Sheppard: Shawano’s 2022 budget optimistic

The Shawano Common Council adopted its 2022 budget on Nov. 17, which includes a 38-cent increase in the tax rate for city property owners, but it’s one that City Administrator Eddie Sheppard said shows a bright future for Shawano.

“There’s been a lot of great input, great conversations with staff and council, kind of going through everything to make sure we’re producing the best budget we possibly could for the city for this year,” Sheppard said in his presentation to the council.

The total available levy went up about $388,000. Sheppard attributed the increase to strong increases in the tax incremental finance districts.

“That’s really positive as we look forward to the growth and progress of some of our other TIF districts,” Sheppard said.

The city also had a good year in non-levy revenues, including state aid and payment in lieu of taxes from the utilities, according to Sheppard.

The tax rate will be $9.90 in city taxes for every $1,000 of valuation, up from $9.52. That means the owner of a home valued at $100,000 will pay $990 in taxes specifically for the city, which accounts for 38% of the total property tax for city land owners. Another 38% is from the school district, 20% is from Shawano County and the remainder comes from the technical college district.

Among the bigger expenditures for the city, general debt obligation takes about 23 cents for every $1 the city spends, Sheppard said. Public safety accounts for a quarter of every dollar, while capital improvement projects account for 19 cents.

Included in next year’s budget is a 2% salary increase for all non-union employees, which accounts for everyone except police officers. Sheppard said the final wage increase for officers is still being negotiated, and that a “placeholder” is being put in the budget.

He noted that the insurance costs are expected to increase about 3.2%, down from the 10% city officials originally expected. The smaller increase came from working with the insurance provider, according to Sheppard, and setting up a pharmacy deductible and increasing co-pays.

The city also increased a 30-hour code enforcement assistant to a 40-hour position for zoning and administration, in addition to the code enforcement.

“It’s been, quite honestly, needed to really address a lot of the workload and the things we’re seeing here with the city,” Sheppard said.

There are a number of capital projects on the horizon for 2022, including the completion of the city’s lead line replacement project. Work will be done on Randall, Lafayette, Smalley and Hamlin streets.

“We’ve got significant federal and state assistance to do that,” Sheppard said, “but the street projects fall to us to do. Once we are able to complete these four sections of street that are in our plan … we will be lead-free by the end of 2022.”

Replacing the lines helps the city in the long run, according to Sheppard, as it will no longer need to do any lead-related treatment for the water supply.

“The last thing we need to do is add chemicals to water that doesn’t need to be treated,” he said.

Other capital projects planned, besides the long-anticipated downtown plaza project, are replacing the roof on the Shawano Fire Station, constructing a maintenance shop for the parks and recreation department and renovating the community room at Shawano City Hall.

Sheppard said the city should have great success in the coming year, based on the city budget approved by the council.

“This is a process that has been going on for 4½ months,” Sheppard said. “I feel like the dialogue and the back-and-forth with council and working through this budget has been really strong this year, especially having some new members. I thought that gave some really good perspective.”

However, there was not all good news. Shawano Municipal Utilities Director Brian Knapp, in his presentation of the electric and fiberoptics utility’s budget, announced that SMU would be seeking a rate increase next year, which would take place in 2023.

“We won’t see it impacting your bills until then,” Knapp said.

Knapp said SMU is currently seeing a rate of return of 3%, but the ideal rate of return is 4.5%, which is why the utility plans to seek a hike in electric rates.

Residents can expect to pay $105 per 1,000 kilowatthours in 2022, while commercial customers will be paying $116.20 for the same amount.

“For many years, I’ve been able to say we’re the lowest-cost provider,” Knapp said.

Energy costs are increasing overall, according to Knapp, including coal, oil and natural gas. That results in a 5-6% increase for the city in the cost of purchasing energy, he said.

“What our customers are going to see when they open their bills, and they have been for the last several months, is increases in the range of 5-6%, and that’s just a pass-through of our costs,” Knapp said.

SMU will spend almost $1.36 million in capital projects in 2022. Including among the projects are replacing some of high-pressure sodium street lights with LED lighting, something the city has been doing over the past few years.

“That saves the city about 75% savings in energy,” Knapp said.

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com