Voters to decide if Grafton, Saukville will merge their fire departments

 

GRAFTON, Wis. (CBS 58) -- When Shelley Doxtator thinks about her fire department, her mind goes back to November of 2019. She was next door when a fire broke out at the Heinz auto body shop.

"I woke up to hearing banging on my door at about 5:30 in the morning," she said. "The response time was so quick."

Ensuring rapid response times is the reason officials in this village of about 12,125 are putting a referendum on the April 2 ballot. Voters in Grafton and Saukville will decide whether to accept a property tax increase that will allow their fire departments to merge and, in the process, add 13 new full-time fire and EMS positions.

Grafton Village Administrator Jesse Thyes said both communities' first responders are feeling strain in two directions. Calls for service have increased over the past decade. Since 2015, calls for service in Grafton have increased by 86% while emergency calls in Saukville jumped by 53%.

Thyes said the increase is driven largely by a blend of changing demographics, a growing population and simple geography.

"We do have an aged population, yes," Thyes said. "But also, the fact that our departments, the Grafton and Saukville departments, cover a 50-square-mile area."

At the same time, both the Grafton and Saukville departments have seen staffing declines. Largely driven by paid volunteer members, Thyes said not as many people are offering to serve on the side, elevating the need for more full-time personnel.

"They're volunteering to say, 'I will be here at home all weekend long, so if a call comes in, I can respond' versus going to their cabin, going on a family vacation," Thyes said.

If the referendum passes, property taxes in the Village of Grafton would increase by nearly $95 for every $100,000 of assessed value.

Homeowners in the Town of Grafton and Town of Saukville would pay more as well, but not as much. Village of Saukville property owners would not see an increase. Thyes said the cost sharing formula was based on population, volume of service calls and equalized assessed property values.

"You don't consolidate just to do this; you consolidate to improve services," Thyes said.

Opponents of the referendum, including Barbara Robillard, said they opposed the idea of higher taxes, and Robillard pointed to the lingering effects of last year's inflation spike.

"A little scary, especially in our hard times," Robillard said. "I mean, our grocery bills have all gone astronomical."

Robillard added she wanted the communities to have their own departments, partly as a matter of pride, but also to ensure responders were more familiar with the areas they'd be covering.

"I think it's extremely important that everybody keeps their individual fire departments, police departments," she said.

With increasing frequency, voters in Wisconsin are debating whether it's worth raising property taxes to fund public safety services. The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum found, in 2022, there was a record-high number of county and municipal referenda. 

Cedarburg and Germantown are among the other communities in Southeast Wisconsin holding referenda this spring on public safety funding. Both of those communities, as well as Grafton, are paying Milwaukee-based Mueller Communications to handle public relations around the upcoming votes.

Thyes said merging departments made the most sense because there are already blueprints in the region proving it works. He pointed to the Western Lakes Fire District, which includes Oconomowoc, Dousman, Sullivan and Summit. A 2022 referendum to generate additional dollars for that district failed.

Doxtator said she had no qualms about living in a multijurisdictional fire district.

"I actually grew up in Fox Point, where they have combined the fire departments into one, the North Shore Fire Department," she said.

Thyes also singled out the nearly 30-year-old North Shore F.D., which has been held up as a longstanding example of how much communities can save by merging their emergency response services.

The conversation around the possible Grafton-Saukville merger will continue up until the April 2 election. Thyes said he wasn't concerned sharing a ballot with a Republican presidential primary would make it less likely voters will approve a tax hike.

"I don't necessarily know if there's ever a good time to ask a complicated question like this," he said. "But the need is there."

Grafton will hold a town hall next week to discuss the referendum. It'll take place Thursday night at the Kacmarcik Center; doors open at 5:30 p.m. before the discussion starts at 6 p.m.