Pickleball courts, finance help surface as city holds budget workshops

City of Rhinelander finance director Wendi Bixby has told the Common Council she can no longer handle the department’s workload alone. Her request for a part-time assistant is one of the larger new expenses in the city’s proposed 2027 budget. The council has held two of four scheduled budget workshops, on Sept. 23 and Sept. 30. At those sessions, members also learned of a proposal to fund the repair of the eight pickleball courts at Pioneer Park through borrowing, not from the city’s operating budget. A resident urged the council Sept. 14 to fund the resurfacing request. The capital improvement fund in the Sept. 30 budget packet lists $35,000 for parks property improvements. According to parks director Jeremy Biolo, the Pioneer Park pickleball group obtained a quote for $30,000 earlier this year but the quote was only good for a few months.

“They were told it would probably go up next year as prices on everything are going up,” he wrote in an email to the Star Journal. “The price would include filling any minor cracks, getting the older paint off, new primer/protectant and new paint for the eight courts.”

The workshops are a chance for department heads to walk council members through their requests. No votes are taken. The council will act on the budget at a later meeting.

Bixby’s request for additional part-time help highlighted the first workshop.

“I would like to hire a part-time finance assistant because it’s not working. I’m way overloaded,” she said at the Sept. 23 workshop.

Bixby told the council that she had to work remotely this summer, after another employee went on leave, so she could finish her work without interruption.

“It’s not good for the organization to just have one person try and do everything,” she said. “There has to be internal controls set up in place.”

The proposed position would work 24 hours a week over three days. It would add about $33,000 to the Finance/Treasurer budget. That department’s 2027 request is $232,873, up $44,943, or 23.91%, from the 2026 budget of $187,930. Salaries account for most of the increase, rising from $90,993 to $123,812.

The department’s request also raises the audit contract from $57,000 to $62,000 and the travel and training budget from $1,700 to $2,500. Bixby said a new hire could attend one or two trainings.

Mayor Kris Hanus said he had pushed for a full-time position. He pointed to increasingly complex government reporting rules and to the documentation required by the grants and loans the city has been pursuing.

“The workload continues to grow every year without the man hours to do it,” he said.

He also said the city has no succession plan if the finance director were to leave suddenly. Another person in the department could “at least hold stuff together for a little while,” he said.

Bixby said she held the request to part-time because of the state’s expenditure restraint program. The city receives a payment of close to $200,000 a year from that program, as long as general fund spending grows by no more than a set percentage.

“I don’t feel like it’s fair at this time to look for a full-time person,” Bixby said. She added that she wanted to “still give it a shot to see if we can find a part-time person to help out.”

Because the position is part-time, it would not carry health insurance, she said in response to a question from Alderman Steven Jopek.

Alderman Gerald Anderson said he has believed for years that the department needs a succession plan. He noted that the city’s audits repeatedly flag inadequate controls because too few people are involved in its finances.

Council president Carrie Mikalauski said she supports at least a part-time hire but would like the city to add a full-time position eventually.

“I do feel that there’s probably enough work for a full-time person, especially considering that you don’t really have any separation of duties,” she said.

Pickleball courts

The parks budget presented Sept. 23 included a line item labeled “Pioneer Pickle Ball Court” under property improvements, with no dollar amount in the general fund request.

Hanus said the court repairs would be paid for through capital borrowing if the project moves forward, not from operating funds. He said the line was included so residents who have pushed for the repairs know the request was heard.

“That way the public knows. We hear them,” Hanus said.

During public comment at the council’s Sept. 14 meeting, resident Jon Koch praised Biolo for including the court repairs in the 2027 budget. Koch said the courts have 818 registered users on the city’s Rhinelander pickleball app. He pointed to community health benefits and to business for local shops and restaurants from players who visit the courts throughout the day.

“Addressing repairs sooner rather than later is not only responsible stewardship of our public facilities, but it also can prevent larger and more expensive repairs down the road,” Koch said. He added that completing repairs in 2027 would limit safety concerns and further deterioration. “Jeremy’s request for funding to address the courts is well deserved ... a wise investment in our facility that has provided significant value to our community,” Koch said.

The courts were not originally a city-funded project. The Pioneer Park pickleball group began raising money in fall 2019 to replace the park’s aging tennis courts with dedicated pickleball courts, and the city removed the old tennis courts and fencing to prepare the site. By February 2020, the group had raised about $82,000 toward a $104,000 construction goal. Construction began in spring 2020, and the eight courts were dedicated July 20, 2020. The city has owned and maintained the courts since then as part of Pioneer Park.