STEVENS POINT—The Stevens Point Finance Committee reviewed the proposed 2027 city operating budget on Oct. 26, featuring a proposed 8.73% increase to the property tax levy to cover rising employee healthcare and compensation costs.
The city’s proposed operating budget sits at $31.9 million for 2027.
Operational spending is driven largely by personnel expenses. Salaries and employee benefits make up 81% of the city’s operating budget for 2027.
City Treasurer Corey Ladick explained that staff worked to maintain services while keeping wage adjustments aligned with inflation.
“Salaries and benefits are 81% of the operating budget,” Ladick said, noting that discretionary departmental spending has been kept level “since 2020.”
The proposed budget includes a 3.13% cost-of-living adjustment for employees across the pay plan, totaling $256,000.
The plan includes a 15% increase in employee health insurance premiums, following flat rates in 2026. Ladick reported that claims in the city’s self-funded health plan are running 10.5% over revenues, while stop-loss premiums for claims exceeding $100,000 are also rising.
To support operations, the proposed $24,340,681 tax levy would raise the projected assessed tax rate from $9.74 to $10.59 per $1,000 of assessed value.
Most city departments will see an increase in their proposed 2027 budget. The fire department, public works, police department, parks department, inspections, transit, airport, and general government all received larger budgets in the proposed plan.
To save money, the city will possibly discontinue live streams of meetings and ending its’ mobile app. Meetings would still be able to be watched live through Zoom, with the change possibly taking effect as of Jan. 1.
The city also addressed an unexpected decrease in state aid for campus police and fire protection at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The payment fell by $93,000 after state assessors lowered university building valuations from $647 million to $396 million, a 39% drop driven by assigning a negative $110 million value to the 2007 Dreyfus University Center addition.
“The state threw us a bit of a curveball,” Ladick said. “All I can do is speculate that they think that the building was overvalued in the past, so they're trying to make up for that by putting in a negative value this year.” Ladick said he has reached out for clarification from state officials but has received no response.
The Finance Committee will review the budget proposal in Nov., where it will then head to the Common Council for final approval before tax bills are sent in Dec.
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