The Fifth Week + Budget Saturday Notes: Week of October 27 - November 1, 2025

Happy Sunday once again, Neighbors!  Thank you for clicking in to read this week's alderman blog post.  This week is a Fifth Week in City of Appleton government so there are supposed to be no meetings scheduled.  But then... it's that budget time of the year!  So the Finance Committee will be meeting next Saturday, 11/01/2025, for the infamous "Budget Saturday."  

What was supposed to be a short Fifth Week post will now just be a bit longer to include a bit about the proposed 2026 budget.

Saturday, 11/01/2025

Finance Committee - Special Meeting - 8am  While it is officially a Finance Committee meeting, "Budget Saturday," as it's come to be known, is a "fun" meeting for all council members.  Enthusiasm is implied here.  It is generally a fairly long meeting -- sometimes lasting well into the midday -- where every page of the mayor's proposed executive budget is discussed and hashed over by members of the council in a committee environment so that once the full council budget approval process begins, most major items of contention in the budget have already been thoroughly discussed by the entire council.  This, in theory, makes the later formal approval process for the next year's budget go much more smoothly.  In practice, this has generally worked well despite some previous years with contentious items where some substantial budget amendments have been offered and discussed at formal budget adoption meetings.  

This year's budget proposal by the mayor has, in my opinion, very few issues against which conservatives can argue.  The only substantial item of increase from the 2025 budget is a proposed city employee wage increase of 3%.  I believe this to be a fair increase for employees and hope it will help keep the city competitive with other municipal governments and private enterprises all vying for the best employees.  But other than that proposed wage increase, there is very little extra "fat" to cut to help save the taxpayers of the city additional expense. 

If all in the mayor's proposed budget remains as is (unamended), the city's total property tax levy will increase by 1.6%.  The total amount to be collected to cover the 2026 proposed budget is $56,156,634 while the total last year for the 2025 budget was $55,260,763.  

Since the city is made up of properties in Outagamie County (~85% of the city), and Calumet and Winnebago Counties, there are different tax rates for each county.  District 13 is of course entirely in Outagamie County, so you're likely most interested in the projected tax rate increase for that county.  But here is the breakdown of the proposed new city tax rates by county:

County         2024 Rate (to support 2025 budget)    2025 Rate (to support proposed 2026 budget)

Outagamie    $6.8174/$1,000 in assessed value            $6.9463/$1,000 in assessed value

Calumet        $6.1896/$1,000 in assessed value            $6.7549/$1,000 in assessed value

Winnebago    $7.2978/$1,000 in assessed value            $5.6747/$1,000 in assessed value

To calculate the proposed increase in the city portion of your property taxes, divide your home's assessed value (which you can find here) by 1,000.  Multiply that number by the difference between last year's rate and this year's proposed rate (that's $6.9463 minus $6.8174 = $0.1289) and you'll see how much the city portion of your property tax bill is proposed to increase from last year.  

Remember that this is only for the city portion of your property tax bill.  As you might be well aware, there will be a referendum coming soon on how much your school district portion of your property taxes will likely increase in addition to this proposed city tax increase.  I have not seen news on it yet, but my guess is that the county portion of our taxes will not decrease either.  So... be prepared.

If you have any questions or concerns about the proposed 2026 city budget, please reach out to me.  You may have attended (or perhaps you missed) the mayor's first public budget listening session that was last Monday.  But you are always welcome to attend and listen in to the proceedings on Budget Saturday.  And there remains one more official public hearing on the mayor's proposed budget: 6pm on Wednesday, 11/05/2025, in council chambers (6th floor) at City Hall.

In more exciting news... in case you think that the holiday season is far, far away yet... Trick-or-Treat hours for the City of Appleton are 4pm to 8pm on Friday, 10/31/2025.  And...  

I wish you the best last week of October 2025!  I hope to "see" you back here next week.