MIWLAUKEE (WSAU) Folks in southeast Wisconsin will keep paying a sales tax for the Brewers’ ball park at least two years longer than expected – and maybe four years longer. Original projections showed that the borrowing for Miller Park could finally be paid off in 2014, thus eliminating the need for its one-tenth-percent sales tax.

But according to new projections, the tax will have to stay in effect until 2016, and maybe 2018. The recession is to blame. Stadium tax receipts plunged by almost nine-and-a-half percent last year. And so far this year, collections are down 10-percent from the same time a year earlier.

The tax is charged in Milwaukee, Racine, Ozaukee, Waukesha, and Washington counties. Also, the stadium district’s investments have a hand in deciding when the sales tax will end. And those investments have grown by an average of five-percent a year.