WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) — The first of four meetings designed to educate Wausau’s city council about improved organization and committee structure, and how to improve governance of the city is Thursday.
Council President Romey Wagner says they need as much information as possible before deciding whether to keep the mayoral government or to go against the narrow majority of residents and select an administrator. “We’ve scheduled four Committee of the Whole meetings to have educational processes with Dr. (Stephen) Hintz, the person who did the white paper for the Chamber, to help educate us on what the internal structure of the city government could or should maybe look like to support whatever we decide to do.”
The advisory referendum did not show overwhelming support, but most voters preferred keeping their mayoral system of government. Wagner says the council will have a lot to discuss. “With the referendum being put down, even as a close vote, that’s a very important thing for us to keep in mind and to talk about. Having these Committees of the Whole with a facilitator from the outside I think is important to keep us on track.”
Wagner says Hintz’ expertise could be what Wausau needs to put create a more efficient and functional government. He says whichever way the city council votes, changes are necessary. “If not an administrator, then yes, what’s the forming of the council committees, responsibilities of the different department heads. Dr. Hintz is going to talk about all of those things.”
The plan to bring Stephen Hintz into discussions with the city council did not start after the election was over. Wagner says they’ve wanted to bring him in for a while to see what changes they could make. “We started talking two months ago about this. This is part of the process. The voters have spoken, and now how do we adapt in order to get the help at City Hall that’s obviously needed?”
Wagner says the four meetings of the Committee of the Whole will focus on specific areas of city goverment. The first meeting is Thursday from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m., and the topic is going to be budgeting. “Specifically, outcome based budgeting, which is a change from the way we’ve been doing the budgeting now, where each program has to stand on its own and show the validity of spending the money, and that we’re getting the desired outcome for the investment.”
The next session will be a discussion of committee chairs and committee members, and what their responsibilities are. They will also talk about combining some committees, such as Finance and Economic Development, which deal with many of the same issues. Wagner says combining certain committees could also reduce the amount of time staff members spend on committee support tasks.
