The city of Merrill Personnel & Finance Committee took another step Wednesday night in reviewing citizen complaints against three city officials.
The city has now received 152 citizen feedback forms with complaints directed at City Administrator Dave Johnson, Finance Director Kathy Unertl and/or City Attorney Tom Hayden.
The committee met in closed session Wednesday night to discuss the complaints, which mainly center around the handling of the 2019 city budget and tax levy.
Among those permitted to participate in the closed session discussion was attorney Dean Dietrich, who is serving as outside legal counsel for the city in this matter. Dietrich has represented the city in various matters since the mid-1980s. Because he is among the subjects of the complaints, City Attorney Hayden said he requested that an outside attorney advise the city in this process.
After more than two hours in closed session, the committee and Dietrich returned to the council chambers and resumed open session. Dietrich indicated the review process would continue.
“(The committee) directed counsel to prepare a series of documents that will be reviewed by the Personnel & Finance Committee and discussed with the personnel involved as part of the performance review process,” Dietrich stated. “At this time, no formal action will be taken in the open session and no additional information will be provided about any further steps to be taken by the committee until documents are prepared and communications are made with the appropriate city personnel.”
The barrage of citizen complaints was sparked by an unexpected spike in city property taxes. When tax bills arrived in December, city property owners were greeted by a 7.4 percent increase – instead of the three percent increase they were expecting.
In November, Mayor Derek Woellner had vetoed a 2019 budget that carried a 4.71 percent tax levy increase. Noting taxpayer objections, Woellner directed the city to revise the budget to hold the hike to 3 percent. The Common Council subsequently adopted a tax levy on Nov. 28 that did just that.
City tax bills mailed in December included a letter, however, signed by Woellner and Johnson, stating that, “Once all calculations were made, the result is an increase in your City property taxes of about 7.4%. We managed to achieve an operating and debt service budget increase of 3.0%.
“However, with a decrease of $2,372,100 in total community assessed valuation (from $410,015,680 to $407,643,570) due to the State of Wisconsin’s elimination of one assessment class of Personal Property, there resulted in an approximately 2.0% tax rate increase.
“As in prior years, each of the taxing districts (Lincoln County, City of Merrill, Merrill Area Public Schools and Northcentral Technical College) has an allocation for Tax Increment Districts (TIDs). The City of Merrill allocation results in an approximate 2.4& rate increase for 2018. The city is using the tax increment funding for public infrastructure (i.e. paving, curb, gutter, sidewalks and street lighting) and economic development.”
In response, citizens flooded City Hall with feedback forms and packed into the council chambers to voice their displeasure at the Jan. 8 Common Council meeting. The Personnel & Finance Committee also met that night to review the complaints, which then numbered over 130. Following 60 minutes of closed session discussion, the committee ultimately took no action and made no recommendation to the council that night.
In public comment Wednesday night, Merrill resident LaDonna Fermanich said she and others who filed complaints believes Unertl and Johnson knew, or should have known, about the factors contributing to the tax rate increase prior to the council passing the budget and levy.
“Tonight you are here to review these 130-plus complaint forms with the general consensus of many of them being the misleading, whether deliberate or unintentional, of the mayor, the council and the general public,” she said.
“They had to have known by that second meeting on the budget, but it was never brought up,” added Merrill resident and business owner Mark Bares, who helped organize citizen protests at the Jan. 8 meeting.