The Meeting
We will have a meeting of Electors on November 11th, 2024 at 6:30pm. This meeting will not be a zoom meeting. To explain, a meeting of electors is a meeting where the residents of Harmony 18 years and older may be requested to vote regarding some business of the town. This meeting will be to discuss and vote on setting the Levy for the Town of Harmony for 2025.
Getting Everyone Up To Date
To get everyone caught up, as we have a lot of new residents in the town. In 2020 with the Milton/Milton Township Fire Department it became evident they were not operating in a self sustaining situation. The days of volunteer fire departments were coming to a close. Municipalities through out the state and country were struggling to stay afloat.
So later in 2020 the Towns of Harmony, Milton, Lima, Johnstown and the City of Milton started to look for a new path forward that would carry the municipalities decades into the future. Options included Joining the City of Janesville or combining efforts between the Milton/Milton Township Fire Department with the Edgerton Fire Protection District. The town board reviewed all of the scenarios and expenses. After looking at all the options it came down to two things. Response times and expenses. Harmony along with the towns of Milton, Johnstown, Lima and the City of Milton chose to combine efforts with the Edgerton Fire Protection District. The five of us known as the eastern divison planned to build two new stations that would accomodate the format of a full time team.
As an example, the Town of Janesville contracts with the City of Janesville. The Town of Janesville is a bit larger in population, but the Town of Janesville will spend $1,110,000 for Fire and EMS in 2025. The Town of Harmony in 2025 will spend $541,000. Less than half of the Town of Janesville.
The Budget
Below you will see a number of links to click on. One of those is the Budget for 2025. Something to keep in mind when reviewing the budget. All catagories under that budget are numbers that are set and fixed expenses to the town with the exception of Road Work. That is the only number that can be played with and adjusted. As the expenses of other catagories the money comes out of Roads. The Town of Harmony has about 50 miles of roads in the town. It runs us $57,000 a year for winter maintenance. That is also a fixed expense. to just put an overlay over 1 mile of road is about $130,000 and an overlay is okay for roads that get a small number of cars per day. To recondition 1 Mile of road that receives a heavy traffic count is closer to $260,000 to $300,000 depending on the condition of the base rock under the road.
Notice of Meeting of Electors Click Here
Resolution of Electors to approve the Levy
2025 Proposed Budget Click Here