Sturgeon Bay officials are busy crafting the 2027 budget ahead of its public hearing in early November, but a big piece of the puzzle has yet to be determined.
Making sure the city keeps up with road maintenance has long been a goal of Sturgeon Bay Mayor David Ward. It is part of the reason the city pursued a Premier Resort Area Tax, or PRAT, in recent years as officials looked for ways to fund improvements.
The 2025-27 state budget allowed the city, along with the town of Minocqua, to join other tourism-oriented communities, including Ephraim and Sister Bay, in charging an additional 0.5% tax on items typically associated with tourism.
The PRAT went into effect July 1, with initial returns from the first three months not expected to be known until later this month. Ward believes those numbers will give officials a better idea of what stays in the budget and what gets cut.
Ward says the budget is otherwise pretty “run of the mill,” with its only major capital project being improvements to Nautical Drive. The city has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to help pare down the cost of that project.
The budget is on the agenda for the Sturgeon Bay Committee of the Whole meeting Monday at 4 p.m. in City Hall’s community room.
