City makes switch to new assessing firm

The city of Medford is switching gears when it comes to property assessments.

After many years of working with Cindy Chase of Elk River Assessments, aldermen at Monday’s city council committee of the whole meeting recommended switching to Menasha-based Accurate.

The change was prompted by Chase informing the city that she was planning to retire within the next few years. The city reached out to her associate, Michael Schnautz, and he indicated he would not be interested in continuing doing the city’s assessing work on his own. The current contract with Elk River Assessments is expired and will either need to be renegotiated or a new company selected.

City Clerk Ashley Lemke attended the Wisconsin Municipal Clerk’s meeting and spoke with vendors there to collect information about options. City Coordinator Joe Harris reached out to Accurate for a proposal to bring to council.

Harris noted that with the timing of just having completed a city-wide revaluation, they are in a good position to start fresh at the beginning of a cycle with a new firm. In talking with the new firm, they are recommending a five-year revaluation cycle rather than a 10-year cycle so that the values don’t jump so much at one time.

“It would be a good transition,” said mayor Mike Wellner of switching now versus waiting. He praised Chase for not waiting until the last minute to let the city know her plans.

“Are we leaving Cindy in a lurch?” questioned alderman Tim Hansen, noting Chase has done good work for the city over the years. “I don’t want to throw her to the curb,” Hansen said.

“She is ready to retire,” Harris said, noting Chase was the one who told the city she would be done in a year or two.

Accurate operates statewide and has multiple assessors working for them. The assessor who would be overseeing Medford would be based out of the Wausau office. Alderman Dave Brandner asked if they were currently doing any work in Taylor County.

Harris said they were doing Mosinee and Marathon in the region, but nothing so far in Taylor County. As far as size of communities, he said they had ones both larger and smaller than the city of Medford.

As far as cost, Wellner noted Accurate’s cost for a five-year contract would be about the same as what was paid to Elk River Assessments.

The city paid Elk River Assessments a contract price of $20,000 plus expenses for the annual maintenance assessments with additional for revaluations. The actual cost to the city since 2018 has been $105,985 for assessment services averaging about $24,300 per year.

Accurate operates on a five-year cycle with their contracts with maintenance and revaluation included as well as all mailing and other costs. The total cost from 2022 to 2026 would be $120,000, or about $24,000 per year.

Fuel tank

The city of Medford is downsizing the bulk gasoline tank used at the public works shop.

According to Harris, the current 10,000 gallon tank was purchased in 1990 about the time the state began pushing for removal of in ground tanks. It is inspected on a regular basis and up until now has been in compliance with existing codes.

However in mid-September Chippewa Fire inspected the tank and found deficiencies making it noncompliant. The major issues are that all dual wall tanks must have two vents in case one does not work there is a backup vent. The other major issue is penetrations below bottom half of tank, the current tank has a bottomfi ll. The city had looked at making the changes necessary to bring the tank into compliance and cutting an additional vent into the existing tank would cost between $10,000 and $15,000. Harris noted the presence of the bottom fill brings it out of compliance since code requires it to be a single sheet of steel. The city is able to use the existing fuel in the tank, but it is not able to be refilled.

Harris said he researched options including talking to Dave “Beaner” Lemke of Medford Motors about the future of electric vehicles. Harris noted that regardless of the role of electric vehicles, there will be a need for gasoline vehicles for a long time to come especially in rapid response situations.

Harris recommended the city move forward with replacing the existing tank with a 1,000 gallon tank that would need to be filled more often. Between the squad cars and the public works vehicles, the city fleet uses about 1,500 gallons of gasoline each month. Harris said a 10,000 gallon tank would be cost prohibitive at around the $100,000 mark.

The city received bids for a tank with pump from Oil Equipment Company (Stetsonville Oil) for $7,060.80 and from Medford Cooperative for $6,110 for a tank. Aldermen voted to recommend going with the low bid from Medford Cooperative. Money for the purchase will come from the city’s equipment maintenance fund.

In other business, aldermen:

_ Recommended accepting the resignation of wastewater plant superintendent Ben Brooks and starting the process to hire a replacement with the goal to have someone hired by the middle of December. Brooks is leaving the Medford facility to be superintendent of the city of Wausau sewer plant.

_ Recommended renewing the three-year agreement with JJ Enterprises of Medford LLC (Jennifer Buskerud and Joan Dettmering) to operate a concession stand next to the city pool in the park. Dettmering noted this past summer was their best year yet as far as few pool closures and overall good weather. She also offered their input as the city looks at changes in pool operation in the future. “I feel we are a really good resource,” she said.