River Falls council approves $9.13 million in bills; administrator says large amount includes tax settlements

The River Falls City Council voted to approve bills totaling $9,134,542.91, subject to the comptroller.

A council member moved the approval and another council member seconded; the motion passed on a voice vote recorded as "Aye." City administration later clarified in the administrator’s report that the roughly $9 million in bills included tax settlements that passed through the city's check register to the school district, the county and the technical college and are not representative of the council’s normal biweekly disbursement amount.

The administrator also thanked the city clerk and the police department for their responsiveness to multiple public-records requests, noting their work was done with "a high level of ethics, integrity, and transparency." The transcript excerpt does not show individual roll-call votes or a breakdown of the bill list by vendor in the public portion provided.

Why this matters: The meeting’s bill approval included large, one-time tax-settlement disbursements; residents monitoring city spending should note the administrator’s clarification that the total reflected pass-through obligations to other taxing entities rather than routine operational spending.