Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for November 4, 2026

Greetings, District 6 Neighbors,

It’s been such a busy week that it seems like a month since the Brewers’ amazing World Series victory and the great celebration last Friday. I especially love that so many of the players were once Timber Rattlers – I know that the Timber Rattlers TECHNICALLY play in Grand Chute, but we’ll still claim them for Appleton and the Fox Cities.

This newsletter will mostly be a deep dive into the budget, but I want to take a moment to thank all the election workers who dedicate their time to making sure that things run smoothly at the polls and after. I know there are several District 6 folks who work the polls – I saw a couple of you when I voted last Wednesday at City Hall, and there are definitely a couple of people who are fixtures at our normal polling place at the Scheig Center.

We have a quick special meeting of the Safety and Licensing Committee at 5:45 this evening to address a delayed license application, and then we have the public hearing on the budget at 6:00. If you can’t be there in person, the meeting will be livestreamed, and you can send me questions via email ahead of time.

We held the budget workshop Saturday – the first Halloween Budget Saturday since the all-virtual one in 2020. It was my first time chairing the meeting as Finance Committee chair, and to be honest, it was a bit of a struggle. The issues with the audit delayed production of the budget, and some of the same issues with the transition to the new computer system and transferring budget numbers to the budget book, which is basically a giant collection of spreadsheets, caused numbers to end up in the wrong places, resulting in a lot of confusion. We were scheduled to get our copies of the budget on October 7, but the electronic version wasn’t published until October 16, and I didn’t get my hard copy until October 19, so we had 12 fewer days to review it than normal. The budget workshop lasted from 8:00 a.m. until after 5:00 p.m., when we have been done by 1:30 or 2:00 in most of the recent years. Several times, we had to have the finance director go to the source program to show the actual budget figures. We are supposed to get additional updates yet today before the public hearing. I, along with my colleagues on the Finance Committee, are frustrated by the process. We are all diligent in our review so that we know that we are voting for the best use of taxpayer funds.

With all that, I am still confident that the issues are process related and not related to misconduct or lack of competence by the Finance Department. We have a generally status quo budget with any increases being related to the 3% merit increase for non-represented employees and expected increases in the cost of fuel, insurance and supplies such as water treatment chemicals.

Net new construction, which sets our levy limit, was down slightly last year due to economic uncertainty, but we still had new construction of $122,551,700, or 1.282%. The overall tax levy increases $617,502, but over the total assessed value of all the property in the city, results in a decrease in the tax RATE of about a penny per $1000 in assessed value. As the Post Crescent reported, that would equate to about a $30 decrease in the city portion of property taxes for a home assessed at $250,000. Our TOTAL tax bills are likely to increase slightly due to the two referendums for Appleton Area School District operating and capital funds.

I have already written about the transfer of $2.5 million from the Central Equipment Agency to the general fund to balance the budget. This transfer still leaves a healthy balance in the fund. Some large equipment purchases post 2027 will make use of short-term borrowing. Because it will be part of the city’s general obligation bond issue, the rates will be equal to what our excellent credit rating gives us on this borrowing.

The expenditure by fund group is shown here:

The general fund is property taxes, state transportation aids, and state shared revenue. Enterprise funds are for departments that support their expenditures through charges for service – water, wastewater, stormwater, parking, and Reid Golf Course. These departments do not get funding from property taxes. Special Revenue funds are used to account for the proceeds of specific revenue sources (other than special assessments, expendable trusts or major capital projects) that are legally restricted to expenditures for specified purposes. Grants administered by the city and sanitation fall into this category.

This page shows how expenditures across the different funds:

The general fund expenditures break down as shown in the chart below:

Police, fire and public works make up the largest part of the general fund expenditures at 68%.

The major capital projects include:

• $1,840,000 for the Olde Oneida Street bridge – the state department of transportation is funding the balance of the $4.9 million project
• $2,072,320 for asphalt paving projects
• $5,806,274 for concrete paving projects
• $2,066,799 for sidewalk projects, including $734,985 for the “green dot” sidewalk repair program
• $10,888,498 for stormwater reconstruction – including $4,000,000 in flood mitigation projects arising from the Northland-Bellaire study after the July 2024 flooding
• $5,315,851 in water main construction including reconstruction prior to 2028 paving projects
• $3,216,240 in sanitary sewer construction, including reconstruction prior to 2028 paving projects
• $1,700,000 in parking ramp repairs and improvements
• $2,450,000 for renovations at the police station, Fire Station #2 and design for an expansion of the Municipal Services Building
• $1,800,000 for Renovation of Finance Department, Human Resources Department, Attorney and Mayor's space at City Hall. We questioned whether this large expenditure could be delayed due to the cost but found that delaying a year could result in a cost increase of 8 to 15%. This is the last area of City Hall that has not been upgraded since construction in 1994.
• $10,000,000 for infrastructure in Wilden Portfolio Park (the Thrivent property). These will be repaid through TIF increment. In addition, there are other safeguards, including a letter of credit from Thrivent, to ensure that the city is not at risk.

The City proposes to issue $14,200,000 in general obligation bonds and $14,500,000 in utility revenue bonds to finance capital projects.

There has been some discussion in the press about proposed rate increases for sanitary sewer and garbage cart fees. (4% and 7.7%, or 5 cents per 30 gallons) respectively). As I noted before, water and wastewater are enterprise funds, so they need to support themselves, including capital projects and payments on debt financed capital projects, through user charges for service. Outagamie County charges the City of Appleton tipping fees for solid waste. The budgeted charge for 2027 is $1,514,750 after a $6 per ton increase from the county. The increase in charges for garbage carts is a passthrough of that increase. I did the math on my latest water bill and came out with $2.72 per quarter for sewer and .70 cents per quarter for the garbage container. We have the small container, which does cost less. If you don’t regularly fill up your 60-gallon garbage container, DPW will swap it out for the smaller one. The 30-gallon container has a $9.10 charge per quarter before the increase, while the 60-gallon container is $18.20.

Again, please reach out with any questions on the proposed budget. Any budget amendments proposed by alders have to be submitted by November 5 at noon, and formal budget adoption will take place in a special council session on November 11 at 7:00 p.m.

Following the budget hearing, the regular council meeting will take place at 7:00 (or as soon as the budget hearing ends).

We will start with several proclamations from the mayor:

• Youth HOPE Month
• Lung Cancer Awareness Month
• Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome Awareness Day
• Crash Responder Safety Week

We may have some more discussion over the resolution to increase the penalties for deliberate excessive vehicle noise. The Safety and Licensing Committee amended the resolution to create three tiers of fines - $250 for a first offense, $400 for a second offense, and $800 for third and subsequent offenses.

I’m sure there will be discussion on the alderperson salaries as well. The committee was short a member, so Alder Firkus voted in favor of the proposal for a 3% increase to avoid a tie and thus no recommendation, but he has stated that he is not in favor of a raise for 2028. We are already set to get a 2.5% raise in 2027, so I am fine with no action being taken for 2028 (although I will not be an alderperson at that time).

Also, from the Parks and Recreation Committee comes the recommendation to rename Veterans Park (the small one just south to the Memorial Drive bridge) to “Memorial Bridge Park.” Some alders have expressed objections based on the fact that we already have a park (Veterans Memorial Park, formerly just Memorial Park) with the word “Memorial” in the name. I think people will be able to tell the difference, so I’m fine with this recommendation from the committee out of all the names proposed.

You can find meeting agendas or watch live and recorded videos here:

City of Appleton - Calendar

If you are reading this via Facebook or the blog post and want the newsletter sent via email, please let me know at District6@appletonwi.gov.

Have a great week!

Denise