By now pretty much everyone has gotten word about the special Common Council meeting at 6:00pm Thursday August 27th. At that meeting, Waukesha County Sheriff Daniel Tarwicki will be presenting information on the policing services provided by the Waukesha County Sheriff's Office. While I cannot speak for the entire Common Council, I can express my view on the issue.

How did we get to this point? Well, quite frankly, it has been mentioned for the last couple of years during the budget process. This year it comes up again. As I am sure you know, times are tough right now. As individuals our pocket books are being squeezed tighter every day. As a municipality we have services we need to provide for the tax payers and the cost of those services keep going up. I hear all the time from people who don't want their taxes to go up. I also do not want taxes to go up, mine or yours. However, here we are in 2009 in Pewaukee. Development is down from the last several year, revenues have fallen short of the projections and bonding is not favorable at the moment. All these factors have a dramatic impact on the operations of the City and the budget. In the 2009 budget we already tapped into the undesignated fund to cover some of the costs and planned on borrowing for some capital outlays. The budget shortfall makes thing a bit tighter than expected. Will 2010 be better? I cannot say.

So what do we do? There are two answers to that. The second answer is to raise taxes. I call it the second answer because it is not the first thing I would plan on doing. I don't think that hard economic times are in any way, shape or form a good time to increase taxes.

The first answer then is to cut costs. The question is... where? The answer to that is... everywhere we can. In the past, even when times were better and development was bringing in healthy amounts of development to increase the tax base of the City, things were done to keep the City's tax rate low. The term Lowest tax rate of all the Cities in Wisconsin comes to mind. So instead of spending money on infrastructure such as roads, many of those projects were cut to hold down the tax rate. For several years, the increase in personnel in the Fire Department was put off in order to keep the tax rate low. How often have capital equipment purchases been put off to get another year out of it? How long can that type of budgeting continue before it bites you in the hind end? Sure we can plow the snow with a single plow and a single driver, but how long would it take to clear the streets? How much overtime would we spend? Then again, if we do not repair the roads, what will there be to plow. Think about it, there is a level of service that we, as taxpayers, expect and demand. And these things, including police services all cost money. Money from taxes.

So that brings me back to the subject at hand. The Sheriff has prepared a presentation on providing police services via the WSD. That presentation may include a proposal that could potentially save taxpayer money. Would we not be remiss if we did not listen to an opportunity to save money? How much money? That remains to be seen.

I know this will be hard for some to do, but this really should not be looked at as a lack of confidence in the CPPD. I feel that we have very dedicated professionals working in the department. Rest assured that they are forefront of my mind as we move forward in the budget cycle. Yet, I cannot overlook the citizens and visitors. Nor can I forget every tax payer in the City either.