Riverside Fire District. MWC photo by Mike Leischner
CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – This afternoon at 1pm the Wausau Fire Department will hold its latest session trying to convince you to raise your taxes by $1.5-million. The session is at the North Central Technical College, West Campus, Building A.
We are told that there’s a critical shortage of paramedics and EMTs in the department. In her wisdom former mayor Katie Rosenberg hired the additional staff. But she used a one-time COVID grant. That money runs out later this year, hence the referendum.
This is spectacularly poor budgeting. Using one-time money for ongoing expenses is foolish. And now the taxpayers are asked to dig deeper into their pockets to keep things going.
I would suggest that the right answer to the referendum is to vote “no”. Non-sensical budgeting should not be rewarded.
The fire department insists that the extra staffing is critical. Yet I don’t remember news stories where someone calls the fire department and no one comes. There are redundancies built into the system; that’s why we have three fire stations. And we have mutual aid agreements.
City Council President Lisa Rasmusson said at a hearing that we finally gave a fire department we can be proud of. We are getting better applicants when we have an opening. More firefights think of staying in Wausau for their entire careers. And that is all well and good. But I don’t ask whether we have a fire department that we can be proud of. Of course I am proud of the men and woman who serve. The question for the April referendum is what can the taxpayers afford? And the answer is ‘no’.
Chris Conley
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