Cities (of all sizes) are by and large much better managed than state government. Unfortunately, state legislatures seem to have ignored cities for the past decade or so, and now that state budgets are in trouble because of bad decisions by legislators, they want to put the problems on the back of cities.
Wisconsin's situation is similar. Cities have only two main sources of revenue, shared revenue from the state and property taxes. All through the good years, the legislature only increased shared revenue by one percent. In real terms, with inflation, that source of revenue declined. At the same time, to look like heroes cutting taxes on businesses, they exempted most personal property such as machinery, computers, and telecommunications, then they changed the way agricultural land is assessed. This eroded the tax base. Cities responded by cutting, getting more efficient, and raising property taxes. (Though it should be noted that while city spending increased by 50%, state spending increased by 150%.)
To solve the budget crisis that it created, the state is planning a cut to shared revenues. In our case, it is about 7-8% of our budget. Then, because they are "tough on taxes" they decided to put a freeze on local taxes. Of course, they would not want to do the same to themselves. Since we need a 3-5% increase every year just to maintain our current level of service, we are going into this next budget with a hole of ten percent or more.
Sorry to go on about this, but I am one of the people who helps to put together the budget. I have to consider cutting things I have invested a good deal of time, effort, and emotion into. I also have to consider staffing issues, and the potential for my staff to be cut or transferred elsewhere. It is difficult.