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"The state Legislature's Finance Committee voted Thursday night to lift residency restrictions in the state budget; however, police, fire and emergency responders would still have to live within 15 miles of the city.Now, some in Milwaukee are wondering what the fallout from that might be on the city and its taxpayers.\"A lot of city employees live around here,\" south-side Milwaukee resident Steve Valdovinos said.\"And you're not worried they're going to be moving out if they have the opportunity to do that?\" WISN 12 News reporter Kent Wainscott asked.\"Not at all, no,\" Valdovinos said.Valdovinos is a retired firefighter, who supports lifting the residency restrictions but doesn't see it having much of an impact.\"I don't think it's going to make much of a difference at all,\" Valdovinos said.The president of the area Realtor association said dropping the residency requirement won't really mean a lot of movement in the housing market.\"The number of people who are actually going to choose to leave is much smaller, I think, than people are worried about,\" said Mike Ruzicka of the Greater Milwaukee Realtors Association.\"This was a frontal attack against local government and the city of Milwaukee in particular,\" Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said.Barrett blasted the vote to allow police and firefighters to leave the city and avoid contributing to their pension costs by paying city taxes.The head of Marquette University's economics department said any economic impact on the city will probably be temporary.\"Overall, I don't see a significant long-term impact. There will be small impact that will carry on over a couple of years,\" Professor Abdur Choudhury said.The issue still has to be approved by the full Legislature as part of the budget, but if it becomes law, Choudhury said housing values in some places may drop slightly for awhile and then recover.The Realtor's association said the fact that housing prices are low, and it's not a good time to sell, means a lot of city employees who might consider moving, if they can, will likely choose not to."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.wisn.com/article/experts-think-residency-requirement-changes-wouldn-t-have-much-effect-on-economy/6315370>