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For the first time in a long time, the number of tax delinquent properties in Milwaukee’s suburbs has declined. The decline was uneven, however, with delinquencies plummeting in municipalities like Franklin and Cudahy and rising in River Hills and Bayside. 

The improvement may be due to moratoriums on mortgage foreclosures enacted by some local banks, the federal government, extensions in unemployment benefits approved by the federal government and other federal aid, according to Milwaukee County Treasurer Dan Diliberti, a Democrat and former county supervisor.

He says the number of delinquent properties in suburbs within Milwaukee County dropped 3.2 percent this year versus last year, the first time since he took office in 2004. Despite this decline, the total amount of back taxes increased by 2.5 percent; however, this was a smaller rate of increase than in other years since 2004.

In Franklin, the number of delinquent properties went down by about a fifth. Total back taxes owed in the city dropped almost as much. Cudahy also saw dramatic declines. Delinquent properties there went down 9 percent and back taxes were reduced by 25 percent.

Two more affluent suburbs, however, suffered less envious fates. In River Hills, back taxes jumped up about 43 percent even as the number of delinquent properties fell 26 percent. In Fox Point, both the totals of back taxes and the number of delinquent properties increased, by 26 and 4 percent, respectively.

Diliberti says “owners of higher value property, both residential and commercial, are feeling the pinch of the continuing recession in Milwaukee County.”

Despite the recent decline in delinquencies, delinquent taxes in the suburbs have more than tripled since 2004, he says.

As reported in a previous NewsBuzz story, poverty has risen dramatically in the suburbs of Wisconsin’s two largest cities in the past decade. Between 2000 and 2008, following a national trend, it rose about 50 percent in the Milwaukee and Madison suburbs, according to a Brookings Institution study.

Comparable statistics regarding City of Milwaukee properties won’t be available until later in the year, according to the office of City Treasurer Wayne Whittow.

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