Truly looking forward to NYE! Open: 4pm
Dinner: 5pm-8pm
DJ/Karaoke: 7pm
Ball Drop & Fireworks: Midnight!
From the Boo'z Bar & Grill Facebook page.
Kick off 2025 by joining us on a 5k walk/run New Year’s morning at 8am. We are starting at Burger King and running the same route as the Get It Dunn Run, pictured below.
All paces welcome! Feel free to join us for a couple of blocks along the route if you’re not up for the full route.
If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. If you can’t crawl, I will bring a wagon and we’ll get you to the finish line. Happy New Year!
Posted on Facebook.
12:45 PM Update: The break has been repaired and crews are working to put the road back together. The City is hopeful to have the road fully open by 5 PM. Note, the road will be rough for the foreseeable future there as we will be unable to pave this patch until spring.
8:00 AM Update: One lane of traffic is open in each direction on Cedar Falls Road near the intersection of Highway 25 & Cedar Falls Rd.
If you need to get to the businesses in the area (Wal-Mart, Aldi, etc) your best bet will be to use Wilson St to get to Cedar Falls Rd.
7:30 AM Update: There is a water main break on Cedar Falls Road in the area between Highway 25 and Hils Ct. City staff are waiting for daylight and locates to be able to identify the location of the break. City crews will eventually be shutting down a portion of the road to safely and efficiently fix the break.
Traffic will be heavily impacted in the area. Please avoid this area today if at all possible.
This post will be updated as new info is available.
From the City of Menomonie Facebook page.
Robert G. (Bob) Wik passed away peacefully on Monday, December 30, 2024, at The Neighbors of Dunn County, Menomonie.
Robert was born March 9, 1939, to Harold and Genesse Wik in the town of Mondovi. He grew up in the Downsville area and graduated from Menomonie High School in 1957. He then was drafted into the Army and served for 2 years. He went on to work at Control Data in Minneapolis, MN, until he purchased Wik’s Service of Downsville in 1962. He put his heart and soul into Wik’s Service and eventually started Wik’s Auto Salvage.
He married Barbara (Zittel) Wik in 1960. Together, they had three children: Deb, Steve, and Karen. He enjoyed truck pulling, playing shuffleboard, snowmobiling, putting puzzles together, plowing snow, watching and working on race cars, mowing lawns, keeping the ditches clean, “cruising” the countryside, and socializing with others. He built many friendships along the way. He was always willing to help others at any time of the day or night. Robert was a member of the Downsville Snowdrifters and Menomonie Lions Clubs for many years. Putting the car out on the ice every winter was a highlight.
He is survived by three children, Deb (Jan), Steve (Patti), and Karen (Sam); five grandchildren, Adam, Aaron, Tanner, Tayia, and Tylee; one great-grandchild Gabriel; one brother, Galen; and one sister-in-law, Zita Machesky.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Barbara Wik, parents Harold and Genesse Wik, brother Donald Wik, in-laws Elton and Marie Zittel, and brother-in-law Dennis Zittel.
The family wishes to thank the staff of The Neighbors and Heartland Hospice for their care and support.
A Celebration of life will be held from 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. on Friday, January 10, 2025, at Olson Funeral Home in Menomonie, WI. Burial will be at Riverview Cemetery in the Town of Dunn, Dunn County, Wisconsin, with Military Honors performed by the Menomonie Veterans Honor Guard at a later date.
To share a memory, please visit obituaries at www.olsonfuneral.com.
The Dunn County Sheriff’s Office will be holding a short gathering for Correctional Officer Jeffrey Reynolds, who was tragically killed in a traffic crash while on his way to work on December 24th, 2024.
We will be gathering on Wednesday, January 1st, at 6:30 pm, with a moment of silence and reading at approximately 6:45 pm, outside the Dunn County Judicial Center located at 615 Stokke Pkwy, Menomonie, WI 54751. The gathering will be open to Corrections, Law Enforcement, and the public to show support for Officer Reynolds. For information related to parking, follow this LINK.
If you would like to stop by and pay your respects, a memorial has been has been placed near the courthouse entrance. This memorial will remain until the candlelight vigil is over.
Officer Reynolds's obituary can be found HERE.
A GoFundMe has been set up for the family.
Media release from the Dunn County Sheriff's Office and from the Dunn County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.
We will discuss "The Likeness," by Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad #2). Setting: Ireland.
In person or via Zoom.
Zoom link HERE.
From the Facebook event page.
Let’s bring in the new year with some fun gymnastics.
SGA winter session will take place from January 6th-March 5th on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.
The classes will be offered by age. This is a great way for young athletes to build strength, coordination, and mobility for any sport they may want to try in the future. Our goals with each practice are to have fun, learn new drills and skills, and develop a love for gymnastics!
Girls and boys are welcome!
Register HERE.
From the Stout Gymnastics Academy website.
Last year, the Menomonie Minute ran a series of articles about the school referendum. The series began with an explanation of property taxes.
It is that time of year when property owners have just received their tax bills for 2024. These bills contain a lot of information, which can be hard to understand, so I am sharing this information again with updates for 2024.
This first article will explain the numbers you see on your property taxes and property valuations.
Before we begin, here are a few things to know:
For most people living in the Menomonie area, there are four taxing jurisdictions on your bill - Dunn County, Chippewa Valley Technical College, the School District of the Menomonie Area, and your municipality. Your municipality will be the city, village, or township that you live in. Anyone living in the Tainter Lake Rehab District will have a fifth taxing jurisdiction.
The levy is the portion of any taxing entity's budget that needs to be funded by property taxes.
The mill rate is the amount of tax for every $1,000 of a property's assessed value.
Thus, a mill is one-thousandth of a dollar, or $1 of tax for every $1,000 of a property's assessed value.
The basic calculation for the mill rate is the levy divided by the equalized value.
Equalized value is explained below.
If you own property, you should have received your property tax statement for 2024. At the very top, you will find the total assessed value and the total estimated fair market value.
The assessed value is the value the assessor places on your property. It is used to distribute the municipality's tax burden among the individual property owners in that municipality.
Your assessed value will only increase when the property is reassessed, or major improvements are made, such as adding a garage. For example, the Town of Menomonie was last reassessed in 2015, and for most people, assessments have not changed since then. The Town of Red Cedar was reassessed in 2022, and residents there would have noticed a change on their 2023 tax bill.
Each municipality has its own assessor, although most assessors will work for multiple municipalities. Several assessors cover Dunn County's thirty municipalities. Because assessors may value property at different percentages of market value and because the length of time between reassessments will vary from municipality to municipality, property values are equalized.
The equalized value (or fair market value) is the statutory full market value of all real property within each jurisdiction (except agricultural land, which is valued based on production/earning potential). Equalized values are provided by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR).
The DOR analyzes market sales statewide to estimate each municipality's full market (or equalized) value. Equalized values provide a means of comparing different municipalities, even if they are assessed at different percentages of market value.
The DOR assigns each municipality an assessment ratio. You'll find this number in a box between the assessed value of your property and the estimated fair market value. The estimated fair market value is your assessed value times the ratio. Every property in the municipality will be multiplied by that ratio.
Examples of assessment ratios in Dunn County - the Town of Menomonie has an assessment ratio of .5816, the City of Menomonie is .7019, and the Town of Red Cedar is .9814. There will be a bigger difference between the assessed value and the fair market value on a property in the Town of Menomonie than in the Town of Red Cedar because the Town of Menomonie has not been reassessed since 2015, and the Town of Red Cedar was reassessed in 2022.
When the difference between the assessed value and the fair market value is too great, the state requires a municipality to reassess. For example, properties in the Town of Menomonie will be reassessed in 2025.
The assessed value is essential for maintaining equity among individual taxpayers within the municipality, while the equalized value maintains equity between municipalities within a taxing jurisdiction (like the county or school district).
Net Assessed Value Rate: this is the combined mill rate for the county, municipality, school, and tech school (and the Tainter Lake Rehab District, if applicable). This number multiplied by your assessed value equals the gross property tax on your tax bill. However, this is not truly your gross property tax, which will be explained below.
The next article in the series will look at how the net assessed value rate is calculated. The Mill Rate Report for Dunn County, which shows the Net Assessed Value Rate for all municipalities in Dunn County, can be found at the end of this article.
Three credits are applied directly to a property tax bill.
Lottery Credit – if you are a Wisconsin resident, own your property, and it is your primary residence, a property owner may qualify for this credit.
First Dollar Credit – if there is a real property improvement (a house or other building) on the land, the property qualifies for this credit.
Both the lottery and first-dollar credits are determined using a somewhat complicated calculation using the assessed value of properties, the assessment ratio, a maximum credit value provided by the state, and the equalized value school rate.
The lottery credit and the first dollar credit are the same throughout the school district regardless of property valuations. For the school district of Menomonie, the lottery credit for 2024 is $164.21 (down quite a bit from $190.66 in 2023), and the first dollar credit for 2024 is $51.00 (down slightly from $51.22 in 2023).
School Levy Tax Credit – all taxable real property in Wisconsin qualifies for this credit. This is a very confusing credit and will be discussed in later articles.
The School Levy Tax Credit is distributed to municipalities based on their share of statewide school levies. The credit reduces individual property tax bills and is not considered a source of revenue by school districts and other local governments when setting their annual budgets and determining their property tax levies.
This school levy tax credit is not shown as a reduction from the gross tax on your tax bill like the First Dollar Credit and Lottery Credit; however, if you look up your tax information online, you will find it subtracted from your gross tax. So, your actual gross property tax includes the school levy tax credit. All property tax information can be found on the Dunn County Treasurer's website. A wealth of information can be found under the section titled Tax Bill Information/Assessment Information.
Equalized value is an important concept that must be understood to understand how property taxes are calculated. Equalized value will be discussed further in the next article.
Apportioning is the process of dividing the tax levies for each taxing jurisdiction among all municipalities in that jurisdiction based on each municipality's equalized value. For example, a county levy is apportioned among all municipalities in the county, and a school levy is apportioned among the municipalities in the school district.
As previously stated, the DOR analyzes market sales statewide to estimate each municipality's full market (or equalized) value. They provide a report to the county that is used to apportion the county levy among the municipalities. The City of Menomonie accounts for 31.5% of Dunn County's equalized value, so 31.5% of Dunn County's levy will be apportioned to the City of Menomonie. The Town of Menomonie accounts for 8.13% of the county's equalized value and will be apportioned 8.13% of the county levy. The full report from the DOR for Dunn County can be found at the end of this article.
Going back to the assessment ratios discussed earlier in this article, the Town of Menomonie will have much lower assessed values than the Town of Red Cedar, as reflected in the ratios (.5816 vs. .9816). Equalizing the property values makes things equitable between the different townships - the tax apportioned to each township is based on the equalized value, not the assessed value.
As stated earlier, the assessed value is essential for maintaining equity among individual taxpayers within the municipality, while the equalized value maintains equity between municipalities within a taxing jurisdiction (like the county or school district).
The next article will discuss how property taxes are calculated, mill rates, and why property taxes in Dunn County are higher than in some neighboring counties.
Sources used for this article include the Dunn County Treasurer's website, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue website, the UW Extension website, articles from the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, the Colfax Messenger, old Dunn County News articles, and interviews with the City of Menomonie Administrator Eric Atkinson, County Manager Kristin Korpela, former Dunn County Treasurer Sifia Jevne, and assessors Randy Prochnow and Kevin Irwin. A huge thank you to these individuals for taking the time to speak with me.
While all the information contained in this article is believed to be accurate, it is not guaranteed. The user should not rely solely on the information provided and should seek additional information from other sources. While some information was provided through interviews with individuals, any errors are my own.
Please feel free to share any comments or questions you may have about this article. You can send me a message HERE.
White Pine is a quarterly open stage that offers a relaxed, supportive place for local poets, storytellers and musicians to share their work. Sign up begins at 1:30 p.m. for a 10 minute slot.
Listeners are welcome! Freewill Donation.
From the Facebook event page.
Our Wakanda Wonderland trees, decorated by local businesses and organizations, will remain available for viewing and voting until January 3rd, so stop by during museum hours if you haven't had a chance to see them yet. (Jan. 2 from 2pm-8pm and Jan. 3 from 11am-5pm)
