Waukesha budget goes to hearing

Nov. 16, 2009

By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel

Nov. 16, 2009 0

Waukesha — Waukesha residents will get their last chance to speak up on the 2010 city budget Tuesday during a public hearing at the Common Council's 7 p.m. meeting, when final adoption is scheduled.

The budget includes hiring and pay freezes in city government, and higher fees for residents. During weeks of review, the Finance Committee made one small change in the budget first presented by Administrator Lori Curtis Luther - eliminating a proposed $2,160 increase from the mayor's mileage allowance, reducing it to the current $1,440.

The fund for general government operations totals $57.4 million, up 2.6% from this year's $55.9 million and part of an overall budget - including sewer and transit utilities, trust funds and other dedicated funds - of $108.2 million.

The proposed tax levy stands at $51.4 million, up 6.4% from this year's $48.3 million. The levy would produce a tax rate of $8.95 per $1,000 assessed value, up 12 cents. Because the city reassessed all property this year, year-to-year tax rate comparisons do not accurately reflect the impact on individual properties because some property assessments increased while others decreased.

The proposed budget includes a hiring freeze, a salary freeze that has yet to be negotiated with the city's estimated 360 union employees but would save $1 million, and leaves 16 jobs unfilled and unfunded from prior years, including five new ones next year at an added saving of $300,000.

It also includes a couple of fee increases. For example, residents could pay $200 more by next July for basic ambulance service, while the trash and yard-waste drop-off center annual pass will increase $5, to $20, on Jan. 1.

Higher landfill fees triggered by a state budget change, higher pension fund costs and a huge increase in health insurance added about $1.5 million to the budget. Revenue losses - lower state shared revenue, lost investment income and less in development fees - left another $1 million shortfall.

The city's capital plan that primarily pays for parks, and for street, sewer and building upkeep was approved earlier this month by the Common Council. In the most debated item for next year, council members agreed to leave about $1 million in the budget to relocate a fire station from Stardust Drive to Pearl St. to provide better response times. However, the move depends on the city getting about $2.3 million in federal stimulus funds.

About Laurel Walker

Laurel Walker covered local, school and county government for 20 years -- the last half of that at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- before she was named Waukesha County columnist in 1997. Today she writes about the people, places and events around metropolitan Milwaukee with a broad suburban focus. She was the youngest of nine children raised on a central Wisconsin farm before leaving the nest for journalism studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a masters degree at the University of Oregon. She has spent the last half of her life in Waukesha County, where she and her husband raised two sons. Though she has a fondness for life in Waukesha, she eagerly partakes in the culture of the big city to the east and the recreation of the forests to the west. With sons in the arts, she has a special fondness for symphonic music concerts and art museums. She finds peace in a good book at a Northwoods getaway weekend, adventure in family visits to the east and west coasts, and satisfaction in a column well-written that reaches readers.