UPDATE: Caledonia Police And Fire Chiefs Ask Board To Hire People

UPDATE: Caledonia Fire Department Chief Dick Roeder is asking the board to replace a person who retired. The department will likely exceed $180,000 in overtime this year. To hire a new person would cost $67,000 in salary and benefits and would replace a person making $103,000 with salary andbenefits. However, Roeder wasn't sure how much overtime would be reduced by hiring another person.

Police Chief Toby Schey also requested two new hires for the village. The department was 34 members in 2010, but is now at 29. To hire a police officer would cost $76,000 for salary and benefits. No word on whether those personnel requests would be approved.

UPDATE: The budget discussion will continue at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 3 at the East Side Community Center, 6156 Douglas Ave. and will include the fire, police, municipal court, professionals, and other budgets.

Original Story: Most of the Village Board drank coffee from coffee cups that advertised a famous whiskey maker as they pored through pages of numbers in the 2012 draft budget Thursday, Sept. 29.

Gov. Scott Walker and GOP Legislators mandated through the state budget that the village must keep their levy increase at zero or at the rate of growth in the village. This means the budget for village operations and its utilities, which is about $12.5 million, is capped at a $26,000, or 0.21 percent, increase for next year.

Village President Ron Coutts rubbed his forehead as Mike Hayek, the village engineer, talked about the almost non-existing housing market in Caledonia.

Board members peppered Hayek with questions about what the permits were for, how much revenue they once had and what they had coming in the door.

In 2004, the Village issued 143 new home permits, which brought in about $1.4 million. In 2010, there were 24 and to date, there have been 10 new homes built in Caledonia so far this year. And even though the number of building permits are about the same at 439, the majority of them are roofing, siding, decks, and smaller remodeling projects that bring in about $75 a permit.

“We’re down from $147,000 to $124,000 this year,” he said. “What we’re seeing though, is more remodeling.”

Lee Wishau asked the question they all wondered: "Is the market getting better, staying the same or worse?"

"It's worse," Hayek said.

The discussion didn’t include budgets for Caledonia's police and fire departments, but rather looked at the accounting, administration, building, engineering and highway budgets. But most of the discsussion centered around the building and engineering department.

Most board members wanted to talk about salaries and staffing numbers, but Coutts said those were discussions they had to have in closed session during the Personnel Committee meeting. 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. But the Village hasn’t started negotiations with the fire and police unions yet. The draft budget for the fire and police departments call for a $400,000 deficit.

Lost revenue from the housing market, state shared revenue, highway aids, and unsettled contracts with the Police and Fire Department made the discussion Thursday night arduous.

Hayek explained that revenues are also restricted further with the housing slump.

Blaine Pfeffer, superintendent of the Highway Department, said there would likely only be enough money to resurface 3.5 of the 155 miles in the Village, they usually do 5 miles. Also, the village usually bonds those projects out so that they can spread out the payments over 15 to 20 years, a pattern of behavior that irks Tom Weatherston, a Village Board member.

“You know, we keep borrowing money to do paving, shouldn’t that be in the operations budget?” He asks.

Lee Wishau, also a Village Board member, agrees that the expense should be in the village’s operations budget and putting the expenses on what he sees as a credit card is unconscionable.

“But then you have to find the money elsewhere,” Jerry Griswold said. “We need to know where this money is coming from.”

Wishau suggests putting the money in the operations budget.

“Let’s see what happens,” he said.

“Every year we have less money to work with because our debt service goes up,” Griswold said. “But we’ve got to find money somewhere.”

The issue didn’t get resolved Thursday. 

Come back Tuesday morning to learn more about how your Village budget affects you.