Muskego staff says roads are deteriorating; city to explore borrowing and capital plan

Muskego City staff told the Committee of the Whole on July 22 that the city is falling behind on road maintenance and asked the council to consider borrowing and a capital-improvement approach to close the gap.

The presentation, led by Landon, a city staff member, and Ryan, a city staff member, said the city uses the PASER visual rating system required by state law to score roads every two years and that recent ratings show a growing number of streets in the lowest condition bands. "We are getting a lot more red and oranges," Landon said, summarizing the 2023 map and interim 2025 updates. He reported roughly 65 miles rated in the 1–4 range and 87 miles rated 5–10, and estimated the city's lifecycle replacement rate at about 71 years for existing pavement under current spending.

The nut graf: City staff recommended bringing in a financial adviser to show how a borrowing program could work and how various debt sizes would affect the average homeowner’s tax bill. Landon said a $4 million borrowing, structured as a 20‑year bond, would increase taxes on an average Muskego home (example given as a $500,000 house) roughly $45–60 per year in his estimate; a $5 million borrowing would be roughly $55–70 per year. Council members asked for more detail and for a prioritized list of the worst roads to cover with any borrowed funds.

In the body of the meeting, staff explained current practice and constraints: the city performs visual PASER ratings every two years and maintains road condition mapping and geospatial records, sometimes augmented with drone imagery for damage documentation. Staff said the regular road program is funded from operating (about $750,000 annually), with an additional capital infusion roughly every third year; those amounts, they said, are insufficient to keep pace with deterioration. The presenter said landfill revenues average about $2 million a year and that some proposed capital requests already use that revenue for other items (parks equipment, public safety equipment), not roads. The presenter also noted levy limits tied to net new construction and warned that state aid increases tied to regional formulas may not flow to Muskego in large amounts.

Council members pressed staff on details: whether certain recent projects (Hillandale, Bay Lane) were part of the road program (staff said Hillandale was a separate capital project), what counts as repair versus full reconstruction (staff said most current program work is mill-and-overlay or shorter-duration repairs rather than full base reconstruction), and how large truck traffic — specifically heavy delivery vehicles such as Amazon trucks, which staff said weigh about 12,000 pounds when loaded and are roughly 25% heavier than comparable conventional vehicles — is accelerating wear in the industrial park.

Staff outlined immediate next steps and requests from aldermen: (1) invite the city’s financial adviser to present borrowing structures and tax impacts (presenter named either Baird or Barrett in the meeting; the transcript used both names), (2) prepare a spreadsheet showing what specified borrowing amounts (examples discussed: $3 million, $4 million, $5 million) could accomplish, and (3) produce a prioritized list of the seven worst roads for potential inclusion in a borrowing plan. Landon said contractors the city consulted indicated they could handle $4–5 million of work in a season and that unit costs per mile tend to fall as project size increases.

Council discussion also considered alternatives and political constraints: staff said a wheel tax or transportation utility are not viable options at present and encouraged discussion of a public-safety referendum that would bundle police, fire/rescue and public works funding; the presenter said that approach might appear on an April ballot if council chooses to pursue it. Staff emphasized tradeoffs in the operating budget, noting a projected roughly $2 million operating shortfall entering budget season and that shifting road work into capital borrowing could free operating dollars to preserve personnel and services.

The meeting closed the road discussion with council concurrence to proceed: staff will schedule the financial-adviser presentation, produce borrow-versus-tax estimates, and return with the prioritized road list and more granular cost scenarios during the upcoming budget process.

Ending: Council members indicated broad agreement that the city needs to take action on roads and that further analysis and public outreach are required before a final funding decision.