Walker Veto's Money for Tear-down of Foreclosed Homes, as Governors Vengeance against Milwaukee continues.

Nothing says petty, small and vengeful than a former Milwaukee County Executive lashing out at his former Democratic city critics.

jsonline: Walker also vetoed a budget provision that would have provided $3.5 million over the next two years to communities statewide for demolishing foreclosed homes. Milwaukee would have gotten most of that money because it has the largest inventory of homes that need to be razed immediately. A city database indicates there are more than 800 bank-foreclosed homes in Milwaukee and an estimated 950 city-owned, tax-foreclosed properties. By the end of the year, officials estimate the city may have to take on hundreds more tax-foreclosed homes.

Not all of those homes will have to be demolished. But Milwaukee officials keep a "must-raze" list of 500 homes. On average it costs $15,000 to tear down a home.

All that on top of the following, which I didn't see on the list of veto's, but will affect taxpayers one way or another:

jsonline: The budget bill changes the way billboards are classified for tax purposes. Milwaukee currently assesses billboards as real property parcels and includes the value of the permit, which allows billboard companies to operate them legally.

The net effect of the change in the budget bill is that billboards would be classified as personal property. That means, according to Barrett, that assessments of billboards in Milwaukee alone will drop from $76 million to $6.6 million.

"We share your goal to lower the tax burden throughout the state, but this provision will only reduce the tax burden for companies that are primarily based out-of-state while raising property taxes for Milwaukee-based businesses and homeowners," Barrett said.