MILWAUKEE — As two members of Milwaukee's Fire and Police Commission resigned this week, in part, to shine a spotlight on certain provisions of the recently-passed Act 12, more Wisconsinites were likely learning that the shared revenue measure was about much more than just how much money the state shares with local municipalities.

"There are provisions in Wisconsin's Act 12 that one could logically question, 'Is this an intrusion by state government into the affairs of its local governments?'" said Rob Henken, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum. "On the other hand, there are certainly certain interests of state government, particularly when providing an opportunity for the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County [in one instance] to generate tens of millions of dollars of additional sales tax revenue in light of the agreement by the State to make some really historic changes in terms of the shared revenue program that one could argue that there is a state interest in putting forward certain policy requirements for local governments that are in the state's interest."

Those provisions, in part, limit local health departments from shutting down businesses for longer than 30 days during a health emergency without a vote, require communities to maintain specific levels of police, fire and first responder staffing, and restrict communities from adding most advisory referenda to the ballot on topics such as Medicaid expansion, marijuana legalization or abortion.

"This is one that for both sides is a very political question," Henken said. "We have seen a lot of usage of local referendum questions, county-wide referendum questions, that very candidly are not being put forward to inform policy decision making but are being put forward to try and ensure that certain types of voters are more apt to turnout to vote."

Watch the full interview above.