County may invest surplus in property tax relief

Thanks to a multimillion budget surplus in 2025, Ozaukee County supervisors were expected to vote Wednesday on designating $1.2 million toward paying off debt, promising to lower property taxes for county taxpayers.

“We’re anticipating about a $3 million budget surplus,” County Administrator Jason Dzwinel told supervisors on the Executive Committee Monday.

While the books on 2025 won’t be closed for another month, a number of county departments appear to have had better years than expected on both the expenditure and revenue sides of the ledger, Dzwinel said.

“The Register of Deeds revenue we haven’t seen in a number of years,” he said.

He said the Lasata Senior Living Campus, Highway Department and Sheriff’s Office are all in excellent shape fiscally, with hundreds of thousands of dollars expected to be added to the general fund.

In addition, sales tax revenue is headed for another record year after October receipts exceeded $1 million for the first time.

Through the first 10 months of 2025, the county has collected $1.39 million with the holiday months’ sales taxes still to be counted.

Dzwinel suggested the county use the windfall to pay off $1.2 million in bonds purchased in 2019.

Some supervisors on the committee suggested banking the money instead since current savings interest rates average around 3% while the interest being paid on the debt is about 2.25%.

But County Board Chairman Lee Schlenvogt and Dzwinel frowned on that idea.

“We’re not really supposed to be a savings account for the taxpayers,” Schlenvogt said. “This is one of the only ways we can return money to the taxpayer. If we can help by giving some of it back, we should do that.”

The committee didn’t vote on the proposal but generally supported the idea.

A resolution was to be voted on by the Executive and Finance committees Wednesday morning before the County Board is scheduled to meet.

The resolution to be voted on Wednesday calls for making debt payments of $405,000 in March 2027, $420,000 in March 2028 and  $430,000 in March 2029.

Supr. Rick Nelson, who is chairman of the Public Safety Committee, which oversees the Sheriff’s Office, wondered why it can’t just keep its overage and spend it on items, such as two squad cars, it was not able to buy during last year’s budget process, rather than reapply for it next year.

Committee members Supr. Patrick Foy and Supr. Eric Stelte said they should follow the prescribed process that requires  one budget request to compete with others.

In addition, Dzwinel said about $1.5 million has been budgeted for capital projects while he has received about $2.2 million in requests from department heads.

Requests include improvements to Clay Bluffs Cedar Gorge nature preserves, the installation of rooftop solar panels in county parks and the donation of land from the old quarry in the Town of Saukville that may be used for a park.

A county policy adopted in 2018 allows the County Board to add up to 50% of the year-end general fund surplus to pay for one-time projects but not ongoing operations.

Projects are submitted by department heads to their respective oversight committees, with the Executive Committee making the final recommendations in March.

The Executive Committee is made up of the five standing committee chairmen and Schlenvogt.