Resident urges Sawyer County to restore emergency radio equipment to 2025 capital plan

Linda Zilmer, an Edgewater property owner and Birchwood resident, asked the Sawyer County Finance Committee on the topic of the 2025 budget to “take a closer look at financials,” and to restore funding for emergency radio communications equipment she said had been removed from the county’s capital improvement plan.

Zilmer told the committee the 2023 audit the committee had received last month was only an executive summary and did not include detailed budget-versus-actual information that would show 2023 year-end fund balances. She said the 2025 budget was adopted “without the benefit of knowing where 2023 ended up” and without an estimate for 2024, and that capital equipment purchases presented at the public works committee have begun to be ordered from the adopted CIP list.

The nut graf: the committee and finance staff explained the GenComm emergency radio project was taken out of the 2025 CIP not because the county cannot do it, but because uncertainty about financing meant it could not be included in the debt-service/levy schedule this year. Restoring the equipment to the CIP would require either a change to the repayment plan or adding the project back into the levy schedule.

Treasury and finance staff told the committee the GenComm equipment had earlier been estimated at about $1,500,000 for the County's equipment whether the County chose GenComm or an alternate vendor. Finance staff said that estimate was removed from the 2025 CIP and replaced in the adopted list with other items such as five squad cars and a utility terrain vehicle for the sheriff’s department.

County finance staff explained why the item was removed from the adopted 2025 CIP: because including the GenComm project in the county’s debt service repayment schedule would have required committing levy-based debt service beginning in 2024. Staff said because the financing approach was not finalized before budget adoption, the project could not be placed in the debt-service schedule; that did not, staff said, preclude undertaking the project this year and starting levy repayment in a subsequent year.

Zilmer requested the Finance Committee consider amending the 2025 CIP at a future meeting to reinstate the emergency radio communications equipment and remove or delay other items to keep the plan balanced for 2025.

Ending: Committee members did not take a formal vote on Zilmer’s request during the meeting. Finance staff said they would continue to close out the prior years’ CIP accounts and that any change to the 2025 CIP or to levy-backed debt service would require a follow-up agenda item and formal action by the committee or the county board.