Dr. Glenn W. Fisher
In remembrance
Dr. Glenn W. Fisher, Professor Emeritus
(5/23/1924 – 11/5/2018)
Joe P. Pisciotte, Professor Emeritus of Urban and Public Affairs
In an active career spanning four decades, Dr. Fisher’s national reputation in state and local finance is well-known. In 2006, Dr. Fisher received the highest award in public finance - the Aaron Wildavsky Award from the Association for Budgeting & Financial Management of the American Society for Public Administration. His book, The Worst Tax? (1996) is a thorough and widely read historical account of the property tax. Dr. Bart Hildreth, a former colleague at Wichita State, credits Dr. Fisher for the efficiency of property tax administration in Kansas.
From 1943 to 1945, Dr. Fisher was a member of the U.S. Army Infantry (PFC). Part of D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, Dr. Fisher was awarded the Purple Heart. Mine is Not the Reason Why – The Story of a One-Eyed Soldier (2002) is a personal account of WWII.
In 1954, Dr. Fisher earned a doctoral degree in Economics from the University of Wisconsin. He went on to become a full professor in political science at the University of Illinois. In the 1960s, to explain the variation in state and local expenditures, Dr. Fisher collected data by hand from units of local government. His article Interstate Variation in State and Local Government Expenditure (1964) is among the most cited in the National Tax Journal. While at Illinois, Dr. Fisher’s work caught the attention of a doctoral student in economics, John Mikesell.
Dr. Fisher arrived at Wichita State University in 1970. From 1970 to 1993, he was the first Regent’s Professor of Public Finance at Wichita State. Dr. Fisher became Regents Professor Emeritus in 1993, continuing to write, publish scholarly articles and serve on the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group for the State of Kansas.
Sam Yeager, Professor
Join us in sharing stories, photos and memories of Dr. Fisher. Please send your contributions to: bethany.kennedy@wichita.edu.
Memories
Dr. Fisher and his wife Marvel receiving the Dr. Fisher conducting office hours.
Aaron Wildavsky Award.
A Personal Tribute to Glenn W. Fisher (born May 23, 1924; passed November 5, 2018)
Our dear friend and colleague, Distinguished Regents Professor of Urban Affairs Glenn Fisher, epitomized the mission and character of the original Center for Urban Studies and later the Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs for over four decades, 1970 through 2012.
Glenn believed in the Hugo Wall School’s mission of integrating teaching, research, and service and served as a model for carrying that belief into practice. His research earned scholarly acclaim, nationally and internationally, and also bent the arch of history at critical junctures in public policy making.
With his unique understanding of property taxation Glenn became an active voice in guiding Kansas lawmakers through crucial decisions on classification and reappraisal of property taxes in the mid-1980s. He counseled state executives on administration of property taxes throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Glenn educated many, including me, on the value of balance and diversity in state tax structures, what has become commonly known as the “three-legged stool” of state and local finance. That tax policy steered the transformation of school finance in Kansas in the early 1990s and has withstood alarming threats to abandoning the policy in recent years.
Glenn’s resume might suggest that he retired with emeritus status in 1993, but his presence in the School was felt for nearly another 20 years. He was actively engaged in research and writing well into the first decade of 2000 and reported regularly on those activities. He wrote on the property tax for the governor’s tax equity task force in the mid-1990s and at the age of 82 became a full participant in a faculty team conducting research and presenting testimony on tax-base erosion to an interim legislative committee in 2006.
Glenn and Marvel moved to Colorado to be near the mountains and their daughter Rhonda in 2012. Their 42 years of extraordinary contributions to our School, our University, and our community gave us a social bond that cannot not be replaced.
H. Edward Flentje, professor emeritus
November 24, 2018