Click here to read Part 1, Corruption at Sheboygan City Hall
Over the last six weeks, we have uncovered continuing issues at city hall. In our special update edition of this series, we lay out what we have recently discovered.
Corruption at Sheboygan City Hall: Sheboygan Plunges into Budget Crisis While Mayor Moves to Hire Administrator Without You
The City of Sheboygan is in the critical budget planning phase right now. A budget for any organization is vital and essential, and the official budget is the commitment to the organization’s actions for the next year. The budget decides what will be funded and delivered as results. As a taxpayer, our City’s budget is how your tax dollars will be invested in ways that benefit you through services, improvements, and other projects that increase your quality of life as a Sheboygan resident.
Having a plan on how to build and approve a budget is essential to an organization’s success. Sheboygan assigns this duty to the City Administrator. However, Sheboygan currently does not have a City Administrator due to Mayor Sorenson and eight members of the Common Council decision in January to fire Todd Wolf without cause. Sheboygan’s annual budget this year is $124.8 million. Building and approving an effective budget is required for the City of Sheboygan to deliver services and is a direct investment of your tax dollars.
The State of Wisconsin has increased revenue sharing with municipalities. As a result, Sheboygan will be receiving more revenue from the state. This increase in funding from the state is due to years of work by the state legislature to provide more money to city governments to ease the burden on local taxpayers.
With this additional funding from the state, each department head in the City of Sheboygan will be looking to get a portion of that money to increase the value that their departments provide to residents. City workers also deserve a wage increase to keep up with inflation and increased wages for other lines of work. The challenge is that wage increases are an ongoing commitment to spending city dollars. There needs to be guaranteed ongoing revenue increases to support wage increases in a sustainable way.
The City of Sheboygan will also be losing considerable tax revenue due to the closing of the Edgewater power plant. Next year, our City will lose an estimated $300,000 to $500,000 in tax revenues. It is essential for our City to plan other ways to increase the tax base to recoup this loss of revenue. This could typically come from new developments that would add to the tax base.
The budget process needs to be completed by early November to allow the City of Sheboygan time to process property tax bills and mail those to residents prior to January 1, when residents are required to pay them. Your tax bill is dependent on this process. The lives of City of Sheboygan employees are impacted because their income is also affected. Additionally the services, projects, and essential functions of the City of Sheboygan depend on this.
In years past, there was a specific timeline with dates to complete steps of the process. At this time of year, department heads submit budget requests, and the City Administrator decides what gets funding and what does not. The City Administrator then puts together the budget and presents it to the Common Council for approval.
Due to the mayor and eight of the ten Common Council members voting to fire former City Administrator Wolf without cause, there is no City Administrator. The mayor lists himself as the Chief Executive Officer on the City of Sheboygan website, and as the CEO, the mayor needs to manage the budget process in the absence of a City Administrator.
Mayor Sorenson has no plan on how to build the budget!
Department heads have been instructed to submit budget item requests to the Finance Department Director. There is no plan on who will determine what requests get funding or not. There is not a clear and defined timeline of what will be done and who will be responsible for deciding on the budget!
There is no plan nor are there answers on how to increase the tax base to offset the loss in revenue from the closing of the Edgewater power plant. The mayor shot down a $50+ million multi-phased development in downtown Sheboygan that would have created housing and storefronts. This development would have assisted local companies by providing housing in a desirable downtown location to attract employees. In addition, this development would have provided some assistance in overcoming the lost revenue of the Edgewater power plant.
The City of Sheboygan has no defined decision-maker or clear plan on how to invest your tax dollars to improve your quality of life as a Sheboygan resident!
The reckless decisions of Mayor Ryan Sorenson and eight of the ten members of the Common Council are beginning to impact you as a resident in the services you will receive in the next year and how your tax dollars will be spent!
The City of Sheboygan is also finalizing the hiring of a new City Administrator. This is the most important position the City hires as it is not elected and serves as the person who runs its operations. In other municipalities, this is a very public process that allows the public access to meet the candidates or hear the candidates speak. This position is also vital to our City of Sheboygan employees as the City Administrator will be at the top of its organizational structure.
On Monday, July 31, the two final candidates for City Administrator will participate in a final step of the hiring process at 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. at City Hall in the Common Council chamber.
In an email to all City employees on Thursday, July 27, Human Resources Director Adam Westbrook provided an update on the City Administrator hiring process. City of Sheboygan employees were told that they can attend the final presentations to see the finalists “in action”. City employees were also directly told that they will not have an opportunity to ask questions during the final candidate presentations.
The email from Westbrook also included, “This invitation is only open to City employees. Any non-employee who shows up will not be allowed to attend the presentations and will be asked to leave, so please do not invite or share this invite with non-employees.”
Mayor Sorenson is intentionally preventing you from being involved in the most important hire that the City of Sheboygan will make!
This process is intentionally being conducted under a veil of secrecy. There is no transparency and no opportunity for you as taxpayers to be involved in or witness to the hiring of the next City of Sheboygan Administrator. This is the person responsible for providing you with services and responsible for spending your tax dollars! You do not have a voice in this process!
Westbrook stating to employees that they cannot share or invite members of the public is also an authority play on City employees. This statement puts the Human Resources Department in a clear position of power over all City employees. If it is determined that a City of Sheboygan employee shared this information, Westbrook’s statement makes it clear that sharing this information would result in disciplinary action for not complying with a directive.
Westbrook is using his power as the Human Resources Director to intimidate and control our City’s employees to prevent you from attending the final step in hiring a City Administrator on Monday!
Call to Action
The City of Sheboygan is in dire straits due to the failed leadership of Mayor Sorenson and the eight members of the Common Council. You have to act and send emails to the mayor and the Common Council. The future of Sheboygan depends on good people standing up to this corruption!
If you have questions you want to ask the final candidates email your alder those questions. Demand them to be asked to prevent the council and Mayor Sorenson from silencing you as a valuable stakeholder!
- ryan.sorenson@sheboyganwi.gov – Mayor
- barbara.felde@sheboyganwi.gov – District 1
- roberta.filicky-peneski@sheboyganwi.gov – District 2
- amanda.salazar@sheboyganwi.gov – District 3
- betty.ackley@sheboyganwi.gov – District 4
- Angela.Ramey@sheboyganwi.gov – District 5
- dean.dekker@sheboyganwi.gov – District 6
- grazia.perrella@sheboyganwi.gov – District 7
- zach.rust@sheboyganwi.gov – District 8
- trey.mitchell@sheboyganwi.gov – District 9
- joe.heidemann@sheboyganwi.gov – District 10
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