WAUPUN — Working with township fire departments was the biggest topic of discussion at the November 26 special common council meeting last Tuesday.
The Waupun City Council discussed how to increase efficiency and cost savings by creating a cost share agreement with the surrounding towns with the City of Waupun Fire Department, along with several issues regarding the location of city limits in the community.
City Administrator Kathy Schlieve opened the topic by saying that the City has received questions about the timeline for changes to the fire and ambulance services, particularly in regards to the mutual aid agreements with surrounding townships. Schlieve put together a “strategy map” which was included in the agenda packet which outlines several areas of concern and progress that the City has made towards achieving those goals.
“I really want you [the Council] to understand that there’s some fiscal realities relative to the decisions coming at us in almost every one of these categories,” Schlieve said.
The strategy map, which was last updated on November 8, has six core subjects: fire staffing, ambulance/EMR, intergovernmental agreements, facilities, equipment, and referendum. Under each subject is an action the City is taking towards meeting community needs and the status of each action.
“We have no room within our levy to take on additional operating costs,” Schlieve said. “You will see that the key questions outlined in this document lend themselves to the question of whether there is a referendum needed to support this. And a referendum requires us to define what the question is going to be to the taxpayers who get to say yes or no to that.”
Schlieve pointed out that any referendum has to meet the deadline of 70 days before the election, whether that be an April or November election. She also said that if the City could receive a grant to cover some of the costs it would be a win-win-win for the Fire Department, the City, and the taxpayers of Waupun.
Earlier in the meeting the City Council approved a request for the City to submit an application for a Assistance for Firefighter Grant (AFG) Program grant, which would help replace SCBA respirator masks for an estimated total $280,000. The deadline for this grant is December 20, 2024, but the Fire Department may not know they have received the grant until well into 2025.
After Schlieve’s outline on the matter, she opened the floor to the Council to have a discussion and ask questions about their direction.
Alderman Dan Siebers began by asking for elaboration on the intergovernmental meetings, which Fire Chief BJ DeMaa said they’ve been meeting with township chairmen on several occasions to figure out how it can work best between all parties.
“We’ve been really trying to understand hidden costs,” DeMaa said. “The City has tried to outline costs that the City currently eats by themselves as a result of the townships sharing the same building and to some degree sharing the same equipment. It’s been a very strategic process, Casey [Langenfeld] has put a lot of work into looking at the numbers, Kathy and I have as well.”
“We’re trying to paint that picture and then taking the existing cautionary model that the townships currently use and applying that to a joint budget to help them understand what the fiscal impact could be to them,” he said. “Obviously there’s some additional hurdles that would need to be worked through. Right now the country has their own trucks, we have our own trucks—is that something that we try to bring together under one shared model or do we look down the road that future purchases are going to be done under a purchase agreement with the townships. It’s just a lot of moving pieces in that regard as well, and the townships are going to need a lot of time to digest what that’s going to mean to them fiscally.”
Schlieve added that the townships face a lot of the same issues that the City does, especially in regards to funding. She also pointed out there are a lot of hidden costs unrelated to fire and EMS that the City has to cover for the townships, and putting all services under one roof would provide greater efficiency to the greater community.
Mayor Rohn Bishop pointed out that some of the townships want to keep their fire departments, but by doing so increases expenses for both the town and the City.
Alderman Siebers said, “This is my opinion, but if we don’t figure this out and take ownership and get all of them on board, the County is coming. So if the County has to figure it out, we’ll become a county-run fire department, which we do not want. That’s what’s happening with Dodge County—they’re trying to combine all of them, though they’re a long way from being there. It serves Waupun best if we control our own destiny, so it serves us best to get them all on board with our proposed program.”
Schlieve also said that with the way the current mutual aid agreement is set up means that the City may be fielding more calls in the townships while the towns don’t do much for Waupun, meaning the costs aren’t distributed.
Mayor Bishop pointed out that if someone who lives on the edge of town and calls the Fire Department, DeMaa isn’t going to just say no to stopping the fire, even if they’re technically outside of the city.
“My aggravation is that so many houses are built just outside of the city limits,” Mayor Bishop said. “Like with all the houses on Savage Road, they’re just half a mile outside of the city—they want all of the city services but they don’t want to pay for it. The taxpayers of Waupun should not be footing the bill for service in the townships. I just want them to pay their fair share.”
Mayor Bishop also said that he was willing to eat some of the cost if the City could clean up the city limit borders, which in many places are extremely messy with several “island” properties technically in the township that are completely surrounded by the city limits.
Kaczmarski pointed out there was a decision made by a previous administration that led to several township streets being paved and maintained by the City, namely S Grove St and Doty St.
“I often get asked about when Young St is going to be redone but I’m not doing it as long as there’s two houses still in the township,” Mayor Bishop said, referring to two properties on the intersection of Young St and Wilcox St. “These islands need to be cleaned up and square the city off. We can bring all the businesses across from Farm & Home [Ace Hardware] into the city, hook them up to sewer and water, and get them paying city taxes.”
“We need just 60 properties to offset the cost of the Fire Department, and we can do that,” he said. “I don’t know how it happened but how do we have township residents that have city addresses? These are the houses that don’t pay city taxes but benefit from basically being in the city. And why are we plowing town roads? I don’t want to plow Doty Street, or Woodland Drive, but we can’t just ignore them.”
Kaczmarski also pointed out that until about five years ago the City of Waupun had been maintaining S Madison between Doty St and the railroad tracks since the 1980s despite it being owned by the county.
No action was taken regarding the matter as it was a discussion item only.
Last April the City of Waupun hosted an intergovernmental session to hear a report on efficiencies for how to manage the local fire departments in the future.
