"Culver's Per Capita" Proposed As Logical Use Of Wisconsin's $3 Billion Budget Surplus

WAUKESHA — I'll say the quiet part first: I like Culver's. I have liked Culver's for a long time, going back to before I held elected office, and nothing in this column changes because Wisconsin announced a $3 billion state budget surplus on Wednesday. I will admit the timing worked out well for an argument I was already prepared to make.

The surplus, confirmed by the state Wednesday and slated for legislative debate in Madison come September, is real money, and real money sitting around unallocated tends to get spent on things nobody asked for. I'd rather it get spent on something somebody asked for. I submitted a column to that effect to a smaller local paper Friday. This is the longer version.

The Proposal

My plan, in short: distribute the surplus to municipalities proportionally, by population, and let each one apply its share to what I've been calling "strategic quality-of-life investments." I'm not going to tell Green Bay or Eau Claire what their strategic quality-of-life investment should be. That's a local decision, and I respect local decisions. But I used Waukesha as the model, because it's the one I have the numbers for.

The Math, As I Ran It

Wisconsin's population is a little under 5.9 million. Divide $3 billion by that and you get roughly $509 per resident, statewide. Waukesha's population is 71,158, per the last count I trust. Multiply the two and the city's proportional share comes out to $36.2 million. I ran this twice, two days apart, on two different calculators, and got $36.2 million both times, which I consider a form of peer review.

From there it's simple. One new Culver's per 500 residents, applied to a population of 71,158, is 142 new locations, rounding down, because I don't believe in building a fraction of a Culver's. At my estimated build cost of $100,000 per unit, that's $14.2 million of the $36.2 million allocation, leaving $22 million for whatever the council decides is the second most strategic quality-of-life investment. I have thoughts on that too, but one column at a time.

"Dairy money is how this state operates. The math checks out."

— Common Council President Gary Puchalski

Addressing The Kiosk Question

I've already gotten three emails, two voicemails, and one cornered conversation outside the Piggly Wiggly on the west side pointing out that a full sit-down Culver's, with a dining room and a butter burger griddle and a proper walk-in freezer, runs closer to $2.5 to $3 million to build, not $100,000. I don't dispute those figures. I'd just point out I never said "full sit-down Culver's." What I have in mind is a walk-up window only. No dining room. Cheese curds, a soft-serve machine, and a to-go window, sized for a residential block rather than a highway exit. Call it a satellite unit. I've been calling it that in my head for a week and I think it's the right term.

A Culver's corporate spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the satellite-unit concept or the $100,000 figure by the time this column went to print.

What My Colleagues Are Saying

I raised the 142-unit figure informally with Bob Krueger, who as a retired Public Works supervisor has opinions about build costs that I take seriously. Krueger said he wasn't going to argue with the per-capita logic but wanted it on the record that he'd rather see the $14.2 million go toward the East Avenue roundabout's signage, which he has separately described as inadequate. I told him the roundabout money is a different line item and he said that's exactly the kind of thing a person says right before a good idea gets buried in a subcommittee.

Diane Vandehey, who chairs the county fair planning committee, asked whether any of the 142 satellite units could be mobile, in the interest of fair-week flexibility. I told her I'd take it under advisement, mostly because I hadn't considered it and didn't want to say no on the spot.

No Legislation Yet

To be clear about where this stands: my office has not drafted formal legislation, and nothing about the per-capita allocation or the satellite-unit build cost has been reviewed by the city attorney, the Department of Public Works, or, for that matter, Culver's itself. This is a column, not a budget amendment. I intend to raise it as a discussion item at the council's next regular meeting, ahead of the state's September debate, so that if Madison does end up distributing the surplus proportionally, Waukesha has already done its homework.

Any city can sit on a windfall and argue about it for a year. Not every city can say it ran the numbers on the first Wednesday. I know which one I'd rather be on record in.