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With the state's budget and the rear view now is the time local governments crunch their
numbers for 2024.
The state's increased to shared revenue means more desperately needed money for some cities
and towns to provide basic services, allowing them to delay going to referendum to increase
tax levies.
For others, the additional funding means more opportunities, including for our next guest,
Wausau Mayor, Katie Rosenberg, and Mayor, thanks very much for being here.
Hello, thanks for having me.
So I understand that the new shared revenue law represents a nearly 30% increase in revenue
from the state, a total of new and existing now of about $5.1 million.
As Mayor, what is it like after so many years of flatter declining aid?
Oh, it's a big deal, and we are so grateful that all parties could come together and make
an agreement on this.
But for us, it's about a million more dollars, more than a million more dollars for our
budget this year and next.
So we're really looking forward to being able to pay for things like health insurance premiums.
That's one thing that earlier this year, we were looking at a 25% increase.
Really scary.
We were able to negotiate that down a little bit and with our partners.
So it's not quite as much now, but we need to pay for it still.
We hired nine new firefighters with a federal FEMA safer grant.
And for now, we get to pay for them with that grant.
But we know that these dollars will help us pay for those firefighters moving forward
as well.
Are there provisions in the shared revenue law that are restrictive as to how it has
to be spent?
And does that represent any kind of hardship for local governments?
You know, I'm sure there are municipalities where that kind of extra level of maybe I'm
not going to call it restrictiveness, but you know, the guidelines that we were given
might be challenging.
But for us, really, we're looking at all of these services that the public expects from
us.
Public safety is especially prevalent.
So we expect to spend a lot of that related to public safety, especially firefighting,
since we did bring on those nine new firefighters this year alone.
Interestingly, there's a provision in this law that prohibits local government from preferential
hiring based on protected classes like race.
Does that change anything in WASA?
You know, we always hire for the best people and we always want the folks that we hire
to be reflective of our community.
So I don't think that changes anything because we're going to continue ahead hiring the best
people that will do the best job in our community.
Another provision in the law allows for what are called innovation grants whereby in exchange
for kind of consolidating services and saving money, you could get more money.
Is that something that WASA is availing itself of?
Absolutely.
We haven't done it formally yet, but we are really excited to move forward and consider
how we can continue partnering with our local partners, the county, other municipalities.
You know, we've done a lot of that over the last 10 years and especially since the recession,
we've figured out ways to cut costs and work together better.
But we're excited now what this looks like for the future.
Can we partner together to do specialized training that will give all of our county the
best level of service better than what they have now?
So we're thinking through what that looks like and also asking clarifying questions.
Do you have a dollar amount in mind that you would like to put in for for that kind of
an addition of grants?
Oh my goodness.
I feel like if I told you anything, we are considering, I mean, we're talking training
specifically when I brought this up with our teams.
Our firefighting team, if you haven't noticed, they're pretty aggressive and we're really
excited about that.
But they were really excited about training.
We don't have a training facility in our county.
And so it would really lift the level of care up for our entire county.
All of the surrounding municipalities and we were able to do that here.
So that's kind of what we're looking at.
Okay.
You tell us still the biggest issue for you remained the water.
How so?
Yes.
That is my number one issue.
So I'm sure you've been following along for our entire two year journey so far and with
PFAS.
So we are temporarily removing our PFAS right now with a resin.
I'm going to try not to get too detailed.
But our permanent solution will be online in the middle of the summer next year.
And so we're really trying to accelerate that.
It's expensive.
We've asked our community to increase their rates 65% to help pay for this.
So I'm really kind of digging in the couch cushions and talking to our partners everywhere.
How do we pay for this without going back to the repairs?
Because it's really a heavy lift for our community, our entire community.
So that's what we're focused on.
We paid for about half of our granular activated carbon solution with grants and awards.
So I'm really excited.
Still looking for more though.
All right.
Digging in those couch cushions.
Mayor Katie Rosenberg, thanks very much.
Thank you.
You pack a lot in.
Thank you.
I feel like I talked too fast too.
And I'm like, no.
I need to fit it all in.
No, it was good.
It was good.
I wish I could have asked you a little bit more about the PFAS remediation.
But we'll do so again.
You've got a lot of time.
We're working on a big LUD service line replacement thing that might be exciting for you.
I can't believe I didn't put it in the email, but November we'll be reaching out again.
Okay.
Interesting.
All right, Mayor.
Thank you.
Have a good weekend.
Thank you.
Talk to you later.