Wisconsin Rapids City Council Passes 2025 Budget

Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. (WFHR, WIRI) – The Wisconsin Rapids City Council met on Tuesday to discuss passing the 2025 City Budget. Jake Cattanach spoke against passing the budget because no changes were made despite conversations they had over issues within the budget. Cattanach said, “If there’s one thing in this budget that you don’t agree with, you should be voting no to it. You should not pass a budget just to pass a budget and be done with it. If there’s something in there you don’t agree with, we should be voting no and then working out that disagreement and then putting forth a budget to the people.”

Animal Control in the Budget

The Council had previously discussed cutting the budget for animal control. In the end, they chose to keep the original amount in, but the contract with the South Wood County Humane Society has not yet been signed. Alderperson Madalyn Palmquist said she received many emails and phone calls in support of SWCHS. Palmquist said she didn’t think the city would be able to find another contractor before the current contract with SWCHS will expire. She stated, “To respect the wishes of our community and to provide the members of that community the services in a timely fashion, my motion is to refer this contract back to the property and finance committee to discuss and agree upon terms of the contract.” This motion passed with a 7 to 1 vote.

Library Funding

They had also discussed cutting the funding for McMillan Library. Justin Pluess said he received many emails from constituents after that discussion. One of those emails included a letter from a constituent in his district. Ruby Marti asked Alderperson Pluess to share her letter at the meeting in support of the funding for the library. Reading from the letter, Pluess stated, “Without the library, such a valuable resource, our community would be in great trouble as the programs offered through the McMillan Library are done so to help encourage the growth and success of the youth in society.”

Links

You can see the summary of the 2025 City Budget here. The Wisconsin Rapids City Council meeting was filmed by Wisconsin Rapids Community Media and can be viewed here.