Last updated: October 19, 2026
Price County is quietly hiking the fees it charges local towns to collect property taxes, and the fallout is already reshaping how three towns handle tax payments.
The increases are pushing towns to restructure their collection systems. Georgetown passed an ordinance in December to drop from three payment installments to two starting in 2027. Town of Lake is adding a $350 fee to its three-pay option and debating whether to bring collection back in-house. Catawba has also approved a switch from three payments to two, then decided in July to keep the county collecting its taxes through 2029. Georgetown has since hired an appointed treasurer, the staffing change it had been weighing as a way to bring collection back in-house.
The result is straightforward: property owners lose flexibility because the county is charging towns more for a service that towns used to handle themselves.
What the County Is Doing
In Wisconsin, towns can collect property taxes in one, two, or three installments. More installments give residents more flexibility to spread out payments across the year. But more installments also mean more administrative work, and Price County charges towns fees for handling the collection process.
Those fees are going up.
The county has not publicly detailed the new fee schedule, but town board minutes from late 2025 and early 2026 make clear the increases are significant enough to force structural changes. Town officials reviewed the county’s “increasing fee chart for tax collection” at Georgetown’s November board meeting and acted quickly.
Georgetown’s Response: Ordinance 2025-4
Georgetown moved first.
At its November 11, 2025 board meeting, officials reviewed the county’s increasing fee chart. The minutes note that the town is “currently paying the county for tax collection which is typically a treasurer’s task.” Georgetown’s treasurer, Becky Kempen, did not want to collect taxes herself, which left the town dependent on the county.
But the fee hikes changed the math.
“The town is currently paying the county for tax collection which is typically a treasurer’s task,” the minutes read. “As the treasurer does not desire to collect taxes, it will have to be determined how to proceed.”
The board decided that night to return to a two-payment system, with taxes due in January and July beginning in 2027. The motion was made by LeRoy and seconded by Jessica.
A month later, at the December 9, 2025 meeting, the board formally adopted Ordinance 2025-4, “Regarding Payment of Property Taxes.” Jessica made the motion to adopt, LeRoy seconded, and the motion carried. The ordinance sets two installments: one due at the end of January and one at the end of July.
What 2-Pay vs 3-Pay Means for Property Owners
The switch from three payments to two is not just administrative housekeeping. It directly affects how property owners manage their money.
Under a three-pay system, residents can split their property tax bill into three smaller payments across the year. Helps households on tighter budgets or those with irregular income. The payments are smaller and spread out, which makes a big tax bill less of a hit all at once.
Under a two-pay system, the same total bill gets divided into just two larger chunks. Each payment is bigger. Residents who were counting on three smaller payments now have to come up with more money twice a year instead of less money three times a year.
Georgetown residents will feel this starting in 2027. The county’s fee structure made the three-pay option too expensive for the town to maintain, so the convenience of three payments goes away.
Town of Lake’s Response: $350 Fee
Town of Lake is taking a different approach.
At its January 8, 2026 board meeting, the agenda included a tax collection discussion about “3-pay installments with $350 fee added.” Rather than eliminating the three-pay option entirely, Town of Lake is passing the county’s added cost directly to residents who want to use it. $350 fee means residents who need the flexibility of three payments will pay for the privilege. Residents who can afford to pay in fewer installments won’t face the extra charge.
The board also discussed “continuing local collections,” which signals interest in having the town treasurer handle tax collection in-house rather than paying the county to do it.
Catawba’s Response: Switching to Two Payments
Catawba is the third town restructuring its tax collection in response to the county’s fee increases.
The Catawba village board discussed the issue at its December 2025 meeting, weighing the tradeoffs between three-payment and two-payment installments. The board reviewed how the county’s fee structure made the three-pay option more expensive to maintain.
The board had previously approved a change from three payments to two at its August 12, 2025 meeting, making Catawba the first of the three towns to formally begin the transition. The decision followed the same logic Georgetown would adopt months later: the county’s higher fees made the three-installment option too costly to justify.
Catawba’s move predates Georgetown’s Ordinance 2025-4 and Town of Lake’s $350 fee discussion, suggesting the county’s fee increases have been pushing towns toward restructuring for longer than the recent board minutes indicate.
Catawba Decides to Stay With the County
Catawba settled the question the other two towns are still working through. At its July 20, 2026 board meeting, the village board reviewed county tax collection pricing through 2029. Gary Halmstad moved to continue having Price County collect Catawba’s property taxes. Cali Handel seconded, and the motion carried.
That means Catawba keeps its two-payment schedule and keeps paying the county to run collections, at least for the term of the current pricing agreement. The village is not moving collection back in-house.
The Irony: Residents Lose Flexibility
The core tension here is that Price County is charging towns more for a service that gives residents more payment flexibility. The natural response from towns is to reduce that flexibility to save money.
So the county’s fee increases effectively tax convenience. Towns that want to offer three payment windows pay more. Towns that can’t afford the higher fees cut back to two. And in Town of Lake’s case, the cost gets passed straight to the property owner.
The people most affected are the ones who need the three-pay option most: residents on fixed incomes, seasonal workers, or anyone whose cash flow doesn’t line up neatly with two big payments a year.
The local collection workaround
Georgetown and Lake are exploring the same escape hatch: having their own treasurer collect taxes locally instead of paying the county. Catawba looked at it and decided against it, at least through 2029.
Georgetown’s December minutes state that “because of the increasing charges by the County to collect the town’s taxes, the board will be considering returning to having the town treasurer collect the January tax payments in the future.”
The obstacle was that Georgetown’s then-treasurer, Becky Kempen, didn’t want to collect taxes. That has changed.
At Georgetown’s February 10, 2026 board meeting, the board discussed elected versus appointed clerk and treasurer positions. Georgetown currently appoints its clerk, and “it is the consensus of the board to consider appointing the treasurer’s position in the future.”
An appointed treasurer could be more willing to take on tax collection duties than an elected one who sets their own boundaries. Georgetown followed through on the staffing change. At a Special Meeting of the Electorate on March 10, 2026, electors voted 6-0 to convert the treasurer position from elected to appointed. Treasurer Becky Kempen had resigned that same day. The board hired Sue Ihlenfeld at $3,600 a year, and she was sworn in on June 9, 2026. The town has not voted to resume local collection, so the county still handles the work. But the obstacle Kempen represented is gone, and the board now has an appointee it can direct.
The connection is direct. The county’s fee hikes are pushing towns not just to restructure payment schedules but to reconsider how they staff key positions.
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Broader Context
This is not just a Georgetown or Town of Lake story. It’s a quiet example of how county-level fee increases ripple down to individual property owners across Price County.
Every town that uses the county for tax collection faces the same higher fees. Each will have to decide whether to absorb the cost, pass it to residents, reduce payment flexibility, or bring collection back in-house. Those decisions play out in town board meetings that most residents never attend.
The county has not publicly explained the rationale behind the fee increases. Town board minutes reference the “increasing fee chart” but don’t detail what drives the higher costs. Whether the increases reflect actual rising administrative expenses or something else is a question that hasn’t been answered in public meetings.
What’s clear is that the fee structure is forcing structural changes at the town level. Georgetown has passed its ordinance and hired an appointed treasurer. Town of Lake is adding a fee and exploring local collection. Catawba approved its switch months earlier and has now opted to leave collection with the county through 2029. Other towns facing the same increases will have to make similar choices.
For property owners, the bottom line is simple. If your town switches from three payments to two, your individual payments get bigger. If your town adds a fee for the three-pay option, you pay more for flexibility you used to get for free. And if your town brings collection back in-house, the quality of that service depends on who gets appointed to do the work.
The county’s fee hikes are a line item in a budget document somewhere. For residents, they’re a bigger tax bill split into fewer pieces.