Rice Lake awarded $3.8 million in state bonding; city eyes $55 million in projects

The Rice Lake mayor announced that the state legislature has approved the city’s full $3.8 million bonding request, calling it the largest bonding allocation Rice Lake has ever received.

The mayor told the council the allocation will support a slate of infrastructure investments the city expects to total nearly $55 million over the next four years, highlighting a new Rice Lake Road corridor project and related water and sewer work on both sides of the corridor. "Rice Lake is getting the full $3.8 million that we asked for," the mayor said, adding that the funding will cover grant-eligible work so "we will not be levying for any of that work."

Why it matters: Council members and staff said the package will fund long-overdue maintenance and capacity improvements that are intended to serve future development while preventing a direct tax increase for those projects. The mayor and councilors credited coordinated local advocacy and their lobbyist’s work in St. Paul for securing the award.

City officials said the funding will be used for: the Rice Lake Road corridor, installation of new water and sewer infrastructure along the corridor and extending water and sewer service east and west of the route. Council members characterized those projects as a mix of grant funds and development contributions rather than direct property-tax levies.

Next steps: Staff will finalize project schedules and scopes and begin coordinating bidding and design work; the mayor said the timeline spans the next four years. The council did not take a formal vote on project contracts in this meeting; subsequent agenda items on engineering contracts and project phases were not on tonight’s agenda.

Sources: Announcement and discussion during the mayoral update at the Rice Lake City Council meeting.