Muscoda board reviews pool year-end report and discusses 2025 budget items including radios and retirement rates

At the Sept. 24 special meeting Wardell reviewed the 2024 year-end pool report and highlighted items anticipated for 2025. Wardell provided copies of Richland Center’s pool rules, regulations and job descriptions; staff will email those documents along with the village’s current pool rules and job descriptions. Wardell said a chain of command for pool staff will be established before the next season.

Chief Schramm reviewed preliminary 2025 budget items and raised the timing question for updating or replacing mobile radios used by village operations.

Administrator Cinda Johnson walked trustees through health-insurance spreadsheets comparing Grant County state policy rates, 2024 monthly premiums versus projected 2025 premiums, and several scenarios showing cost per hour for both the village and employees. Johnson also distributed a spreadsheet summarizing each full-time employee’s 2024 wage and the village’s cost for insurance, retirement and Social Security. Johnson told the board that 2025 life-insurance rates will be calculated from previously reported wages to the Wisconsin Retirement System, that disability coverage remains on a premium holiday, and that dental rates for 2025 had not yet been received. The board also noted retirement-rate increases for 2025 (6.95% for general employees and 15.01% for protective employees).

These budget-preparation discussions will inform the board’s work on the 2025 municipal budget in the coming weeks.