Council president says there’s little risk in cutting La Crosse reserve funds

Council to vote on decreasing reserves tonight. 

Martin Gaul wants everyone in La Crosse to know he’s not leading the city to financial ruin.

The city council president is a strong supporter of letting the city cut back on the amount of necessary cash reserves kept on hand, despite some concerns expressed by others about risk.

“Everything that we do has some degree of risk to it but, frankly, I don’t think that’s the case with this move,” Gaul said. “We’re going to have more than adequate reserves, even with the reduction we’re looking at.”

Gaul says cutting back on mandated reserves could mean somewhere between $4-6 million that could be spent immediately on things like roads and other public infrastructure.

Now, Gaul says, with city roads in need of significant repairs, it would be time to use that tool a little bit.

“We got to gain efficiencies where we can, cut costs, whenever we’re able to,” Gaul said. “Then, obviously, when we need to have new revenue, we need to explore that.

“But, also, we have to utilize assets when we have them available.”

The proposal, getting a vote by the city council tonight, would allow the city to decrease its reserves from 25 percent of the annual budget to 20 percent.