The city of Shawano is getting closer to the finish line on its 2025 budget but still has to navigate some things for the Shawano Common Council to approve the final document in November.
The levy limit for the city set by the state is increasing $116,691 next year, a 3.1% bump. By comparison, inflation is estimated to be only 2.5%, which means this could be the first year in a while that the levy limit has kept pace with the rate of inflation.
This year, the levy limit only increased 1.58%, compared to 3.4% for inflation. In 2023, the limit was increased 2.3% while inflation had soared to 8%, and in 2022, the state raised the levy limit by 3.41% while inflation went up 4.7%. All told, the city’s levy limit is 8.21% behind the rate of inflation in recent years.
State funding has yet to be finalized, according to City Administrator Eddie Sheppard, but that should be cleared up later this month.
“There’s still a lot we don’t know yet as far as state revenues like general transportation and all that,” Sheppard said. “It’s been generally flat, but we’ve been hoping there’s going to be slight increases this year.”
Numbers on insurance rates are also in flux, but Sheppard is hoping that the city’s potential for rejoining the League of Wisconsin Municipalities insurance group could mitigate the amount of increase.
“We jumped out about eight years ago because, at the time, the only option we had locally — Network Health and ThedaCare — were having a divorce, so we were going to be on an insurance plan where our local provider wasn’t going to be covered, so that’s when we went out to market,” Sheppard said. “We’re investigating going back into the pool because, when you’re in this big pool, the increases tend to be a little tempered because you have a larger pool, but when you’re in by yourself, it depends on your organization’s experiences.”
Because of the levy limit increases not keeping up with inflation, the city is looking at alternative revenues, including a wheel tax of $40 that could provide an additional $320,000 next year that could be used on street needs like snowplowing. That funding would not be subject to the state revenue cap.
“A lot of communities are looking at it,” Sheppard said. “Most communities would prefer to just address rising costs through the levy and manage it that way, but you really can’t. They have a hard-capped number for operations, and that’s all you can (do), so you’re in a position where either you have to figure out how you can scale back, which I think we’ve really done over the last two or three years. However, when inflation was at 8% and our increase was 2%, that, over time, just really starts to build.”
The wheel tax is not the only thing the city is pursuing, however. According to City Clerk Lesley Nemetz, Shawano is also chasing after grants to fund projects or even positions.
“We’re working on some nice grants through the state and the federal for street projects,” Nemetz said. “That’ll help offset some of those costs we’re looking at having so we can maintain those services for the public.”
One grant helped to fund a detective position for the Shawano Police Department, which Sheppard said has been an immense benefit. The city is hoping to renew that grant.
“Since we brought that position on, the amount of proactive enforcement on drugs in Shawano has been awesome,” Sheppard said. “Obviously, that’s something we want to keep. Bringing people in while your revenues are limited is a challenge and so we were able to do that through a grant. If we don’t get the grant, we have to pay for that position in full.”
Sheppard noted that the city is very cautious about grants like that because the funding is one-time versus the cyclical funds used to pay for other employee positions.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
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