a result of the 2026 city budget, the city property tax on the average value house increased by 5.5%. That more substantial increase was because of a 20.0% increase in the debt service levy from recent big construction projects, such as the expansion of the Public Library.

The largest recent increase in the city property tax levy was the result of the 2024 city budget, when the levy increased by 14.3%. But that year, the city property tax on the average value house increased by “only” 4.7%. The average value house increased in value dramatically as a result of a city-wide revaluation, and as a result the city government’s property tax rate (mill rate) DECREASED from $7.5101 per thousand dollars of assessed value to $6.3418 per thousand.

The property tax levy for the 2024 city budget was set in November 2023, when the city government finally began to see the full impact of the high worldwide inflation that ran from approximately May 2021 through April 2023, peaking in the U.S. in June 2022. When the City Council set the property tax levy the year before in November 2022, the city government had not yet seen the full impact of the high inflation.

The largest recent increase in the city property tax on the average value house as a result of the 2025 city budget, when the city property tax on the average value house increased by 7.7%. This property tax levy was set in November 2024, after inflation had dropped to an annual rate of 3.0% to 3.5% each month in late 2023 and much of 2024. I don’t recall there being many expensive budget initiatives in the 2025 city budget, so it is possible this increase might have been from the delayed impact of inflation (e.g., the timing of union employee contracts tends to be behind what is happening in the economy).