Caledonia Board Passes 2012 Budget, But Not Without A Little Drama

In a 6 to 1 vote, the Board passed their budget for 2012, but not without controversy and potential future conflict between the police and fire unions.

The $13.2 million budget caps spending at less than one percent, but includes almost $1 million in borrowing for capitol projects and assumes the police and fire unions won’t take a 5.8 percent pay cut to pay their pensions.

Jerry Griswold, the only Village Board member who voted against the budget, blasted other Village Board members at a special Village Board meeting Thursday, Oct. 27 saying that they were pandering to union members.

“Those people in the unions are certainly no better than the other employees and certainly no better than our management people,” Griswold said. “….Your noses are turning black that there’s so much brown nosing going on around here.”

Union, non-union… two different insurance policies

The Village plans to offer protected union members an insurance package into which they’ll have to pay 10 percent versus the 15 percent non-protected employees are paying. But the insurance package the union will be offered will have higher deductibles and co-insurance. Griswold said he believed the Village Board should have taken a tougher position with union members, which the Village has not negotiated with and won’t until Nov. 3.

All of the village's union employees, except the police and fire unions, pay 5.8 percent of their pension into the Wisconsin Retirement System. Gov. Scott Walker exempted police and fire unions from having to pay into the WRS in the context of the state budget. However, Village officials had assumed, at least in the draft budget, that the local union officials representing the Caledonia Fire Department and the Caledonia Police Department would agree to the increase.

“I think we’ve got ourselves backed into a corner,” Griswold said. “I don’t think we’re going to get them to agree to what the other employees are paying because there’s not that much of a difference between the two insurance policies and I didn’t know anything about it. Scott Walker said he gave us the tools to do this and I think I finally figured out that this was one of the tools, but I don’t think we took advantage of it.”

Village to spend almost a million on capitol projects

The Village budget includes the general fund, debt service, capital projects, joint health, joint parks, cemetery and Caledonia parks. Between those funds, the Village will levy $10.8 million, an increase of about $100,000, or less than 1 percent over 2011.

However, the Village also collects a levy for the Lake Michigan Storm Sewer District, Root River Storm Sewer District, and the Caledonia Utility District. Those funds are considered separate enterprise funds that are independent of the Village budget. Between those funds, the Village will spend $2.4 million, which had no increase this year.

The Village budget includes $945,605 in capital projects spending, which includes: purchasing two squad cars, two Chevrolet Tahoes, computers, firearms, Tasers, asphalt, electronic equipment, and a truck/mower; paving a section of Three Mile Road, and re-shingling the salt shed. The Village plans on borrowing $845,605 and using $100,000 from the equipment replacement fund.

In total, the Village will collect about $13.2 million from taxpayers, but they haven’t figured what the mil rate will be because state officials haven’t provided them with the property values in the Village.

Expenses were cut by about $100,000 from the fire and police, the plumbing inspector and the highway departments.

Board members Kevin Wanggaard, Tom Weatherston, and Griswold all said they wished they wished the Village would have negotiated with the unions sooner.

“I think we should have started back in July,” Wanggaard said. “…You want to start negotiations before you budget because you can’t honestly budget for anything, you honestly can’t.”

Weatherston criticized Griswold for wanting to take money out of the drainage commission and put those funds into the public works budget, even though it’s illegal to do that.

“He wants to take all of that money out and spend it on his own projects, and no matter how many times we’ve told him he legally cannot (do that), that money was raised by a tax for drainage work… it has to be spent on drainage work,” Weatherston said.