Appleton Budget Notes - November 7, 2023

                                                                         Greetings District 6 Neighbors, 

I was writing about last week’s Common Council meeting along with my thoughts on the budget and realized that it was becoming completely unwieldy, so I’m splitting the updates into two separate emails. This email covers my thoughts on the 2024 budget. 

We had our “Budget Saturday” workshop on October 28. This is the opportunity for each department head to present their budget to the council. Officially, it’s a meeting of the Finance Committee, and only members of that committee can vote to recommend the budgets for approval, but traditionally all members of the council attend and can ask questions.  

A few years ago, we adopted the practice of submitting our budget questions to city directors in writing during the weeks between receiving the mayor’s proposed budget and the budget workshop, with those questions and answers being distributed to all alders. In the past, this has resulted in a more streamlined process during the workshop. However, during the years where inflation was low and the tax levy was constrained by relatively low net new construction, we were basically looking at status quo budgets for these years. 

Here is a link to all the submitted questions and answers: https://www.appleton.org/home/showpublisheddocument/26066/638343399406430000 

The budget hearing this year did not follow the trend of the last few years – we were at City Hall for almost eleven hours. 

This year, we are looking at increased prices for all the goods and services the city purchases, including an 18% increase in health care costs,  a higher-than-normal increase in net new construction and the almost $2 million in additional shared revenue. I did expect some changes in the budget, but I believe that the mayor and city staff have addressed the need to maintain services for the citizens of Appleton while being responsible with property taxes and borrowing. When all departments had submitted their budgets for 2024 there was a $3.8 million gap between projected revenue and the needs of the departments, including the 3% merit raises proposed for city employees (which still does not keep up with inflation – and those employees will be asked to contribute to their health insurance premiums for the first time 

I discussed the increase in shared revenue from the State of Wisconsin in previous updates – this comes from income tax dollars our citizens pay to the state, which have tripled over the last 10 years, while the funds sent back to the cities towns and villages had actually decreased until this year. Appleton is getting $1,826,000 in additional shared revenue for 2024. The budget proposes to spend $963,000 of that on infrastructure, $698,000 on public safety compensation and $165,000 on the Axon contract for police body cameras. We are constrained by Act 12 which provided for the increase in shared revenue to spend it only on infrastructure and/or public safety. 

The two budget items that were the subject of the majority of the discussion involved the proposal to move 94% of the Forestry expenditures and some bridge maintenance expenses to the to the Stormwater Utility. and some bridge maintenance expenses to the Stormwater Utility. Some alders voiced concern about the transfer from property taxes (the General Fund) to an Enterprise Fund. They actually seemed less concerned about the movement of the budget items than the idea that this decision should have been made by the Common Council outside of the budget process.  

Stormwater is considered a utility like water and parking – utilities are expected to support themselves through user charges rather than receiving property tax funds. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in a publication from 2020, details the stormwater benefits of urban trees are credited for reducing stormwater volume and pollutant loading in several case studies around the country.  

https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/fs_media/fs_document/Urban-Forest-Systems-GSI-FS-1146.pdf 

I remember reading of the benefits of the urban forest canopy during my work on the Taskforce on Resiliency, Climate Mitigation and Adaptation. Trees reduce the intensity of the rainfall on the ground beneath the canopy and delay runoff to storm drains and stormwater ponds. Tree roots loosen the soil, allowing more water to penetrate and lessen runoff. As of 2020, eight communities around Wisconsin funded all or part of their forestry division through stormwater utility revenues.  

Moving these expenditures leveraged $1.6 million in general fund expenditures without increasing Stormwater rates. The utility is not expected to need a rate increase until 2029. There was some concern with the utility having a large fund balance, but stormwater projects are expensive, and not the kind of construction that can really be put off when they are needed. If we can fund critical projects such as removal and replacement of trees killed by the Emerald Ash Borer without sacrificing services, I believe it is a positive. It also makes sense to fund services that benefit all residents through user fees paid by all residents, including those entities that are exempt from property taxes. 

Sadly, we spent an enormous amount of time discussing the proposed training budget for the Common Council. Council President Van Zeeland proposed a total budget of $2840 that took funds from three parking passes added to the $1400 budget from last year. $2840 comes to $189.33 for each alder. The basic Local Government 101 class presented by the League of Wisconsin Municipalities is $115 and the annual conference is $290.  

This discussion honestly seemed really out of proportion when we are talking about a General Fund budget of almost $71 million. There is a minority of alders who believe that serving as a local government representative should essentially be a volunteer position, with any expenses being funded by the alder. One proposal is that any required training be done by city staff, taking them away from their other responsibilities. City directors work full days, but also attend meetings of the committee of jurisdiction for their department and all council meetings.  

The council budget passed in committee, but there have already been amendments submitted for consideration this Wednesday when the full council votes to adopt the budget. 

There was one minor amendment to the budget at the workshop – changing the proposed tire disposal fee from $10 per tire to $12 per tire to match what Outagamie County charges. There have been a few amendments submitted by the deadline for tomorrow night’s agenda – I’ll summarize those at the end of this update. Alders still have the opportunity to propose additional amendments at the budget adoption meeting on Wednesday. 

On November 1, we had the public hearing on the proposed budget. Unlike the council budget workshop, this one was much shorter than I expected. I was a bit surprised that only a few people came to share their views. One area of concern was the failure to increase the number of police officers, including a new rendition of what I am thinking is an urban legend as I’ve also seen it a few times on social media – the rampant shoplifting at a CVS pharmacy and a policy of failing to take action against it. We have no confirmation from APD that this is valid.  

Another item that concerned a speaker from the Appleton Concerned Taxpayers was the transfer of Forestry and bridge repair expenses discussed above. The speaker believed that if the Stormwater Utility could absorb those expenses that ratepayers were being overcharged. Again, I think putting those expenses in Stormwater is valid and a reasonable solution. 

The other comments during the public hearing were generally positive. I was happy to hear that the Appleton Concerned Taxpayers are focused on lobbying the state legislature for changes that allow a municipality to pay down debt without impact on the tax levy. I have never understood why the levy limit does not apply to debt service. The ACT was instrumental in lobbying for the increase in shared revenue, prompting the mayor to recognize them and the League of Women Voters for their work. 

I believe that city staff, the budget team and the mayor put in a ton of work (they actually start in late spring/early summer preparing the budget that we get in October), and I do not plan to offer any amendments to the budget that has been proposed. I don’t think it’s “rubber stamping” as we get plenty of opportunity to ask questions hear the reasoning behind the budgets for each department. 

These are the amendments that have been submitted this far:  

1. (Doran) Remove $3000 from the Poet Laureate program (this is where the sidewalk poetry program is administered and is the entire budget) and $5000 from the mayor’s office training and conferences budget to apply to additional traffic cameras. I plan to vote against this amendment; if the police department had felt the need for additional cameras, they would have been budgeted. I know that the sidewalk poetry program is popular – I always love seeing the selected poets read their poems at the council meeting where they are announced. The mayor’s office has a new communications manager and will soon have a new executive assistant, so I hesitate to cut this budget. Training is important for any professional job. 
2. (Doran) Remove a total of $51,500 from the Sanitation Budget and close the Whitman Avenue Yard Waste Site. This does not affect those of us on this side of town, but the city actually has other communities who use the Whitman site and pay for those services. I plan to vote against this. 
3. (Hartzheim) Reduce the proposed $100,000 for an ad campaign and wayfinding signs for the parking ramps to $50,000. The parking ramps have likely permanently lost some revenue from monthly passes when people downtown did not return to in-person work. I believe the ramps are important to the downtown area, and we need to work to promote their increased use. I hesitate to cut the budget before we see what is being proposed, and council will have the opportunity to vote on the actual expenditures. I will vote against this. 
4. (Hartzheim) Add $1115 to the Human Resources budget for the Sunshine Fund (this is the small budget item that HR uses for employee morale boosting activities – the annual chili cookoff, birthday recognition, etc.), removing it from the Common Council training budget. I believe I have explained my thoughts on this above. As with the traffic cameras, the HR department did not request any additional funding in their budget. 
5. (Hartzheim) This would change the proposal to assess concrete pavement construction in residential areas from the 100% proposed rate back to the 75% current rate. The 100% rate matches the assessment rate for all other infrastructure improvements (sidewalks, sanitary sewer lines, etc.) It has been kept artificially low for many years to encourage development. This amendment benefits only those residents in areas of the city where first-time concrete construction is taking place such as the newer subdivisions in Alder Hartzheim’s district. I will vote against this just out of fairness. 

Again, there could be more amendments presented during the meeting on Wednesday. 

Note that I am still fighting the e-mail wars, with some of my constituent emails bouncing because the certain email servers have decided I’m a spammer. You can help by adding district6@appleton.org to your safe senders list – Thanks! 

Have a great rest of the week!