Projections for Wisconsin show rising prices for home heating fuel, and Tom Content of the Citizens Utility Board described ways homeowners can save money over the long run. Wausau is on its way to removing all lead pipes servicing homes, and Alder Michael Martens explained why the city wants to pick up the tab. A concerted effort in La Crosse is putting a dent in homelessness through the joint city-county Pathways Home program — project co-lead Jim Drees said it’s all hands on deck.

Tom Content
Executive director, Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin

• The cost to heat homes over the winter of 2026-27 is projected to go up an average of about 8.7% across all fuel types. Heating oil is expected to exceed a 30% increase, though very few homes in Wisconsin use that fuel for their furnaces. About three-fifths of energy consumption in homes around the state is from natural gas, with prices expected to go up by about 6%. The remainder of homes around Wisconsin rely on either propane or electric heat. Those prices are projected to rise about 9% for the heating season. Content said there are ways for homeowners to save money, though, and the state-level program Focus on Energy has incentives available.
• Content: “That’s a statewide program that everybody pays into who’s a utility customer in Wisconsin — pays into Focus every year. And so what we want to see is more people take advantage of Focus and get the benefits. So this is the program that used to provide LED light bulbs to everybody, and now LED prices have come down so much that Focus provides incentives in other ways. They actually have incentives if you want to add solar to your house. They have incentives on a highly efficient furnace. They have incentives on insulation and air sealing. And the biggest thing and newest thing that they have, is they have funding through the Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed a few years ago for a whole variety of programs that help all customers. But actually there’s extra incentives for low-income customers that are built into that. And so people should really take a look at the Focus on Energy website — it’s focusonenergy.com. There’s a really handy “Get Started” button on there that you can then enter in your information and even your income, and it’ll let you know the kinds of things that you’re eligible for. So that’s a really important thing to know.”

Alder Michael Martens
Alderperson, Wausau City Council

• Of the major cities in Wisconsin now embarking on removing lead service lines connecting water mains to homes, Wausau is ahead of the game. Some cities like Madison removed all its lead pipes years ago, but all municipalities now face a federal deadline of Nov. 1, 2037 to complete this work. Martens said the city of Wausau took on an aggressive timeline after starting on its replacement project in 2024, and expects to be finished in 2028, saving millions of dollars in projected increased costs. Additionally, the city is poised to cover the cost for homeowners to keep the work on pace.
• Martens: “I think there’s some people that are concerned about what our municipal debt level is. But I think in the long term, this should win out as people see the greater benefits of getting the lead out of our water system, and getting this program finished up in a timely manner so that we can move on and in the future be more aggressive with other debt reduction programs. I mean, right now, we’ve got the ability to get these loans at a quarter of a percent, so doing it now saves money later.”

Jim Drees
Homeless response systems manager, Pathways Home

• When La Crosse confronted the number of unhoused people living in winter encampments in 2024, the city and county launched a program called Pathways Home into action with a five-year plan to get people into shelter. In 2024, there were 300 people experiencing homelessness in La Crosse — as of late, 2026, that number is under 200. The goal according to Drees is to get it down to “functional zero by 2029.” That means having so few unhoused people that Pathways Home has enough capacity to secure shelter for anyone in need within 30 days.
• Drees: “Really, our goal is developing a wide range of housing and a wide-range of support services. Part of our challenge is a lot of our really good programs helping folks with mental health, substance use, housing stability issues require a level of stability that often the unhoused population doesn’t have. So we’ve really extended our outreach into the community. People don’t have to come into our building or into an agency. We are out almost daily in terms of both general and targeted outreach, because it really takes building trust and connection to help people get involved in the right programs that lead them to the appropriate housing.”

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