Examining Small Town Revenues: To What Extent Are They Diversified?

Abstract

How diversified are small town revenues? Revenue diversification is analyzed among towns governed by town meetings. Using previously developed diversification measures, the findings confirm that these localities draw from less diverse revenue streams than other state and local governments. The reasons for these variations include differences in home rule status as well as tax and expenditure limitations imposed by states. The authors suggest that revenue allocation in these jurisdictions is substantively different from other forms of local government because these communities rely much less on sales taxation than states and municipalities. Their essay proposes possible options for improvement, along with other criteria by which small towns can assess their revenue diversification.

Predicting TIF Distress: A Statistical Analysis of Tax Incremental Finance Districts in Wisconsin

“…Given that TIF is based on property values and taxes, a municipality's over‐reliance on property taxes may also therefore increase TIF fiscal stress. Variables for local government type (city governments in Wisconsin have elected mayors who have varying levels of centralized, executive authority that may help offset TIF turbulence) and socioeconomic trends are also included to control for their unique effects (Carroll and Johnson )…”

“…Given that TIF is based on property values and taxes, a municipality's over-reliance on property taxes may also therefore increase TIF fiscal stress. Variables for local government type (city governments in Wisconsin have elected mayors who have varying levels of centralized, executive authority that may help offset TIF turbulence) and socioeconomic trends are also included to control for their unique effects (Carroll and Johnson 2010). 9 Finally, in order to capture pre-implementation planning and post-implementation oversight that relates to higher levels of TIF performance, per Hall and Bartels (2014), this paper includes variables related to institutional TIF capacity.…”

Enhancing Local Own-Revenues -- Problems and Challenges

“…Thus, concentration of local governments in enhancing local own-revenues must start to shift from the tax sector to the nontax sector [3], this can be done through the development of units of public services managed by local governments or local government owned enterprises, hence the government is able to make profits from services provided to the public. Therefore, the sector of local charges and profits of local government owned enterprises can replace the domination of the local taxes.…”

Local Government Budget Stabilization

“…HHI was first proposed by Suyderhoud (1994). Following the work of Suyderhoud (1994) and Carroll (2005), Carroll and Johnson (2010) noted there are substantial differences in HHI that reflect differences in revenue structure and level of government.…”

“…Keeping in mind those differences, I followed Carroll and Johnson (2010) and modified categories of own-source revenues-property, sales, other tax, and user charges and fees. As is shown in Fig.…”