By Christopher Clough
News-Chronicle
Local government officials have been talking in alarming terms about what shared revenue cuts proposed Tuesday by Gov. Scott McCallum would mean to them.
But the question remains - after the local governments do what they have to do, what effect will the possible cuts have on the man and woman on the street?
Will roads fall into disrepair?
Are residents in danger of losing their parks and recreation programs? Will they have to pay more for fire and rescue services?
Is the growth of suburbs like Howard and Bellevue likely to slow down? Will non-administrative municipal employees lose their jobs?
It is too soon to tell, of course. City councils and village and town boards have had less than a week to digest McCallum's plan and have just started initial discussions. Any possible budget cuts are still in the future.
And the governor's plan still has to get through both legislative houses in Madison, where lawmakers probably will tinker with it before it is ratified, if it is ratified at all.
But if the plan goes through as announced, the answers to those questions could be yes, yes, yes and yes.
No fat to trim
When announcing his Budget Reform Act of 2002, McCallum said local governments should look to their administrative staffs as a prime source for budget cuts. He said many local governments are far too large for their relative sizes, and trimming positions and salaries in the office should prevent communities from cutting the services they provide to their residents.
Some local leaders would argue that thought.
"We have one person in our engineering department, one parks and recreation director, one administrator who oversees our employees. So we're not heavy on the administrative side by any means," Ashwaubenon village president Ted Pamperin said. "We were at bare bones in administration before, so now we'll see an impact in actual programs. Park and rec, we won't have the people to (work on the programs).
"(McCallum) said we can't touch public works and police, so all that's left is parks and recreation and administration."
Ashwaubenon officials learned Wednesday that instead of phasing out the village's $568,000 in shared revenue aid from the state over three years as originally announced, the plan would cut the entire amount at once. The village budget for 2002 was about $10 million, so the loss is about 5.7 percent.
"It's put us in an absolutely horrible position," Pamperin said. "We're going to be in a tough struggle this year. We didn't get a 'phase-out.'"
The town of Bellevue is not losing all $627,000 of its shared revenue aid in one fell swoop, but administrator Todd Taves also said Bellevue doesn't have much administrative staff to cut.
"The first problem is that there isn't anything we can cut that doesn't amount to a reduction in services," Taves said. "We figured we would have to reduce the full-time staff by one-third, from 18 to 12. And that's in administrative and field work."
He said Bellevue, with 18 full-time employees, has an employee-resident ratio "far less" than other county municipalities. The town has a population of 12,000.
Rural roads at stake
And if the majority of cuts are supposed to come in office staff, what happens in the numerous small towns in the state that have almost no staff to speak of?
"We have no full-time employees, so there's nowhere to cut," said Rockland Town Chairman Dennis Cashman. "Small towns like this, there will be a huge impact."
Rockland stands to immediately lose $44,000 in aid from its budget of $375,000, a 12 percent loss. But Cashman said town salaries amount to just $42,000 for its part-time elected officials.
"We don't have the programs or services to cut," he said. "There's no garbage pickup, the homeowners contract that out. Fire protection, we work with two volunteer fire departments in Greenleaf and Morrison, we've been sharing services for a number of years. Rescue, we contract with Brown County, so we can't cut there. We have no parks, no recreation programs, no elective services."
But communities that do have full-time staff will have to consider cuts, administrative or otherwise.
The city of De Pere was slated to receive $2.2 million in shared revenue aid toward its $21.5 million budget, and it will lose $826,000 in the first year of the three-year phase-out.
"If we're looking at a permanent reduction with no light at the end of the tunnel, clearly we'd have to look at a layoff of city employees," said De Pere administrator James Grassman. "We spend about 75 percent of our budget on wages and benefits."
Taves pointed out that municipalities that have been run efficiently could be unfairly punished under the governor's plan, because they have less fat to trim.
"The Town Board has always run its government as low on taxes as possible," he said. "And now we're being slapped in the face for that."
Higher fees, less service
If cuts in administrative staff don't match the amount of lost aid, programs and services will be affected, local leaders said.
It is possible that instead of targeting specific programs, some communities could just cut x percent from each department.
"Our biggest single item is roads. With 10,000 acres, there's a lot to take care of," said Lawrence Town Chairman Tom Perock. "But probably we'd look at cuts across the board."
Basic services such as police and fire protection can't be cut. But fees could be implemented or raised for fire and rescue calls, recycling and special refuse collection, and other services. And special programs like community policing programs, enforcement details for certain municipal codes and school police liaisons could be eliminated.
"Obviously you wouldn't want to reduce any services," said village of Howard administrator Hugh Thomas. "But at some point we may have to, or else change the way we fund them.
"The village doesn't have too many services I would characterize as exotic, so we would look at raising fees if the alternative is cutting basic services."
"Clearly you would look at those things that don't affect public safety," Grassman said. "Special refuse collections (such as leaf and branch pickups), the school liaison program, raising fees for rescue calls."
We'll probably have to add service fees," Pulaski Village President Ronald Kryger said. "Recycling and garbage service are the things allowed (to charge a fee)."
Kryger added that across-the-board cuts were a possibility, though, if adding fees and reducing services didn't cut enough from his budget.
Taves mentioned all those areas and added eliminating Bellevue's municipal court, newsletter and Web site, and cutting its budget for school crossing guards.
Pamperin said many of the areas where fees might be raised or services offered less often are unfunded mandates, things the state requires its communities to offer without helping fund them.
"Once all the state aid is gone, don't tell me what I can do or can't do," he said. "Recycling was a mandated program, and it's very costly. It costs the village $100,000 a year, and our trucks are 8 years old."
Communities with a parks system said the programs they offer are probable casualties, if not the parks themselves. Pamperin said one option in Ashwaubenon would be dropping maintenance of Ashwaubomay Lake.
"Probably we'd look at nonresident fees to parks," Kryger said. "Possibly there would be park fees for residents and nonresidents if participating a a park department program."
"The entire park department would be affected if not eliminated," Taves said. "No programming, and we might have to quit maintaining them."
Development may slow
Public works projects, especially in road maintenance and repair, were mentioned by community officials frequently as a cutback target. "No more roadside brush cutting," Taves said, "maybe half the building inspectors. Maybe not plowing snow at night, only during the day, but then you have safety issues."
"We'd look at our building permits and inspections," Grassman said. "It could become more difficult and costly to get the service required to complete a project."
Cashman said Rockland's road department budget is about the only place where he has room to cut the $44,000 the state wants to take away.
"This year (the road budget) is $120,000," he said. "Last year it was $155,000, so we cut $35,000 already. We have 46 miles of roads we have to take care of - plowing, maintenance, rebuilding. If anything is going to be cut, it'd have to be there. But it's so low now ... $44,000 is a third of our road budget.
"Maybe we could not plow as much. But we have to plow for fire protection, ambulance protection, and we're sharing services with Brown County already. In an average winter, you could spend $30,000 to $50,000 just on plowing.
"We could cut the money there. But our roads will be in such terrible shape two, three years from now, we'll never get caught up."
Given that McCallum's plan is supposed to boost local economies, it's ironic that rapidly developing communities like Howard and Bellevue could be greatly affected. They often need to build roads and other infrastructure for new housing and business projects. Incoming developers usually pay the majority of the costs for those improvements, but the towns often pay for them first and the developer reimburses them later.
"Where (the proposed cuts) affect us most is in our capital budget," Thomas said. "Part of our support for new developments is off-site - roads, sewer, water. Special assessments would be affected. "We may not be able to do the improvements necessary to meet our long-term development plan."
"I'm not sure the town would be able to do the physical infrastructure for some new developments," Taves said. "It remains to be seen what the impact would be. But it could be less, 'What would be best for the site for water runoff, landscaping,' and more, 'Does it meet minimum requirements?'"
Pamperin said that because Ashwaubenon is mostly developed, the village would feel less impact than Howard and Bellevue in its growth. "The village has been very aggressive in using TIFs. Our roads are all in place," he said. "We already have some economic development coming, so we're not going to suffer like many municipalities."
But no matter what Northeast Wisconsin community you live in, it seems likely you would feel some impact if the proposal is passed as is.
"Nobody's going to escape," Kryger said.
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