WHITEWATER, Wis. — Election Day is right around the corner and for many, public safety will be on the ballot.
There are dozens of fire departments up for referendum across the state. Whitewater is one of them. The department is one of many looking to increase their budget in order to pay staff to respond to emergencies.
“The last few months have been stressful,” Whitewater Fire Department Chief Kelly Freeman said.
The Whitewater Fire Department had traditionally operated as a volunteer and paid on-call fire department, which meant staff members were not at the department at all times.
However, back in July, the department switched over from paid on-call to paid on-premises by dipping into reserves.
That meant fire responders could go to emergencies directly from the department instead of coming from their homes. Freeman said they did this to decrease response times from five minutes down to two minutes.
“We dodged the bullet for a long time on staffing with our scholarship program with UW students and such, but… the staffing shortage has caught up with us and we are feeling a crunch that many departments in our area were feeling five to ten years ago,” Freeman said.
The department is looking to staff two ambulances 24 hours a day to keep up with calls. They are also trying to pay 17 full-time staff members to cover those shifts and the surrounding area for emergencies.
“If this doesn’t go through, we are going to have to [restructure],” Freeman said. “But it is going to impact more departments elsewhere because we can’t put public safety on the back burner.”
City Manager John Weidl has been working to crunch the numbers to see what a possible increase in a budget of $1.1 million would do for taxpayers in the Whitewater community.
“That breaks down to 65 cents per day for our taxpayers,” Weidl said.
However, Weidl said with an increased tax base, many may not see an impact at all if the referendum were to pass on Election Day.
“Bottom line, even in approval of referendum, 81% of our taxpayers will still experience no tax increase or a tax reduction in aggregate. What they are getting for that is having people on-site 24 hours a day when that phone rings,” Weidl said.
While all departments across the state who are up for referendum aren’t the same when it comes to numbers, many said they hope they can share the facts with their community members who are going out to vote on Nov. 8.
For more information on the Whitewater referendum, click here.
Editor's Note: This story was updated to correct the spelling of City Manager John Weidl's last name. (Nov. 2, 2022)