Wauwatosa city staff, in collaboration with their counterparts in the City of West Allis, have drafted an intergovernmental agreement under which the two municipalities would create a joint fire department, which could receive Wauwatosa Common Council approval as early as next week.
The draft agreement is posted to the city’s meetings website in advance of a discussion by the council’s Governmental Affairs Committee at its 7:30 p.m. meeting Dec. 9 at City Hall and on Zoom. The proposed joint department is referred to simply as “DEPTNAME,” reflecting work still to be done on finding a name for the consolidated entity.
In addition to a four-page intergovernmental agreement, council members are reviewing 14 additional pages of proposed articles of incorporations, bylaws, service contract and staffing agreement, which can be found here. The initial 10-year contract period would begin April 27, 2026, with automatic six-year renewals after that unless one city wishes to end the partnership. Costs will be divided in half for the two cities, which are similar in populations, department sizes and service levels.
If recommended by the Wauwatosa committee, the plan presumably would be taken up for a vote by the full council at its 7 p.m. meeting on Dec. 16. The plan has received generally favorable response so far from council members and other city leaders, who are working to finalize a plan in time for the cities to apply for substantial state assistance from a grant program that has a first-round application deadline of March 31, 2026.
“This is going to be the best fire department in the state of Wisconsin,” Wauwatosa City Administrator James Archambo said at a previous committee meeting, held Nov. 11, to provide feedback on an initial “term sheet” for the merger.
Under those terms, each city would retain ownership of firehouses but would begin sharing the cost of equipment maintenance and new purchases. The joint department would be governed as a “nonstock corporation,” similar to a nonprofit, with a board made up of the two cities’ mayors, council presidents and city administrators.
The plan also would create a joint fire commission with members appointed by the two mayors. The joint department would have the authority to set its own budget with annual increases limited to 4%. During the launch phase, the budget would increase 2.84% a year for the first five years, according to the cities’ negotiated term sheet.
A revised term sheet dated Dec. 9 was posted for consideration by the Governmental Affairs Committee alongside the intergovernmental agreement. The new terms mostly resemble the initial terms, though with greater detail added on some matters, such as the nonstock corporation, budgeting, the governing body and the fire commission.
Wauwatosa, with about 50,000 residents, and West Allis, with about 60,000, are two of Wisconsin’s largest municipalities and the largest cities in Milwaukee County outside of the City of Milwaukee. The two cities have been in talks over a potential merger since January while moving swiftly toward a deal in recent months.
One issue that still needs to be resolved is how Wauwatosa’s combined police and fire dispatch center would be affected. In a separate vote, the Governmental Affairs Committee will consider recommending for council approval the hiring of consultant McMahon Associates to perform a “dispatch service review” on both cities’ dispatch centers with the joint fire department’s needs in mind.
The two cities would save an estimated $7 million in the first five years of a consolidated department, according to McMahon's earlier analysis of the proposal. Those savings would be realized largely by sharing top leadership positions and reducing administrative staff through attrition, or leaving vacancies unfilled.
City officials, however, have cautioned against expecting those savings to result in lower taxes, especially at a time when the cost of public services continues to rise. Savings likely would allow the two cities to maintain fire services at current levels or enhance those services. A joint department also would give the cities greater flexibility to raise property taxes as needed to avoid fire service reductions.
Department mergers are granted an exception to state tax levy limits. Without that flexibility, the Wauwatosa Fire Department currently faces the elimination of one firefighter position in the city’s 2026 budget because of levy constraints.
- David Paulsen, a Tosa East Towne resident and editor of Tosa Forward News, has more than 25 years of experience as a professional journalist. He can be reached at editor@tosanews.com.
