CALEDONIA — In just over a month, voters in several communities across our area will approve or deny public safety referendums.
Grafton and Port Washington had community meetings Thursday night for people to learn more about their need for more first responders.
Researchers who study Wisconsin referendums and their results say public safety requests have been winding up on the ballot far more often since 2018.
Let’s go in-depth on a community that passed one last year to learn how it’s panned out and whether voters think it was a good investment.
A growing community and an aging population combined to create a problem in Caledonia. Particularly, a sharp increase in calls for service.
"They need good support, they do an amazing job,” said Sheri Adamowicz of Caledonia.
It’s why the village put a question on the ballot last spring to pay for six more firefighters and eight new police officers. It comes with a cost of about $185 a year for the average homeowner.
"I love living here but I don't really want to spend the extra money,” Ann Flick said.
After clearing the funding hurdle at the polls, Caledonia is now facing a different challenge.
Out of the 14 new public safety positions, Village President Tom Weatherston says they haven’t been able to add a single firefighter and just one police officer.
“Is it frustrating to see not many have been hired?” TMJ4 reporter Ben Jordan asked.
"It is. It is a struggle, but we're going to get through it,” Weatherston said. "Hiring firefighters right now, especially because they have to be paramedics also in our community, it's been a little hard to find qualified people for this.
Caledonia is far from alone in asking its residents for more public safety funds. Ari Brown with the Wisconsin Policy Forum researches referendums. He says it’s become a recent trend.
"I would say 2018 was really the first year where we saw a sizable amount,” he said. “That was really the first year where I think we had more than ten that were passed."
Brown says the biggest spike came in the fall of 2022 when 18 of 22 passed.
"2023, even though it was an off-year elections-wise, you didn't have a midterm or a presidential election, there were still I believe 25 total on the ballot,” he said. “I think 13 passed."
Despite the notable decrease in the success rate, Ari says it’s too early to conclude as to why.
But it happened about the same time the state started sending more money back to municipalities after adjusting its shared revenue formula.
Brown says that the move heavily favors the smallest communities. Caledonia’s fire department serves about 25,000 people.
“Caledonia got a 115 percent increase in shared revenue,” Jordan said. “If you had known shared revenue would increase so much, would you still have needed to go to a referendum for public safety?”
“Yes,” Weatherston replied. “With double-digit inflation and prices for salt and fuel and health benefits, those ate up most of the surplus we had in our budget, so yes, we would have had to do that anyways."
With more money coming from the state and local property taxes, Caledonia is focused on filling its vacant positions. Flick wishes that would have already happened.
"If they haven't hired the people yet, I'm not too happy about it but if they put the money to good use and hire the firefighters and police officers that would be great,” she said.
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