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Nov 28, 2023

Firefighters, PFAS, LED lights: How Wausau spent $5M of its ARPA funds

WAUSAU – Wausau has spent around one-third of the $15 million its received from

WAUSAU – Wausau has spent around one-third of the $15 million its received from the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 on big ticket items such as LED street light replacement, updating a skate park and addressing elevated levels of "forever chemicals" in the city's drinking water wells.

Wausau city leaders learned in spring 2021 that the city would receive $15 million in federal dollars from Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. The city has until 2024 to allocate the funds and until 2026 to spend them. The money can be spent to respond to the pandemic or its negative economic impact, to help essential workers, to improve city infrastructure and to help with a reduction in government revenue due to COVID-19.

"ARPA funding gives us the ability to kind of look at and fund a wide variety of projects," said City Council member Michael Martens, who is vice chair of the finance committee that helps decide how to allocate the money.

Martens said he wants ARPA-funded initiatives to be "transformational" and said the City Council is trying to spend ARPA dollars in a way that will benefit as many people as possible.

The council is mindful of the amount they’re spending, knowing they plan to use ARPA money to address the elevated levels of PFAS found in all six of the city's drinking wells in January. There is no set amount yet, but Martens estimates the city may have to use around $7 million to remove PFAS from the water supply.

The Finance Committee has also sent several housing initiatives to the City Council to vote on in September. This includes using $1.1 million to build houses for people with low- to moderate- incomes, $1 million to build apartments for low-income individuals and $34,000 to educate homebuyers and help with closing costs.

RELATED: Wausau is facing an 'affordable housing crisis.' Here's what is being done to address it.

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Here are the ways the city already has allocated its ARPA funds, listed from most to least expensive projects:

► LED street lighting conversion: $881,971. Wausau will replace the lightbulbs in all city street lights with LED lights. Currently the city uses high-intensity discharge lightbulbs, which are less energy efficient. According to city documents, switching to LED lights will cut operating costs in half.

► Financial enterprise resource planning software replacement: $850,000. This will help cover the costs of a new financial management package to help with day-to-day business activities. Martens said the city has been using the same financial management package since 1992 and its been outdated for several years. Wausau and Marathon County are partnering to upgrade their software. If the city used its budget to pay entirely for this, it would have used up most of their capital funding budget, which is used to improve infrastructure such as roads and parks.

► Wastewater treatment screening improvement project: $800,000. ARPA funding will be used to improve the wastewater screening and the Wastewater Treatment Center building. The current Wausau Wastewater Treatment Center is in the middle of being upgraded and did not have enough money for this specific improvement. The screens will be used to remove large debris that would clog pipes if not taken out.

► Abel Storm Water Lift Station : $800,000. The storm water lift station, located near Two Hearts Dog Park, lifts water from lower in the ground to higher. It is in "poor physical condition" and in need of repairs, such as installing new pumps. Without these upgrades, the lift could fail and the area would flood.

► Three new firefighter positions: $771,000. This will help finance three new firefighter positions in the Wausau Fire Department in 2022. ARPA will help pay the $100,000 salary and benefits for each of the firefighter plus their equipment through 2024. The fire department, which has 65 members including the new positions, has not seen an increase in staff since 1970 despite the number of calls they receive tripling in that time period. They are looking to add 12 more firefighters in total to the department. The fire department is in the hiring process.

► Landmark Project: $350,000. Gorman & Co. is renovating Landmark Apartments to provide more affordable housing in Wausau. Altogether it's a $20 million project, which includes $350,000 from ARPA. Gorman and Co. will be putting in new carpets, air conditioning units and ventilation among other improvements and lowering the total number of units from 109 to 94.

► Skate park renovations: $225,000. This will be used to repave and update equipment at the skate park at Oak Island in Wausau. The skate park was built in 2002 and has gotten several repairs over the past two decades, but needs to be repaved and repaired in order to keep the park safe.

► PFAS pilot study: $240,375. This study will test different ways to get rid of PFAS from the city's wells, including granulated activated carbon, Tulsion A-72 MP Thermax resin ion exchange and Tulsion A-72 MP resin ion exchange. The new treatment facility will be using the granulated carbon and the ion exchange methods.

► Temporary water supplies: $230,000. This was to distribute water in Wausau after PFAS was discovered in the city's wells. This included water bottles and filter pitchers to use that the city handed out in the spring.

► Community Partners Campus Facility Project: $162,756. The Community Partners Campus Facility Project will house up to 15 local nonprofit organizations. They have received almost all of their funding but needed some extra dollars to complete the development. The project broke ground in April and is expected to be complete in October.

► City-County Information Technology Commission -fiber connection project: $140,000. By installing a fiber internet connection, this project will bring a stronger and longer-lasting internet connection to several buildings, including the Metro Ride headquarters, the Wausau Police and Fire Building and the Community Development Building.

► Community outreach specialist position: $140,000. This position was created within the Wausau Police Department to provide outreach to unhoused people in Wausau. This person would regularly meet and work with unhoused people and city officials to determine how to best help them. ARPA money will be used to create and help fund this position until 2025 at which time the salary would be written into the budget. Until 2025, ARPA will only pay for part of the position's salary with the city allocating money for the rest. Depending on who is hired, the position could pay $48,000 to $67,000 a year.

► Entrepreneurial and Education Center negative economic impact: $84,100. The Entrepreneurial and Education Center, 100 N. 72nd Ave., is a nonprofit organization that started in 1987. New or existing businesses can lease office spaces and work with other business professionals to help grow their business. During the pandemic, the EEC lost a lot of revenue and several businesses ended their leases. The EEC will use ARPA funding to help recuperate their losses, update the building and create new marketing strategies.

► Core switch replacement: $50,000. This is to upgrade the technology switches within the city. The network switch shares data among several devices and it needs to be replaced or updated every couple years.

► Public access server for closed caption: $49,224. This will be for a closed-caption server for public television and YouTube in Wausau. It will provide real-time closed captions for streamed city meetings on TV and YouTube.

► Internet firewall replacement: $33,800. The city's internet needed better protection, so the council decided to use ARPA money to upgrade the firewall to help prevent the city website, servers and online services from being hacked.

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Emalyn Muzzy is a reporter covering Central Wisconsin. You can contact her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @EmalynMuzzy.