City forfeits estimated $90,000 ERIP payment

CLINTONVILLE – The city of Clintonville will not receive an estimated $90,000 Expenditure Restraint Incentive Program (ERIP) payment because the 2026 city budget that the Clintonville Common Council passed in November 2025 did not meet the required ERIP expenditure limit.
At the June 9 Clintonville Common Council meeting, the council had the option of reducing the 2026 city budget by $486,831 to regain ERIP eligibility, but instead approved to maintain the budget that was adopted and to absorb the estimated $90,000 payment with the city’s General Fund balance. Ald. Brandon Braden and Ald. Aimee Ebert voted against that plan.
The council was notified that the 2026 city budget that was approved did not meet the required ERIP expenditure limit in a June 9 memo from then Clintonville City Administrator Caz Muske. In the memo, Muske claimed that the city worked with Ehlers to confirm that the 2026 budget complied with levy limit requirements.
“Following expenditure reductions, the adopted FY2026 Budget complied with levy limits, and Ehlers confirmed the City’s levy need matched the allowable levy,” Muske stated in the memo.
Muske then stated in the memo that after the budget was approved by the council, it was determined that eligibility for ERIP “is based on a separate expenditure growth calculation that is more restrictive than municipal levy limits.” Because of that, the adopted 2026 city budget exceeded the ERIP expenditure limit by an estimated $486,831.

“Accordingly, while the FY2026 Budget complies with municipal levy limit requirements, it does not preserve eligibility for the estimated FY2026 ERIP payment,” Muske said in the memo.

Options
The memo included two options available to the council. The first option would be to maintain the 2026 city budget as adopted and “utilize available fund balance in lieu of the estimated $90,000 ERIP payment.” Muske recommended this option.
“The City’s General Fund balance remains within adopted policy target of 30% of annual revenues and can absorb the loss of the ERIP payment without materially affecting the City’s financial position,” Muske said in the memo. “Maintaining the adopted budget preserves service levels, compensation commitments, and operational priorities while providing greater long-term budget flexibility and establishing a higher expenditure base for future ERIP calculations.”
The second option was for the council to adopt a new 2026 city budget by the end of June that included cuts of at least $486,831.

Muske stated in the memo that $486,831 in cuts “would likely require service-level impacts, deferred maintenance, staffing adjustments, or postponement of strategic initiatives.”

Discussion
During the council’s discussion, Clintonville Mayor Jeannie Schley asked if it was possible to make such large cuts by the end of June.
Ald. Jim Supanich said that city property owners had already been assessed taxes for the 2026 budget. He asked what the city would do with $486,831 if it cut that amount from the budget. He suggested the city take the estimated $90,000 that the city would have received in an ERIP payment from the city’s unassigned fund balance.
“There is more than enough money in there to do that,” Supanich said.

He added that the city should immediately begin working on next year’s budget to figure out how it missed out on the payment.
Braden asked if an amended budget needed to be approved by the end of June, or if the city just needed to notify the state of Wisconsin that it planned to amend its budget.
Schley said an amended budget would need to be submitted to the state by the end of June.
“If that’s the case, do we even have enough time to legally do that?” Braden asked.
Braden also asked if not amending the current budget would reset the expenditure restraints for next year’s budget or would next year’s budget be almost $500,000 less than this year’s budget to meet the expenditure restraint limits.
Council President Greg Rose said it was his understanding that the expenditure restraint numbers for next year would be reset, so the city would not need to reduce the current budget by almost $500,000.
“When we look at where we’re going to cut, it may be in our best interest to keep the $400,000 because we’re going to need it for overbudget projects,” Rose said.
Braden said he reviewed the city’s budgets back to 2018 during the budget process. After reviewing the budgets, he expressed concern during the city’s budgeting process last November. He said the average levy change in the city’s yearly budget averaged around $200,000. The 2025 budget had a levy increase of $185,000, which included the implementation of the first phase of salary changes for city employees based on a 2024 compensation study. He said the council decided not to implement all the salary changes because the city could not afford the recommended salary changes at one time. The 2026 city budget included the second phase of salary changes for employees based on the compensation study. This resulted in an increase of $278,000 in employee compensation.
According to the minutes from the Nov. 24 council meeting when the 2026 city budget was approved by the council, the total tax levy of $3,468,964 in the budget was an increase of $724,922 from the previous year’s budget. That equated to a 26% increase in the tax levy. In the previous seven years, the largest yearly increase was 8%. Braden was the only alderperson to vote against approving the 2026 city budget at the November meeting, while Ald. Brad Rokus and Schley, who was on the council at that time, were absent from the meeting.