Upcoming Budget Public Hearing
TL;DR:
Due to various factors, we are facing a significant budget crunch as a village.
Mon 11/20, 6p at Village Hall will be the annual public hearing on the budget. Your attendance matters as we’ll be discussing potential spending cuts, fee increases, and tax increases.
If you can make this important meeting, please do! It’s a great chance to have an immediate impact on village priorities as a resident.
If you can’t make it, please consider emailing me and/or other village trustees your opinion on our budget issues. (link to prior meeting’s discussion of the budget is here and link to the budget is here)
Hi all-
The Village Board meeting this coming Monday, Nov 20, will be an important meeting for our board and community. It’s the annual budget public hearing, at which time we will hopefully vote to approve a budget to fund village operations for another year. This is always a meeting where public input and support makes a BIG difference so if you’re interested and available, please come (11/20, 6P, Village Hall). If you can’t make it, feel free to let me and/or the other trustees know how you feel about the following. The overall budget and our dilemmas were thoroughly covered at the last village board meeting (recording here and link to the budget is here)
This year we face serious challenges. Village employee health plan costs have increased by at least 10%. Village staff are due a 3% cost of living wage increase. We have to fund the Community Development Director position (which was already approved 5-2 in late summer), which I believe is important to our village’s future.
The village board has previously agreed (first in 2015, and again in 2021) to target a max property tax levy increase of 2.5% annually. For a house in WFB around the median of ~$460k that means a property tax increase of roughly $110/year. We on the board are very aware that property taxes in WFB are not cheap, even though we have lower rates per $1000 assessed value than many similar communities in southeast WI (also note that only roughly 24 cents out of every dollar you pay in property taxes comes to the village; most of the rest actually goes to the school district, over which the village has no control).
So, in order to find the funds to cover the increased costs in the budget, we will have to consider some combination of budget cuts, village fee increases (e.g. parking tickets, building permits), and/or a tax increase that exceeds the 2.5% limit the village set.
This week I’m going to be taking a red pen to the draft budget to find cuts. However, like some of my colleagues, I do think fee increases and/or a larger tax increase will need to be on the table, as much as it pains me to consider. Looking at similar communities that have faced similar challenges, tax increases >5% have been necessary (e.g. some Chicago suburbs in Cook County). I don’t think we have to be that drastic. Increasing the tax levy by 3.5% would bring us closer to the needed revenue and would only represent a roughly $30-40/year increase in taxes over the 2.5% tax increase for a median home value of ~$460k. That’s a small increase that will allow us to minimize cuts.
As always, please share and please let me know your thoughts!