By Al Stanek
Whitewater Banner volunteer staff
whitewaterbanner@gmail.com
The Whitewater Common Council approved entering into a $26,000+ contract with the public safety consulting firm Public Consulting Group LLC on Thursday, April 7.
The contract calls for “professional skill and expertise in the realm of fire and EMS operations” as the City begins data collection in advance of a potential referendum asking taxpayers to approve additional taxing authority to maintain and expand fire and Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Those services are currently provided by the mostly volunteer Whitewater Fire Department, Inc. (WFD, Inc.).
The action was taken just two days after voters in nearby Fort Atkinson approved a somewhat similar public safety referendum by an unofficial vote of 1293 to 1127.
The 52.39% majority vote is expected to result in an increase of $82.22 per $100,000 of assessed property value according to a quote from Fort City Manager Rebecca Houseman LeMire in the Daily Jefferson County Union. Other recently passed public safety/EMS referenda have estimated tax increases per $100,000 of assessed value as low as $43 according to a 2021 WBAY-TV article.
The Fort Atkinson plan includes adding police officer positions in addition to firefighters and paramedics. Whitewater has not indicated that any increase in police staffing would be envisioned in its anticipated referendum.
The City of Whitewater and WFD, Inc. are in the process of developing a Memorandum of Understanding that would likely result in Fire and EMS services becoming a full fledged city operation. The potential cost is expected to push the city beyond a state imposed local property tax limit which would require voters to adopt a referendum authorizing increased taxing authority.
The League of Wisconsin Municipalities (LWM) reported Wednesday that a total of eight Wisconsin municipalities conducted local public safety/EMS referendums on Tuesday. They included the Cities of Algoma, Seymour, Washburn and Fort Atkinson along with the Villages of Browntown, Butler, Melvina and Pleasant Prairie. WLM reports that seven of the eight referendums passed. The nearby City of Milton recently announced plans for a possible future public safety/EMS referendum.
“Wisconsin is the only state in the country that funds these critical services solely by property taxes,” according to a statement attributed to LWM Executive Director Jerry Deschane in Wednesday’s statement on public safety referendums. “No other state places such an overwhelming majority of the local government and school funding burden onto the property tax,” he added.
In other Common Council news a no-cost settlement with a construction industry group was approved. A lawsuit over bidding the dredging contract for Cravath and Trippe Lakes argued that the contract should have been rebid after initial bids came in well above projected costs. The settlement requires the city to stipulate that future dredging contracts exceeding $25,000 are to follow public works construction bidding requirements.
The City’s position was that dredging was not “construction” but “maintenance” and therefore didn’t require a formal process. Outgoing City Council President Lynn Binnie stated that, “If we would have had to follow construction bidding requirements the dredging could not have been completed in the 2021-2022 winter months which would have delayed the project even further.” Common Council members were told that the refilling of the two downtown Whitewater lakes is rescheduled for completion this summer with stocking of fish on target for this year.
Binnie was honored by an unusual mid-session adjournment of Thursday’s Common Council meeting to allow council members, staff and citizens to share a cake commemorating his 14 years of service which included the past two years as Council President. Binnie, who is actively involved in other civic duties including Kiwanis and The Whitewater Banner, chose not to run for reelection.
