According to Ziegelbauer, “This is what Democracy really looks like.”
MacIver News Service | November 22, 2013
[Manitowoc, Wisc…] The Manitowoc County Board passed a budget early Wednesday morning that rejects a $4 million county sales tax on a 13-12 vote.Manitowoc County Executive, Bob Ziegelbauer, proposed a budget that included no property tax increase and no sales tax. His budget also requires county employees to by $12 to $126 a month toward their health insurance premiums when the currently pay nothing. That would be a maximum of 7 percent, while state employees under Act 10 pay 12.6 percent.
The finance committee added a half percent sales tax to the budget to avoid the modest health insurance contributions.
“The bottom line is that the sales tax was defeated because the people were heard,” Ziegelbauer told the MacIver News Service. “In the week after the Finance Committee proposed a budget including it there was a terrific amount of contact with Board members. Many who spoke at the meeting in favor of the Sales Tax clearly did not vote for it only because they heard from constituents before the vote.”
Ziegelbauer said he was prepared to veto the budget if the sales tax was included.
He said, “In the end it was a great night for local government in Manitowoc County. This is what Democracy really looks like.”