Published: Nov. 17, 2015
A1 - West Bend City Council
Mayor pleased with 2016 budget
Operation costs continue to fall in West Bend
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
A lower city tax rate could be on the horizon for West Bend
residents.
For the third year in a row, the city tax rate, or mill
rate, will remain at $8.51. The mill rate was part of the 2016 City of West
Bend budget proposal, which was approved at Monday’s Common Council meeting at
City Hall.
In addition, the budget was raised 0.88 percent to more than
$22.4 million. Last year, it was $22.2 million.
“Because we’ve had an increase in new development, the mill
rate hasn’t changed,” Mayor Kraig Sadownikow said. “So unless your home changed
in value, your taxes have not changed.”
In that increase was the creation of more than $275,000 into
a cash capital outlay account, which hasn’t been done before in West Bend.
“We have more property that we’re taxing now,” Sadownikow
said, adding the new properties are mostly businesses, but includes houses.
That $275,000 is a cash account which may be used for
projects, such as buying police vehicles.
Sadownikow praised the Common Council and the city’s efforts
to operate with a tight budget in hopes of reaping more benefits down the road.
With Monday’s budget passing, he believes that time is near.
He said in comparison to 2011, the overall cost to operate
the city is 7 percent less in 2015.
In addition, the city has increased investment in road
maintenance, increased contingency accounts for saving and decreased debt.
In the proposal, debt is down 3.93 percent.
“It’s great news for city residents,” Sadownikow said.
“They’re paying less for more services.”
Getting that accomplished has been an effort of several
years by the Common Council.
“It’s been a pretty lean couple of years,” Sadownikow said.
“As we exit the recession and investment in the city increases, I think it’s
great we keep the mill rate the same. We’ve got a little bit of room in the
budget now to increase road maintenance, to increase savings, to offer
employees a raise.”
If this trend continues, which Sadownikow said he believes
it will, that could mean a tax decrease for West Bend residents.
“We’re hopeful that being very fiscally conservative the
last handful of years that, as we exit the recession even further, that we’re
going to be in a better position compared to many of our peers,” Sadownikow
said. “We’re reducing debt, we’re reducing expenses, so that when things
rebound, I’m hopeful that we’re going to have more breathing room in our budget
and can eventually look at a mill rate reduction.”
City to renegotiate contract with Kunkel The Common Council
unanimously approved a proposal to negotiate a new contract with Kunkel
Engineering Group.
The current contract, which was signed in 2013, expires at
the end of the year and the proposal requested a different twoyear contract.
“We made it work it for those first two years,” West Bend
City Engineer Max Marechal said. “But along the way we found out that we could
make this contract better. We noticed some changes would be beneficial. That’s
why we didn’t simply go with an extension.”
Kunkel Engineering Group out of Beaver Dam was one of six
companies that submitted bids to assist with municipal engineering services.
Two others submitted proposals — Baxter & Woodman of Burlington and R.A.
Smith National of Brookfield.
Kunkel had the highest bid of the three at $118,000, but
Alderman John Butschlick said the familiarity was a plus.
“We’ve got two years of working relations with them,” he
said. “If we’ve gone to a new company, we’d pretty much have to start all over
again.”
Roads committee makes presentation Alderman Rich Kasten
presented the Long Range Transportation Planning Committee research results to
the Common Council.
The committee revealed the overall roads condition in West
Bend is 6.17, according to the Pavement Surface and Evaluation and Rating
system. It was 5.89 in 2011.
Also since 2012, the budget for road maintenance has
increased almost $200,000.
Spending on road maintenance will continue to increase by 4
percent every year. The city engineer will have the responsibility to evaluate
roads, instead of the Wisconsin Information System for Local Roads database
that had been used.
“As we start to knock off some of those high-visibility
roads, we’ll start to see the overall favorability go up on the roads,” Kasten
said.
Kasten added if the community wants to see the roads go up
one point to 7.17, the roads budget will have to be almost $2.5 million.
“Are you willing to spend the millions and millions of
dollars to get there?” Kasten asked. “At what point is it good enough?”
The next evaluation, which is every odd year, is expected to
be available by the end of the year.
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