SUN PRAIRIE RISING

Contribution from Sun Prairie City News, Jan 2026 edition

By Bill Connors

On December 2, the City Council adopted a 2026 city
budget that is essentially the same as proposed by
Mayor Steve Stocker. This was not surprising, since the
proposed budget allocated 100% of the available city
government property tax levy under the state-imposed
levy limit.

The changes were—

• Increasing the Sustainability Coordinator
  position from 0.5 FTE to 1.0 FTE (from no
  benefits to benefits) paid for with one-time
  federal money from the Inflation Reduction Act
  (IRA)
• Extending the Neighborhood Navigators
  Program and paying for it by reducing the amount Mayor Stocker had proposed to over- levy (levying more than was needed for expenditures) to create a “contingency” pool of money
• Reducing the amount for City Council training
  from $4,000 to $2,500.
  

The cost of the increase in the Sustainability
Coordinator position is $61,924, but it will not impact
the property tax levy for the 2026 city budget because it
is being paid from federal IRA grant dollars. The city
government had planned to use the IRA grant dollars to
offset part of the cost of past capital projects. The City
Council will have to find some other way to fund that
position expansion in the 2027 and subsequent city
budgets, because the IRA grant dollars are one-time
money and all of it will have been spent in 2026.

The cost of extending the Neighborhood Navigators
Program is $35,933. But that change does not impact
the city government property tax levy. The change only
moves levy money that had been in the contingency
pool in Mayor Stocker’s budget to expenditures.
The City Council also passed a motion directing city staff
to recruit a new (replacement) Media Center Director
and directing city staff to include the position in the
2027 “cost to continue” budget. This has no impact onthe 2026 city budget, because Mayor Stocker’s proposed budget already included funding for this
position.

A summary of the adopted 2026 city government
budget, which is identical to Mayor Stocker’s proposed
budget except that the expenditures are $35,933
greater than in the proposed budget, the “contingency”
pool of money is $35,933 less than in the proposed
budget, and the General Fund operating property tax
levy is $1,500 less than Mayor Stocker recommended
and less than the levy limit.
The impact of the city government property tax levy on
the average value house in Sun Prairie ($381,500
assessed value) is an increase of $141 (5.5%) for the
year ($11.75 increase per month).