Frederica Freyberg:

With the state’s budget in the rearview, now is the time local governments crunch their numbers for 2024. The state’s increase to shared revenue means more desperately needed money for some cities and towns to provide basic services, allowing them to delay going to referendum to increase tax levies. For others, the additional funding means more opportunities, including for our next guest Wausau Mayor Katie Rosenberg. Mayor, thanks very much for being here.

Katie Rosenberg:

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So I understand that the new shared revenue law represents a nearly 30% increase in revenue from the state, a total of new and existing now of about $5.1 million. As mayor, what is it like after so many years of flat or declining aid?

Katie Rosenberg:

Oh, it’s a big deal, and we are so grateful that all parties could come together and make an agreement on this, but for us, it’s about a million more dollars, a little more than a million more dollars for our budget this year and next. So we’re really looking forward to being able to pay for things like health insurance premiums. That’s one thing that earlier this year we were looking at a 25% increase. Really scary. We were able to negotiate that down a little bit, and with our partners, so it’s not quite as much now, but we need to pay for it still. We hired nine new firefighters with a federal FEMA SAFER grant and for now, we get to pay them with that grant but we know these dollars will help us pay for firefighters moving forward as well.

Frederica Freyberg:

Are there provisions in the shared revenue law that are restrictive as to how it has to be spent and does that represent any kind of hardship for local governments?

Katie Rosenberg:

You know, I’m sure there are municipalities where that kind of extra level of maybe I’m not going to call it restrictiveness, but the guidelines we were given might be challenging, but for us, really, we’re looking at all of these services that the public expects from us. Public safety is especially prevalent, so we expect to spend a lot of that related to public safety, especially firefighting, since we did bring on those nine new firefighters this year alone.

Frederica Freyberg:

Interestingly, there’s a provision in this law that prohibits local government from preferential hiring based on protected classes like race. Does that change anything in Wausau?

Katie Rosenberg:

You know, we always hire for the best people and we always want the folks we hire to be reflective of our community. So I don’t think that changes anything because we’re going to continue ahead hiring the best people that will do the best job in our community.

Frederica Freyberg:

Another provision in the law allows for what are called innovation grants, whereby in exchange for consolidating services and saving money, you could get more money. Is that something that Wausau is availing itself of?

Katie Rosenberg:

Absolutely. We haven’t done it formally yet, but we are really excited to move forward and consider how we can continue partnering with our local partners: the county, other municipalities. We’ve done a lot of that over the last 10 years, and especially since the recession, we’ve figured out ways to cut costs and work together better, but we’re excited now what this looks like for the future. Can we partner together to do specialized training that will give all of our county the best level of service, better than what they have now? So we’re thinking through what that looks like and also asking clarifying questions.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you have a dollar amount in mind that you would like to put in for for that kind of an additional grant?

Katie Rosenberg:

I feel like if I told you anything, we are considering — we’re talking training specifically. When I brought this up with our teams, our firefighting team, if you haven’t noticed, they’re pretty aggressive and we’re really excited about. But they were really excited about training. We don’t have a training facility in our county, and so it would really lift the level of care up for our entire county and all of those surrounding municipalities if we were able to do that here. So that’s kind of what we’re looking at.

Frederica Freyberg:

You tell us still the biggest issue for you remains the water. How so?

Katie Rosenberg:

Yes. That is my number one issue. So I’m sure you’ve been following along for our entire two-year journey so far, and with PFAS. We are temporarily removing our PFAS right now with a resin. I’m going to try not to get too detailed but our permanent solution will be online in the middle of the summer next year and so we’re really trying to accelerate that. It’s expensive. We’ve asked our community to increase their rate 65% to help pay for this. So I’m really digging in the couch cushions and talking to our partners everywhere, how do we pay for this without going back to the rate payers because it’s really a heavy lift for our community, our entire community. So that’s what we’re focused on. We paid for about half of our granular activated carbon solution with grants and awards, so I’m really excited. Still looking for more, though.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Digging in those couch cushions. Mayor Katie Rosenberg, thanks very much.

Katie Rosenberg:

Thank you.