City tax levy increases by 26%

CLINTONVILLE – The Clintonville Common Council approved the city’s 2026 budget, which includes a mill rate drop of $3.56 to $9.90 per $1,000 of equalized value, but a tax levy increase of 26%, mostly due to increases in employee compensation.
The council approved the budget at a special council meeting held Nov. 24. The budget was passed by a 7-1 vote with Ald. Brandon Braden voting no. Ald. Brad Rokus and Ald. Jeanie Schley were excused from the meeting.
Residents will pay $989 on a $100,000 home for the city’s portion of their tax bill. A $200,000 valued home will see the city’s portion of a homeowner’s tax bill at $1,979.
The 2026 city budget passed by the council includes a total tax levy of $3,468,964, which is an increase of $724,922 when compared to the 2025 budget. According to the minutes from the meeting this is a 26% increase in the tax levy, which is the largest increase in the past seven budgets. Over the past seven budgets, the largest increase was 8%. It was also stated in the minutes that the city’s Public Works building is in need of repairs, but “most of the increase is due to second phase of salary step increases (for employees).”
Breaking the tax levy down, the total operating levy equals $2,418,171 and the levy for debt service equals $1,050,793.

Rising expenses
As stated, employee compensation was the largest increase in expense in the 2026 city budget, increasing by $278,000. Health insurance increased by 5.9% and dental insurance increased by 6%, according to a budget summary provided by Clintonville City Administrator Caz Muske.
The budget also includes the following increases: city property insurance – $22,000, city automobile insurance – $6,000, Clintonville Library subsidy – $4,784, Waupaca County Manawa Transfer subsidy – $6,000, Clintonville Area Waste Services (CAWS) subsidy – $5,000, and cemetery costs – $60,000.

Revaluation
According to the budget summary provided by Muske, even though the city’s operational expenses increased, the levy rate decreased because of the property revaluation that took place in the city in 2025.

“The revaluation brought all assessed values up to 103% of market value to comply with State of Wisconsin requirements,” it was stated in the budget summary. “When property values rise significantly due to a revaluation, the tax rate (mill rate) automatically goes down to spread the levy across a larger tax base.
“In other words, the city is not collecting more because of the revaluation – the same levy is now divided over higher assessed values ($203M to $350M), which mathematically lowers the tax rate. At the same time, our actual operating costs continue to rise due to salaries, benefits, inflation, and service needs, which is why the levy amount itself increases even while the rate decreases.”

Finance Committee
During the formation of the 2026 city budget, Muske told the Clintonville Finance Committee at its Nov. 10 meeting, that the city made significant cuts to the previously drafted budget in order to get the tax levy down to around $3.4 million.
“Which is our levy capacity,” Muske said. “We cannot increase it any more than that.”

Also at the meeting, Braden, who eventually voted against the 2026 budget, expressed concern about increasing the tax levy from around $2.7 million in 2025 to $3.4 million in the 2026 budget. He said the increase is four-times higher than any of the increases to the city budget over the past decade.
“I went back and found our budgets going all the way back to fiscal year 2012, and while there’s been variations and whatnot, we’ve never increased it (budget) anywhere near as much as what we’re looking at increasing it this year, which, even if we fall under all of our restraints and stuff, I feel that’s going to be a big additional burden on some of our residents,” Braden said.
Braden acknowledged a lot of the levy increase was due to increase in employee salary and benefits. But even without that increase, Braden said there still seemed to be a big increase in the tax levy, with it difficult to see where this increase is coming from.
“I’m concerned that there’s numbers more in the budget that are getting double tallied somehow because I don’t see how it (tax levy) can be jumping so much,” Braden said.

Employee compensation

In an Oct. 28 interview with the Clintonville Tribune-Gazette, Muske said the city conducted a compensation study regarding city employees in 2024.
“I think all the organization, the staff, is very appreciative of the council, of not only initiating the compensation study, but following through,” Muske said. “It was a two-phased approach, so we knew there was going to be a significant increase in 2025, and the second wave was going to be in 2026.”
She added, “What I mean by that, we were expecting quite the influx of expenditures because it was something new.”
Because of the compensation study, Muske said the city knew putting the city budget together for 2025 and 2026 would be “hard.”
When asked if items had to be cut from the budget because of the compensation study and the increase in employee compensation, Muske said, “Yeah, so nothing new will be added to the budget. So, no expansion of projects, no expansion of services, no expansion of personnel. That was something that was looked at. Nothing extra. The main focus on the available levy increase went pretty much all to salaries and benefits.”