Marathon County logo. MWC file photo
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — Recommendations regarding the size of the Marathon County Board are almost to the finish line.
Thursday afternoon Marathon County’s Executive Committee went over the recommendations of the Task Force on the Size of the Marathon County Board of Supervisors. The task force began its work back in June on deciding if the board should downsize from its current 38 member format. Ultimately Task Force Chair and District 4 Supervisor John Robinson says the task force does not recommend any downsize.
Instead, the task force recommends that all members of the County Board are surveyed or interviewed on their perceptions of how much time was required, and the functioning of the board and its committees. Board leadership completed similar surveys carried out by Deb Hager that focused on their time commitments, thoughts on the County Board itself, thoughts on County Committees, and their overall experience as a County Supervisor.
Robinson explains the criteria the task force considered in their recommendation to not downsize the Board. “But at the end of the day, we felt as if there weren’t significant cost savings. There was the potential to impact representation and interest.
“In the community, 118 people weighed in and were very strongly in support of maintaining the current size. And then given the political environment and the distrust of government there was not an appetite at this time to reduce the size of the board.”
The task force hopes the County Board will encourage the Rules and Review Committee to review a Committee structure report to evaluate the number of standing committees, the responsibilities of the committees to balance workload as well as evaluating the need for and responsibilities for all other committees, commissions, and boards.
While the task force isn’t recommending a downsize, they did find out an interesting revelation during their research according to Robinson. “We are not the largest county governing body in the country. That belongs to Albany, New York. They have a different name for it. We are the largest County Board in the country but we are not the largest county governance body in the nation. So we can take solace in the fact that we are one but not both.”
The recommendations by the task force now move onto the full county board after unanimous approval. The County Board will get an in-depth presentation on the recommendations from the Board Size Task Force at their meeting in late January. It is likely the board will vote on the recommendations in February.
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