WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2016
Serving Polk County’s St. Croix Valley since 1897
VOL. 119 NO. 17 www.osceolasun.com $1.00
DEER: Vehicle collisions and claiming animals. PAGE 10
Public support for the Dresser/Town of Osceola boundary agreement BY JESSICA ANDERSON INTERIM EDITOR
After posting the legal notice in the Inter-County Leader and the Osceola Sun, the Town of Osceola and Village of Dresser held a joint public hearing on Nov. 16 to get feedback on the proposed Dresser/
The meeting on the 16th had a full audience, with the addition of several letters that had been sent in by those who could not attend. Dresser village chairman Brian Beseler, who was also appointed chairman of the joint meeting, began it by reading aloud each letter. All but one of the twenty letters
Town of Osceola Cooperation Plan under section 66.0303 of the Wisconsin Statutes. The two boards had previously created a Boundary Agreement Committee to work out a way for Dresser to annex areas of land belonging to the town, that would benefit the growth of the area.
supported passing the boundary agreement as it is. Many of those in the audience spoke, all of whom wished to state that they supported the agreement as well. Bob Knutson, a resident of Dresser, asked the boards to “please approve [the for the smart planned growth of our
community.” Gerald Viebrock stated “as a developer in the town of Osceola … I strongly support the boundary agreement with Dresser, Wisconsin as proposed on this day. … Mutual planning and zoning is required to maintain existing SEE AGREEMENT, PAGE 12
JESSICA ANDERSON | THE SUN
A full house attended the Village of Dresser/Town of Osceola public hearing to support the boundary agreement.
Where will county highway department call home? Supervisors eliminate one site, debate process BY TOM STANGL PUBLISHER
And then there were two — maybe. The Polk County Board of Supervisors eliminated one of three possible sites for the proposed $10-$15 million county highway department building at their Nov. 15 meeting, and scheduled in person visits of the two other sites in the Vil-
lage of Balsam Lake Nov. 29. The Paulson property, one of the three sites under consideration in Balsam Lake, was eliminated because the owners of the property no longer had a desire to sell. A preliminary agreement to purchase 20 acres from the Paulsens was withdrawn. The process became a bit more muddled following the offer of Centuria Village President Dave Markert to have the new SEE HIGHWAY, PAGE 12
A referendum for Osceola School District BY JESSICA ANDERSON INTERIM EDITOR
It’s the time of year when municipalities and other bodies of government are reviewing and approving their budgets for the coming year, and the Osceola School Board is considering asking voters to allow an operational referendum to take place, in order to exceed the current revenue limit. The funding the district is receiving has not changed, at least not drastically, but the costs of running the districts have. “We’ve been very consistent with our total revenue dollars coming into the district since ’09 to ’16’17. We were at $18,202[.224] for total revenue in ‘09-’10, this year, ’16-’17, we’re at $18,252[.198]. For over seven years we’ve only increased our total revenue
Wishing you a
Healthy, Happy and Bountiful
Thanksgiving
coming into the district by that $49,973. This is a concern in Wisconsin because we’ve had limited increases to our revenue, but our costs continue to go up. So this a .2% increase on our revenue limit” while the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is growing at a rate of 13.55%, said Osceola School District business manager Jenifer Frank. In addition, the state’s enrollment numbers have been dropping, specifically in the northern counties, which also takes away funds from the district. “Our revenue limit is brought in on a per pupil basis. The state average is $10,025 for ’16-’17,” Osceola’s is at $9,364, Frank stated. Funding for pupils has been decreasing since 2004. Plus the amounts given by the state to education does not all go to public schools. School board president
First National Community Bank would like to thank you, our valued customer, for your continued patronage throughout the 2016 season. We look forward to working with each of you in 2017 and for years to come!
ADVERTISING 715-294-2314 sales@osceolasun.com
PUBLIC NOTICES 715-294-2314 sales@osceolasun.com
SEE SCHOOL, PAGE 12
Strong & Secure Since 1919
NEW RICHMOND • SOMERSET HUDSON • DRESSER
(800) 514-3412 • WWW.FN-CB.COM NEWS 715-294-2314 editor@osceolasun.com
Timm Johnson stated that 244 million dollars were taken from the state’s education aid to go to voucher schools for the ’16-’17 school year. In order to combat the rising costs the board has made changes in several areas. They’ve had to cut the number of full time teachers and custodians and reduce health benefits for employees. They’ve used grants and other outside sources to fix boilers and phone services. This allowed them “a way to make improvements outside of that revenue limit cap from the state, so that it doesn’t impact our general fund. … [This] has helped protect what we have for current programming and staffing,” shared superintendent Mark Luebker. Previously the district
SUBSCRIPTIONS 715-294-2314 office@osceolasun.com
NMLS #412555
BREAKING NEWS, UPDATES Whenever, wherever you are! Scan me with your smartphone