Wausau passes budget for 2024 while raising questions on hiring process

Damakant Jayshi

The Wausau City Council this week passed the 2024 budget amid a heated discussion over hiring practices.

The budget, with a tax levy of $36.6 million, passed by 8-3 margin, with Alders Carol Lukens, Michael Martens, Gary Gisselman, Becky McElhaney, Lisa Rasmussen, Sarah Watson, Dawn Herbst and Chad Henke voting in favor and Tom Kilian, Doug Diny and Lou Larson voting against. The tax rate amounts to $10.86 per $1,000 of assessed property value.

The budget discussion grew heated at times over the due process and the appropriate committee to deal with specific subjects.

This is not the first time in recent months that the council witnessed such a discussion. This time, concerns were raised regarding the hiring process.

Alder Lou Larson moved to remove funding of about $86,000 for two new positions – one shared by the Wausau Police Department and the Wausau Fire Department and another for Community Development. Neither was approved by the HR Committee.

Larson said due process required that the funding be removed from the budget and revisited when the hiring process resumes next year. The positions are to be filled around or after April 2024, likely after the spring election.

McElhaney, who is also the Common Council president, said she supported Larson’s amendment, saying the process was not proper since the HR director was bypassed. She said HR was approached at the last moment by the departments seeking the positions and the HR director had no time to examine the request. McElhaney said she was in favor of withdrawing the funds from the budgets, since those were not open positions.

Alder Lisa Rasmussen disagreed. Rasmussen is also chair of the Finance Committee, which endorsed the funding requests.

Rasmussen said the two positions are not new, but are actually part of existing and approved classifications. The amount reserved is placeholder funding and would give the HR Committee five months to fill the requested positions.

Rasmussen warned that if the council removed the funding now, it would have to resort to a budget modification, an unpopular choice with the group.

Martens said this is yet another example of cutting off a nose to spite the face and said the positions are genuine needs. The shared admin position for police and fire would help expedite records requests, which have a significant backlog that have resulted in complaints. He also defended the request for Community Development and invited department heads to share their views as well.

Police Chief Matt Barnes said the department just followed the prevailing practice, and would be happy to follow clear processes in the future. Fire Chief Robert Barteck agreed and urged the council to approve the funding.

Similarly, Community Development Director Liz Brodek said her department also followed the existing practice and would abide by any directive from the council going forward. Finance Director Maryanne Groat said no one approached her to do things differently.

The vote on Larson’s amendment was close, at 5-6, thus defeating it. McElhaney changed her position after department heads explained their needs, siding with Rasmussen, Martens, Watson, Henke and Lukens. Those in favor of the defeated measure were Kilian, Diny, Gisselman, Larson and Herbst.