6. The Marathon County library, Wausau location, its building and building services, such as air handling and heat systems, are funded through Marathon County. The other branch libraries are funded by their municipalities. Please explain why this is the case, how this is equitable to the other municipalities, and if this arrangement should be modified. Please address this with relationship to the budgetary decisions at the Marathon County Board level.
Answer
I first became aware of this arrangement when the HRFC (Human Resources, Finances, and Property) Committee voted down a request from the City of Mosinee to provide $75,000 of ARPA funding to restore a stained glass window and do tuck pointing on the historic Joseph Dessert library building located in Mosinee.
When I inquired why the HRFC committee would not support restoration of a Marathon County Public Library Building, Chair Gibbs explained that the City of Mosinee owned the building and the Marathon County Public Library only leases the building.
The HRFC Committee later supported providing $2.8 million of ARPA funding for replacing the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) system at the main library building located in Wausau. For reference, 4 of the 7 current HRFC committee members represent the City of Wausau.
It turns out that the County owns the Wausau Library building, because the City of Wausau gave the building to the County in 1993 and the County apparently accepted all future responsibility for the upkeep of the building.
This arrangement didn’t seem equitable to several County Board Supervisors, including myself. Some Supervisors wanted Wausau to fund all of the new HVAC system. I believe that the main Library provides valuable services to County residents outside of the City of Wausau and felt that a 50%/50% split between the County and the City of Wausau would be equitable.
The County Board voted to approve spending the $2.8 million in ARPA funding for the HVAC system for the Wausau Library Building, which will hopefully provide a well functioning HVAC system for years to come. As a result, I am not sure if it is worth the effort to try to renegotiate with the City of Wausau to get them to accept some financial responsibility for the Wausau Library Building.
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