You get four of them today. I’ll try to be brief (quit laughing, ok?).
Monday, Sep 14, 2026, 5pm until the coyotes start howling #
The budget. In all its glory.
If you have input, please come to the meeting. If you just want to learn what the village spends money on, please come.
Since the budget is only proposed at this point, I’ll reserve my editorial comments for the final version. Monday’s meeting is about getting to that final version. I’ve given the staff my feedback and given them an idea of the direction I think we will want to go. I’ll write about it in the recap so I can adjust in case everyone disagrees with me and we take a different direction.
I will, however, mention some fun facts for you the taxpayer that I found or learned about in my first budget cycle.
- In 2002, the village signed a deal with City of Racine to provide water/sewer service. We also agreed to provide City of Racine a “revenue share” kicker every year through 2031, in exchange for them promising not to invade, I mean annex, us. We were just a town at the time (towns can be annexed, villages cannot). That revenue share payment currently sits at about $500K per year, or 2.5% of our tax levy (and thus 2.5% of your village tax bill amount). This is a payment over and above any water/sewer utility charges you pay, and the entire village bears the cost. And it goes into Racine’s coffers unrestricted. It’s not even earmarked for water/sewer infrastructure improvements. The City of Racine thanks you for your generosity, Caledonia residents.
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In the early 2000s, WE Energies agreed to a financial settlement with Caledonia regarding the Oak Creek Power Plant Expansion. We get $600K per year from them, which continues until 2030. We use it to pay principal and interest on our debt. This lowers your taxes by some small amount every year, and of course helps lower the village’s debt. It isn’t restricted money, so we could use it for general fund spending, but then your taxes would go up because we still have to pay the debt.
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When doing 2027’s budget, state law dictates we take 2025’s construction, which goes on the tax rolls in 2026, and use that figure in the calculation for the allowable levy increase. Our new construction number is $69M, or 1.753% of our total equalized value. $69M is more construction than any year for which I have data. But the best part is that all but $1.5M of it was outside of TIDs. If you don’t understand TIDs, just trust me, this is fantastic news. We can raise the levy by that amount and know that it won’t raise existing taxpayers’ bills. Frustratingly, I want to see the data on where that $69M came from. You’d think it would be readily available, but apparently it isn’t. I’ll keep trying to get it.
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The proposed budget has a flat levy, which is a great starting point for a budget. Revenue increases a bit from property tax and non-property tax sources. Spending increases a bit from natural increases in costs. Debt service drops a bit because of good fortune. Net increase to levy is $0. And we have a slightly broader tax base from the $69M in new construction. The Village of Caledonia line item on your tax bill should be +/- just a few bucks unless your home went up in value quite a bit more than everyone else’s. Read this if you want to understand the village line item on your property tax bill.
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You won’t believe this, but the state has a program called the Expenditure Restraint Program that gives villages and cities extra state tax money if they hold their levy increases to a certain percentage. Here’s the dumb part: if your mill rate is less than $5.00, you don’t qualify. Yeah, that’s right. If you already have expenditure restraint (i.e your mill rate is already really low), NO MONEY FOR YOU! If you spend like a drunken sailor but only spend a little more this year vs last, then we give you more booze money as a reward. We currently get about $150K from this program. Because our valuations went up and our levy is staying flat, this year our mill rate is falling to $5.03. We’re definitely going to lose this funding next year. Here’s the unintended consequence of the program design: if we try to cut too much from the budget this year, there’s a point where the next dollar of budget cuts costs us $150K in revenue from the state. Foreshadowing, I’m pretty sure this goofy program will come back in my final recap on the budget.
Ok, enough about budgets. Come to the meeting if you’d like. 5PM Monday, Village Hall.
Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 4pm - Finance Committee #
TID Policy is back on the agenda. Last time we spent an hour on 1.5 pages. One of us in the room is having fun at least. The current draft policy will be published as part of the meeting packet.
Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 6pm - Board and CoW Meetings #
Board #
6F and 6G – Self Storage conditional use permit on a property abutting the Hagemann Rd neighborhood. This was a hot topic at the Plan Commission at the end of August and likely will be again on Tue.
7E – We’ll establish the Ad Hoc Committee for Waters Edge. I’ll get two board members plus myself identified at the meeting. The three village members will be appointed later, soon, but after the meeting. One of them will be from outside the immediate vicinity of the property.
There are two items for closed session. I’m not sure how long that will take. Hopefully not very long.
Committee of the Whole #
6A – The mound system at Fire Station 11 (Nicholson/6 Mile) is failing. Yay, more bad news!
And then another closed session, which I will boldly proclaim will be really short. Since there’s no more meeting after that closed session, there’s no need to stick around.