CITIZEN INPUT DURING TOUGH TIMES

Most Sheboygan citizens are aware of the financial difficulties the city is facing. According to estimates, Sheboygan’s 2010 budget will have a $2.3 million deficit due to revenue shortfalls, a 3 percent cut in state funding, a $100,000 increase in tipping fees for garbage, and the mandate to supplement $600,000 in stockmarket losses for our state pension funds.

Through the STARR resolution recently passed by the Common Council, the city is making cuts in the present 2009 budget in anticipation of the deep cuts needed in the 2010 budget. Even if we raised taxes by 3 percent, the limit allowed by the state, Sheboygan would still be facing serious cuts for 2010.

With this dire news in mind, I submit the annual Executive Summary from the Sheboygan County Taxpayers Alliance (SCTA). This hard-working group of citizens presents a list of hardhitting suggestions to Common Council every year.

SCTA 2009 Proposals for Action, Executive Summary

Asterisk (*) identifies repeat proposals from 2007-08.

Cuts and Concessions – • Cut national conferences; • cut all capital improvements except streets and sewers; • cut employee parking and stop personal use of city vehicles; • *cut full-time employees . . . hire part-time wherever possible; • *renegotiate health care coverage; • *renegotiate residency requirements; • renegotiate contracts to allow out-sourcing.

*Privatization • Contract park work; • contract garbage and plowing (throughout city or partial); • replace city attorney with corporate counsel.

Consolidation • Close one (1) fire station; • return Tourism Department back to the Sheboygan County Chamber; • eliminate BID director . . . utilize Chamber.

Shared Services • *Expedite dispatch (five years is not acceptable); • purchasing . . . city, county and schools; • cleaning services . . . city, county and schools; • study “metro” services possibility (fire and police departments) • expand transit services (example, Deertrace, etc.); • expand water service and wastewater treatment service to more communities; • *county-run library, Maywood Environmental Park, Wildwood baseball complex.

Possible Revenue Sources • *Seek annexation; • review all tax-exempt property in Sheboygan; • increase building-inspection fees, boat-ramp fees, fish-shanty rent, park picnic areas and community centers, etc. (Do not sell waterfront property.)

*Hire City Administrator • Reduce mayor to part-time; • reduce alderpersons from 16 to 8 or 10; • eliminate mayoral assistant.

Miscellaneous • *Insist on transparency in Fire Department ambulance service cost; • *re-establish every other week Committee of the Whole meetings; • scrutinize budget in Committee of the Whole; • initiate comprehensive priority study of departments and services; • *commit to a 10-year master plan for development (and fiveyear streets plan); • vehicle leasing; • encourage industrial revenue bonds (expand industrial park using $1M owed to the account from the Police Department); • consider new state ruling that allows expanding TIF districts one-half mile (good idea for street repair).

Whether you agree or disagree with the above suggestions, a group of concerned citizens is making itself heard, and that’s a good thing.

Ain’t so?