Marathon County presents $4.5M priority capital list after audit leaves $0 CIP rollover; officials flag highway projects and cybersecurity needs

Marathon County staff told the County Board on Aug. 21 that county audit results left a $0 CIP rollover for 2026, forcing officials to prioritize projects and present funding options ahead of the November budget adoption.

Chris Holman, deputy administrator and facilities manager, said departments submitted capital requests and staff filtered those requests to a priority list. Holman said the county’s CIP rollover—which often supplies a material portion of capital funding after the audit—was $0 this year because board-authorized financial decisions earlier in the year reduced unassigned reserves.

Holman described a priority project list totaling roughly $4.5 million, noting that numbers remain subject to change and no funding is final until the 2026 budget is adopted. He said the highway request for one bridge replacement lists $506,000 of county CIP request against a total estimated project cost of $2.5 million and that investing in highway…