Mayor Mason, the mayor of Racine, presented the city’s 2026 budget at a special common council meeting, proposing a balanced plan that he said cuts no services, eliminates no positions and lowers the property tax mill rate from 12.1 to 11.75 per $1,000 of assessed value.

The budget statement laid out the dollar figures and priorities: total spending including regional water and wastewater utilities of $275 million, an operational budget of $108 million, and a property tax levy of nearly $63 million. "This budget is balanced. It cuts no services, eliminates no positions, and reduces the property tax rate," Mason said.

Mason framed the proposal as fiscally restrained but focused on neighborhood investment. He said the budget reduces the combined taxes and fees on an average $175,000 home by just over 1 percent to about $2,400 and described the proposed mill rate as the lowest in 15 years. He credited voter approval of a recent referendum for preserving firefighter staffing but said the city should not have had to hold the referendum to maintain services.

The mayor highlighted several headline priorities. First, a legally mandated, federally funded push to remove lead service lines: a five-year plan to remove roughly 11,000 lead service lines and lead water mains across the city. "There is no safe level of lead for children to consume, not one drop, none whatsoever," Mason said, and he said the city will use available federal funds and a utility-hosted mapping tool to show homeowners when removals are scheduled.

Second, the budget continues work to position Racine for regional passenger rail service connecting Kenosha and Milwaukee to Chicago. Mason called the project a "golden ticket" for economic development and noted that Racine recently entered an intergovernmental agreement with Milwaukee and Kenosha and that all three cities passed resolutions to begin planning and design work.

Workforce and hiring initiatives are also emphasized. The budget funds expansion of the youth employment program, a commercial driver's license (CDL) training program and a fire cadet training pathway. Mason said the city has received a Wisconsin Fast Forward grant of $350,000 to expand workforce training over two years and proposed creating a workforce and recruitment specialist position to connect residents to city jobs.

Public safety and violence-prevention funding is a third major focus. Mason described the Department of Community Safety as taking a public-health approach to gun violence and said the department’s work has coincided with a 60 percent reduction in homicides and nonfatal shootings compared with an earlier baseline. Because that program had been fully grant-funded, the 2026 budget repeals a prior policy requiring the department to be 100 percent grant supported and would create city-funded positions to retain three staff pending grant awards. "We cannot gamble with people's lives on the hope that grants may come or may never come," Mason said.

Neighborhood quality-of-life investments include continuing the clean-sweep program (three events planned for 2026), expanded housing repair grants, a proposed vacant-property registry, adoption of a uniform building-maintenance code, fines and camera enforcement for illegal dumping, and a timetable of investments in the Lincoln King neighborhood including the King Center community facility and associated housing. Mason said the Lincoln King investments total nearly $100 million, with more than 80 percent coming from state and federal sources.

Operational consolidations and service improvements are part of the proposal. The budget realigns customer service and some utility functions, moves certain public-health water-testing services into the water and wastewater labs, plans to reduce hours at the Pearl Street facility and aims to merge its services with the city’s waste transfer station. The mayor said the City’s customer service consolidation has led to a 52 percent drop in resident complaints year over year and that 72 percent of remaining complaints are DPW-related; the budget sets a goal to reduce DPW complaints by an additional 50 percent.

Infrastructure and climate adaptation items include removing the McMinn Ramp and converting it to a surface lot, installing additional sanitary-sewer staff to run the sump-pump program, installing an additional carbon filter at the Racine Water Utility after an algal-odor event, continuing electric vehicle charging and fleet electrification, and pursuing federal funds for lakefront resilience.

The budget also proposes modest public-safety and recreation additions: one additional lifeguard at Zoo Beach, audio-assisted pedestrian crossings downtown, continued pedestrian crossings and speed-calming measures, and a plan to make the King Center Racine’s first net-zero city building upon completion.

City administrator (unnamed) outlined the calendar and process for reviewing the budget. The council previously passed Resolution 0567-25 on June 17 setting the budget-process structure; the administrator said department presentations and multiple committee-of-the-whole meetings, public hearings and committee reviews are scheduled through November, with final adoption expected at a special council meeting on Nov. 6 and potential veto/override deadlines in mid- to late-November.

The mayor concluded by tying the budget’s neighborhood investments to broader civic priorities and announcing participation in semi-quincentennial (250th) events next year, including planting 250 trees and other community celebrations.

Votes at a glance: the meeting introduced the 2026 budget and included no formal adoption vote; the council’s Resolution 0567-25 (passed June 17) remains the controlling procedural authority for the review calendar. A motion to adjourn at the meeting’s end was moved and seconded and carried.