SUN PRAIRIE RISING

Last Tuesday, voters in Sun Prairie soundly rejected a referendum that would have allowed the city to exceed the state-imposed levy limit by approximately $3.95 million. The result will constrain what city staff and elected officials can prioritize in upcoming budget cycles.

While property taxes tend to dominate conversations about city finances, they’re only part of the picture. User fees, state and federal aid, and other revenue sources all help offset the tax levy.

Regardless of the referendum vote, the city will also have to contend with substantial changes to one of its signature initiatives: sustainability.

Sun Prairie’s sustainability program has quietly become one of the city’s most effective financial tools.  To date, it’s brought in over $1 million dollars in outside funding while lowering energy costs for taxpayers. But the future of those efforts is unclear after a contentious budget debate last fall led to the acrimonious departure of the program’s leader, former Sustainability and Resilience Manager, Dr. Rose Daily.

Under Dr. Daily, the city not only reduced its environmental footprint, but also turned sustainability into a net financial positive.

Dr. Daily joined Sun Prairie in August 2023 with a PhD in Environmental Engineering from Michigan Technological University and prior experience on clean water initiatives in Montverde, Costa Rica. During her two-year tenure, city departments saw measurable gains under her leadership.

Sun Prairie’s sustainability efforts did not emerge overnight. They stem from a multi-year review of how the city approaches energy usage and environmental initiatives. In 2020, a task force recommended forming a dedicated committee and creating a sustainability staff position. In 2025, Hannah Best was hired as a part-time Sustainability Program Coordinator, a role she continues to hold.

The city’s long-term focus has produced tangible results. Investments in LED lighting, HVAC upgrades, solar installations, and hybrid and electric fleet vehicles have reduced energy consumption and generated significant savings.

Since 2019, energy usage in city facilities has declined by 552 megawatt hours—an 11% decrease—even as city operations and staffing have grown. Solar installations alone have saved taxpayers more than $150,000 annually on electricity costs.

District 3 Alder Mike Jacobs has been a leader on this issue during his time on City Council.

“Efforts at promoting and producing a sustainable society in Sun Prairie have been little short of remarkable,” Jacobs said.  “We have been successful in part because of the skilled sustainability staff but more so because of the enthusiasm, planning, and compliance of the city staff.  This continues to be a win for everyone.”

In 2025, Sun Prairie reached a major milestone by generating 100% of its municipal electricity from renewable sources, placing it among a small number of municipalities nationwide to achieve that benchmark.

That success has also drawn national and international attention. Sun Prairie received multiple awards for its sustainability work and was invited to present at several environmental forums. Most notably, city representatives were asked to speak at the ICLEI World Congress in São Paulo, Brazil, sharing their approach with communities from 95 countries.

Beyond recognition, the financial return has been substantial. Much of the upfront investment in sustainability projects was offset by external grants from local, state, and federal programs focused on energy modernization. With 1.5 full-time employees, the approximate staffing costs (including wages and benefits) for the sustainability department was less than $161,000.    Yet, between 2022 and 2025, the sustainability team brought in over $1 million in external funding, with over $1.8 million projected for 2026.  That would have brought the cumulative external funding for sustainability to nearly $3 million

The scale of those dollars caught the attention of the City Council and became a point of debate during last fall’s budget discussions.

At the November 4 Committee of the Whole meeting, Alder Maureen Crombie, along with Jacobs and Alder Bill Baker, pushed to expand the Sustainability Program Coordinator role into a full-time position, giving the department additional resources to seek more revenue.

Not everyone agreed.

Alders Cassi Benedict and Emily Comstock voted against the proposal, noting that Sustainability did not rank highly among citizens’ concerns on a recent survey and felt the revenue could possibly be spent better elsewhere.  Alder Baker countered that the public may not fully understand the financial return.

“To know that we have a department that’s revenue producing—and not property tax-based revenue—it’s a no brainer,” Baker said.

Alder Jacobs was more blunt.

“There are two reasons people might have voted against sustainability,” Jacobs said. “One is that you don’t want the money spent – I get that. The second is that you don’t believe there’s an issue, in which case you’re an ignoramus and we should not be listening to those particular people.”

The proposal ultimately passed, but not without controversy, particularly at a time when other city positions were being reduced.  At the same COW meeting, City Administrator Aaron Oppenheimer outlined a reorganization that would shift more day-to-day responsibilities to department heads.  Other departments were being asked to identify cost reductions, and city leaders were weighing how to reduce the size of a potential referendum after survey results showed limited public support.

Those cost reductions were also slated to impact sustainability, including the elimination of the part-time Sustainability Program Coordinator position.  Daily suggested alternative solutions that would have included external funding, but no changes were made to the proposal.

Shortly after the November 4 COW meeting, Dr. Daily was called into a meeting that eventually led to her resignation.

She has since filed legal action alleging intolerable working conditions, retaliation, and false accusations.

The initial demand letter, filed by Daily’s attorney on December 1st, provided a 120 day window for the city to respond or find resolution. That window closed on March 31, and opens the door to possible further litigation.

Sun Prairie Rising reached out to city administrators for comment, but they declined citing ongoing legal action.  Communications Manager Ashley Manthei responded, “It is our policy not to comment publicly on matters that are in active litigation, and we generally do not address personnel issues publicly.”

Her departure leaves uncertainty around a program that had been delivering both environmental progress and measurable financial returns.

And it raises a bigger question for city leadership: how do you sustain a program that was, by most metrics, a substantial win for the city?

In Part 2, coming later this week, we’ll take a closer look at what led to Dr. Daily’s departure—and what it could mean for the future of sustainability in Sun Prairie.