8-24-26 Village Board Meeting — Minutes

Village Board Meeting Minutes August 24, 2026 On August 24, 2026, President Mike Brusberg called the Village Board meeting of the Village of Brooklyn to order at 6:30 p.m. Trustees present were Jake Bachim, Frank Seitler, Christian Allen, Mike Gehrmann, Todd Klahn and David Berland. Pledge of Allegiance. No public comments. President’s Report – It was a shame we got hit with weather on Brooklyn Night Out. We can’t control the weather. Sorry for anyone that put time and effort into planning the event. Allen asked if there was any rescheduling plan. Kuhlman said there is no rescheduling plan. Next month is last month for food trucks. Bachim said he could maybe get the fire truck there. Allen made a motion to approve the minutes of August 10. Gehrmann seconded. Motion carried. Brusberg made a motion to approve the bills as presented. Gehrmann seconded. Motion carried. Kuhlman explained that for switching providers for the fire/EMS service award program, we need to sign a resolution for the new provider that the Village will act as administrator of the program. Brusberg made a motion to approve authorizing the Village of Brooklyn as UBS administrator for the Fire/EMS Service Award Program. Klahn seconded. Motion carried. Bachim abstained. Dumpster Days – Kuhlman explained that Brian Roberts has offered to work Dumpster Days weekend this fall. He will take off one day during the week and then work two 4-hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday to equal his 40 hours for the week. Seitler said he volunteered, but he will be on vacation that week. Allen could do a day or two, to help out taking turns. Klahn made a motion for Brian Roberts to adjust his hours and take a day off during the week and work two 4-hour shifts during the weekend. Bachim seconded. Brusberg said if they run into a staffing issue, he will authorize overtime. Motion carried. Air Conditioning at the community building – Bachim talked with Spilde about putting this in the budget for next year, because it sounds like there might be other capital projects involved. They don’t see a high demand needed. Brusberg asked if an ac unit, an in-room air conditioner, mini-split, would be a possibility and less expensive. Bachim said it’s a potential for that space. It would be running condensate lines Discussion of possibility of a different kind of ac unit in the space. Bachim thinks the furnace is fine. Clerk’s report – We have confirmation for food trucks next month, and we can check with fire department and sheriff’s departments. Optimist club will do Bingo. Clerk’s conference was good last week. The Governor made a short speech. The credit card company that was going start charging us $465 per month to use the program has now decided they won’t charge us, so we will start using them again. Board of Review is Wednesday. We’ve had five official objections submitted. One has been worked out, and they will check with the others to see if they can work it out before board. Equalized value from the state has come through, and our equalized value has gone down. They say our average sales price of homes has gone down over the last three years. The state has been working closely with our assessors so that our assessment ratio will not be out of compliance. Discussion on equalized value and assessments. Spilde spoke with contractor about Hotel Street pavement issues, and everything tested fine. They are proposing to patch the four spots. That is under warranty. Fire/EMS District Commission – Brusberg said they had a meeting last Wednesday. It was the first meeting with Chief Sullivan as interim fire chief. Johnson Block presented the audit with an unmodified clean opinion. SAP buyback program - there were a couple members who were members previously but weren’t a member at the time we started the program and have now rejoined the department. Because of stepping away they lost out of the buyback, and it would be about $1600 to buy back those years. The commission approved the $1600 buyback for them from the memorial fund dollars previously set aside. Klahn asked if they will stay for awhile. District treasurer report – there is a new billing company that started in May and they’re starting to see dollars come through in collections. 2% dues came in July financials. Chief report - there is a need for new turnout gear and new helmets by 2028. That’s a material expense. Helmets are pricey. EMS has a new software program being implemented. That will cause some effort on EMS side to put into place. 2027 fire/EMS budgets were presented and approved. They made one adjustment to them because we’re seeing higher interest income, so they made an adjustment on the fire side. As it pertains to total budget, it leads to a 3.76% year over year increase. There’s also agreement that the trend exhibit that Kuhlman put together in the past, they want to actualize it with ‘25 and ‘26 and in March look at what’s coming in and if they need to move dollars at line item level, maybe move depending on where it’s trending. There are larger facility maintenance costs coming up. They will find a way to self-fund. The all-municipality meeting is at 6 p.m. at the fire department on Wednesday September 16. Beyond voting on the district budget, he’s also asking that the tender be a part of that agenda. They need to get alignment on new versus used and relative timing and all municipalities comfortable with borrowing. They’d like to make the decision all together. Sulivan will pull together specific details for the meeting. There’s unallocated funds and other funds on the balance sheet, but it can’t pay for the whole thing. Some degree of borrowing is needed. Of the budget increase, the fire department is flat, $231,465 to $234,965. EMS is going from $265,516 to $279,516, and there’s increases taking place on paid on premise EMTs and WRS retirement contributions. They’re watching out of service hours. There was a spike for a few weekends due to vacation times. Only one call that went to mutual aid. Bachim said they put crews together as needed. The one missed was because they were on a previous call. They had 43 calls in two weeks. 45 calls for July and last month was 21. 17 of the 45 were in the village. We’re at 199 calls and last year was 192. Klahn made a motion at 7:02 p.m. to adjourn. Bachim seconded. Motion carried. Linda Kuhlman, WCMC, CMTW Clerk-Treasurer