Supervisors discuss lingering Marathon County budget issues

By Kevin O’Brien

Marathon County’s 2024 budgeting process may be over, but supervisors continue to discuss lingering financial issues, such as how best to get rid of surplus property and what to do with funding surpluses.

At a Nov. 21 meeting of the Human Resources, Finance and Personnel Committee, committee members did a postmortem of sorts on the recently adopted budget, focusing on a couple of topics that generated a fair amount of debate during the budgeting process.

Firstly, committee chairman John Robinson said he wants the committee to take a closer look at all of the fund balances carried by various departments, with the ultimate goal of developing a policy on how to manage those funds and handle any surpluses that may accumulate.

The topic first came to the forefront after supervisor David Baker discovered that a fund controlled by Social Services, the Social Improvement Fund (SIF), had amassed a fund balance of over $14 million in just a few years. Much of this money comes from state and federal sources, but about $6 million is unspent county tax dollars.

Baker introduced a budget amendment

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that would have diverted $1.5 million in tax dollars away from the SIF next year, and used it to pay for a tax cut, but it failed to pass on a 16-17 vote.

The board has a longstanding policy of rolling over any unspent funds into the county’s capital improvement program (CIP), which is used to pay for major infrastructure upgrades and facilities projects. Several supervisors who voted against Baker’s amendment said they worried about the CIP not having enough money going forward if unspent money was used for other purposes.

At last week’s meeting, Baker challenged the whole idea of automatically using surplus funds to save for capital projects, arguing that it encourages inaccurate budgeting.

“I believe the CIP rollover practice basically builds in overbudgeting into the process,” he said, adding that the budget process is less “transparent” as a result.

Supervisor Corey Hart, who sits on the Social Services Board, pushed back against Baker’s assertions, pointing out that Social Services actually cut its budget by 3 percent for last year and reduced it again this year.

“That is not over-budgeting, when you have a department consistently deciding they don’t need as much year after year,” he said.

Hart said part of the reason for the budget reductions is a federal directive to find less-restrictive out-of-home placements for at-risk youth, which lowers Social Services spending on foster care.

Board chairman Kurt Gibbs also disputed Baker’s contention. He said Social Services “ought to be rewarded” for saving money on youth placements, which can cost as much as $500,000 a year for juveniles who need to go to Lincoln Hills correctional facility.

Baker said his point wasn’t to criticize Social Services, but to question the process of relying on surpluses to pay for capital projects.

“Without over-budgeting, there is no excess to roll over into CIP,” he said.

Robinson said he sees reviewing fund balances as a separate issue, but he acknowledged the need to talk about the board’s budgeting practices.

“One of the options is to budget tighter and put more money into contingency, but those are all future discussion items,” he said.

Another topic of discussion was how to dispose of excess county-owned property, including tax-delinquent parcels and buildings being vacated by county departments. A budget amendment introduced by supervisor Gayle Marshall and adopted by the board directs the county to sell off properties on River Drive and Thomas Street in Wausau to help pay for a $4.3 million renovation of the Lake View Drive campus, where multiple departments are relocating to.

Supervisor Hart said many of the properties to be vacated lie within his district, and he hopes his constituents will have a say on what entities purchase those properties. If they just go to the highest bidder, he said residents could be forced to live next to developments they don’t want.

“I think it’s important that, going forward, we consider requests for proposals,” he said.

Robinson said the county owns over 1,000 parcels, but many of those are in forests or parks, so he would like the committee to review an inventory of county land and develop criteria and a process for selling anything considered to be surplus.

In regards to the overall budget process this year, Gibbs said he felt it was more “deliberative” and “transparent” than it has been in the past, allowing for better discussions at the committee level.

If possible, Robinson said he would like the county board to get the administrator’s proposed budget earlier in the year, though Gibbs says that makes it difficult to get the most upto- date information. On the capital side, Robinson said it would be helpful to have a five-year plan rather than just proposals for the following year.

“We always get better, I hope we get better,” he said. “Going backwards is not an option.”