City of Green Bay
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WRN) — The City of Green Bay unanimously passed its 2025 budget.
The $139.4 million budget is about a 5.2% increase from 2024’s budget. Additionally, there’s a 4.7% increase for the assessed tax rate for 2025; going from $7.76 to $8.12.
The budget passed after less than half an hour of discussion at this weeks council meeting. However, some city employees expressed concern over an increase in their insurance premiums.
Mark Berglund is a Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department employee. He says that there’s a substantial contribution rate increase for employees who want to stay on the low-deductible PPO health insurance plan; something that employees who don’t have as many health issues who are on a higher deductible plan don’t have to deal with.
“It’ll cost me 54% more out-of-pocket to keep my health insurance,” said Berglund. “It seems like employees that need to stay on the PPO plan for medical reasons are being penalized to do so.”
The insurance increase takes effect on January 1, with city employees receiving a cost of living wage increase in April. There was discussion regarding moving up the wage increase from April to January, but Mayor Genrich and other council members said this change would not be possible with the budget being moments away from being voted on. Multiple alders said this was something they wanted to be more aware of during the next budget cycle.
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