Wausau Mayor vetoes city budget

WAUSAU, Wis. (WXCO) – Wausau Mayor Doug Diny announced Wednesday he is vetoing the city budget.

The budget was approved by the city council Tuesday night. It’s relatively flat compared to last year with a tax increase of about three cents. 

During budget discussions, Council President Lisa Rasmussen praised the Finance Committee for their work and filling some quote “pretty serious gaps.”

“Protecting core services yet still getting the work done that people expect to be done um that uh that was no easy task,” Rasmussen said.

Diny’s budget veto comes after he announced last month he would veto any plan that would raise taxes. His main problem with the budget is a potential public safety referendum on the spring ballot. 

The referendum would ask taxpayers to permanently fund 12 firefighter-paramedic positions currently supported by federal grants. Those grants are set to expire at the end of next year. That would leave a $1.4 million shortfall for Wausau. 

Diny proposed his own plan to save four of the firefighter positions through cuts to other departments. He said if his plan was rejected, he would veto the budget.

“We’ve looked at a lot of different options,” Diny said at a Nov. 3 council committee meeting. “We could get four to six firefighters under the levy. The one page that I gave to you saves four, closes the $1.4 million cliff and keeps taxes flat. No referendum and no layoffs.”

Alder Rasmussen told the Wausau Pilot & Review Diny’s proposal amounted to “a collection of sentence fragments used to get people excited about numbers.”

In his veto announcement, Diny said he feels like the council “wants chaos” and alders “tried to purge and hide data from the public.” 

The City Council can override the Mayor’s veto with eight votes – a two-thirds majority.

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