Reading Time: < 1 minute

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

Legislation to provide $546 million in public funds for American Family Field improvements would not require contributions from the suburban Milwaukee counties of Ozaukee, Racine, Washington and Waukesha.

The Republican-led bill is scheduled for an Assembly vote Oct. 17, 2023.

The state would contribute $411 million and the city and county of Milwaukee a total of $135 million. The Milwaukee Brewers would contribute $100 million.

Exempting the suburban counties would be a change from the funding formula that built the stadium.

A 0.1% sales tax imposed in the five counties raised $609 million over 24 years for construction of what was originally known as Miller Park, which opened in 2001. The tax ended in 2020.

The board of the state-created Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District, which enacted the sales tax, has members from the five counties.

The district owns 64% and the Brewers own the rest of the stadium.

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

Wisconsin State Legislature: AB438: Bill Text

Wisconsin State Legislature: Assembly Calendar

AP News: Republicans tweak Brewers stadium repair plan to cut the total public contribution by $54 million

Wisconsin State Legislature: Local Professional Sports Facilities Financing

wibaseballdistrict.com: Financial statements

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Tom Kertscher joined Wisconsin Watch as a full-time Milwaukee-based reporter in October 2024 after starting as a freelance Fact Briefs reporter in January 2023. In addition to contributing to Wisconsin Watch’s collaboration with The Gigafact Project to combat online misinformation, he reports on Wisconsin policy, labor, energy and the rapid expansion of data centers across the state. Kertscher is a former longtime reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a contributing writer for Milwaukee Magazine and the author of two sports books, on Al McGuire and Brett Favre.