A protracted debate over funding for the Hillandale Water Main Project dominated the Muskego common council meeting on Dec. 16 after council members and residents raised concerns about how the project was funded and whether the council’s appropriation authority was bypassed.

Alderman Deb Schrader outlined figures she called undisputed and argued they were “figures, not opinion.” She said the original capital authorization showed $1,000,000 and ARPA funds listed $1,000,000 while the “actual project cost” reached $3.75 million, which she summarized as a net budget error of approximately $2,734,000 over the adopted capital budget. Schrader said the contract awards, bids and payments occurred without the council’s clear authorization and asserted that retroactive resolutions cannot cure spending that was not authorized in open session.

“Wisconsin state statute 19.83 requires action to occur in an open session,” Schrader said during the meeting, arguing that closed sessions cannot authorize expenditures and that a memo or a social-media post is not a legal authorization.

Other council members disagreed over whether the project had sufficient prior resolutions and vouchers. The mayor said the council had previously approved ARPA funding and that a bid and contract approval occurred in the record; he acknowledged an accounting omission and apologized, calling it an error he should have caught. “I admit I screwed up here,” he said, adding he had been seeking a solution and that vouchers and resolutions showed payments had been authorized.

Alderman Decker urged the council to pay attention to wording in any remediation resolution, distinguishing “recognize” from “authorize.” He proposed an amendment emphasizing that the council retain appropriation authority going forward. Several members said the immediate procedural question before the meeting was whether any member who originally voted in the affirmative would move to reconsider the previously approved resolution; no immediate reconsideration overturned the earlier vote.

The council scheduled further procedural options: if an affirmative voter asks for reconsideration, the council may bring the item back to the floor for a possible change; absent that, staff said the attorney-drafted resolution in the packet would remain the operative text.

The discussion closed without a new vote that night; council members and the mayor agreed the issue may require further review, and some members said they would pursue additional information and potential procedural remedies.