Nice, but temporary.

Aggregate property taxes collected in the southeast Wisconsin region fell by 3 percent ($121 million) from 2014 to 2015, with each of the seven counties in the region seeing individual declines – the first time that has happened since at least 2000, according to a new report from the Public Policy Forum.

The decrease in the region’s aggregate tax levy was accompanied by an even larger (5.4%) decrease in the aggregate gross tax rate for property owners in the region, from $23.93 per $1,000 of equalized value in 2014 to $22.63 in 2015. This is the first year the region’s tax rate has declined since 2008, according to the report.

According to the report, the “decline in levies resulted largely from the passage of Wisconsin Act 145.” That legislation – signed into law in March 2014 – provided more than $400 million in additional state aid for the state’s technical colleges, with a corresponding requirement that property taxes across the state be reduced by a roughly equivalent amount.