THE STAY ACT

The STAY Act — Stop Taxing Away Your Home

Property Tax Relief

Owning a home in Wisconsin shouldn't feel like a race against your own tax bill. For too many Fox Valley families — especially seniors on fixed incomes and working families who stretched to buy their first home — rising property taxes are turning the American dream into a financial burden. The STAY Act attacks this problem from three directions at once.

1. Cap Annual Property Tax Increases

No homeowner should face an unpredictable, open-ended increase in their property tax bill year over year. The STAY Act would establish a hard annual cap on how much a primary homeowner's property tax bill can increase in any given year — regardless of what the market is doing. If the value of your home goes up, that's good news for your net worth. It shouldn't automatically become a tax increase you didn't ask for and can't afford.

2. Reform the Assessment Process — End the Spike

Wisconsin's current assessment system allows municipalities to let property values go unreviewed for years — and then hit homeowners with a massive reassessment all at once. The result is a sudden, jarring spike in assessed value that can dramatically increase a tax bill overnight with little warning.

Reive will push for assessment reform that requires more frequent, incremental reassessments so that changes in property value are gradual and predictable — not delivered as a gut punch after years of neglect. Homeowners deserve to see what's coming, not be blindsided by it.

3. Rework the Revenue Sharing Formula — Get Madison to Carry Its Share

A significant reason property taxes are so high in communities like Appleton is that the state hasn't kept up with its end of the bargain. Decades ago, Wisconsin made a commitment to share state revenue with local governments so that municipalities wouldn't have to rely so heavily on property taxpayers to fund basic services. That commitment has eroded over time — and property owners have been picking up the slack ever since.

The STAY Act would tie property tax relief directly to shared revenue reform — requiring the state to modernize and increase its revenue sharing with local governments so that municipalities have the resources they need without constantly reaching into the pockets of homeowners. This pairs directly with the ROOTS Act, which restores local control and updates the outdated shared revenue formula.

The Bottom Line:

The STAY Act doesn't just tinker at the edges. It caps increases so homeowners can plan. It smooths assessments so there are no surprises. And it fixes the underlying funding imbalance that has been driving property taxes up for decades. If you own a home in the Fox Valley, this is the bill that protects it.