The Common Council met 02/05/2025. One of the items that was separated out for an individual vote was the request to accept a $274,000 grant for the library project.
During the Finance Committee meeting on 01/20/2025, Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) had proposed an amendment that was aimed at clarifying that accepting these grant dollars would not increase the budget for the library project. That amendment had been voted down.
At the Common Council meeting, she proposed a similar amendment that stated, “After final invoices are paid any excess of funds would be available for future capital projects to reduce the financial burden for local taxpayers.” As at the Finance Committee, that amendment was also voted down.
The Council then voted 12-2 to approve the acceptance of the grant and the associated budget amendment with alderpersons Hartzheim and Chad Doran (District 15) casting the dissenting votes.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Alderperson Hartzheim expressed a desire to make it clear that this grant could not be used to increase the overall budget for the library project. She said, “I understand that the part that the taxpayers have paid for this particular project is already in this library project budget and that we can’t exactly just write checks to all our constituents and refund them the $274,000 that we’ve gotten in this grant. Yet I still feel as though this just is an open invitation for folks to say, ‘Well, now you’re just going to spend 274,000 more dollars on the library,’ And that—that hurts me. It makes me very uncomfortable.”
She proposed an amendment that stated, “After final invoices are paid any excess of funds would be available for future capital projects to reduce the financial burden for local taxpayers.”
Director of Parks and Recreation Dean Gazza, who is overseeing the project, told the Council that the library project continued to stay within budget. They were close to closing out the project and did not anticipate any extra expenses.
Library Executive Director Rortvedt told the Council that the grant they were awarded was to be used to reimburse project expenses. “So, you submit transactions for reimbursement, and then the state would pay for reimbursement.”
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) noted that for any project the city budgets for, if the project ends up under budget, the left over funds usually end up being carried over into another project so the city doesn’t have to borrow as much on those projects. In this respect the library project was no different than any other project in the city. He said, “Sometimes I think that when we have these kind of discussions where we kind of entertain [these types of amendments], we kind of help feed that perception that that’s not what happens. I’m not going to vote for this amendment because this project isn’t any different from any other project we’ve ever approved that has come in under budget or at budget.”
The Council ended up voting down the amendment by a vote of 11 to 3 and then went on to vote to approve the acceptance of the grant by a vote of 12 to 2.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1254911&GUID=3ACA8864-8E32-4602-81E7-C1966A494152
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