Slimmer government is coming soon to St. Croix County, Wis., where citizens fed up with bureaucracy launched a successful referendum to reduce the board of supervisors from 31 seats to 19.

The filing deadline for the redrawn wards is set for Jan. 5, with elections in April.

Tom Caflisch, who served two terms on the board as a supervisor representing River Falls, said he started the referendum out of frustration. "We're still talking about the same things that we talked about 20 years ago," he said. "Nothing gets done because we've got too many people."

The board has met monthly in Hudson to bring concerns from 31 wards to the table. A new board might revisit how business is done after the spring elections, said County Clerk Cindy Campbell.

Caflisch said his administrative committee studied the prospect of reducing the county board to 21 seats a few years ago but didn't get anywhere.

"I made the presentation and you would have thought I was a leper," he said Thursday. "I had never seen so many people so against what they had asked my committee to do. The county board members did not want their 'job' put in jeopardy."

When he and other St. Croix County residents circulated referendum petitions last year, "the comments we got were all the same," Caflisch said. "It's about time we reduced the size of government."

Voters passed the referendum in 2008 by a 3-1 margin, he said. Many Wisconsin counties are making similar reductions in the size of their county boards, he said.

Across the St. Croix River, five elected commissioners represent about 230,000 Washington County residents. Dakota and Ramsey counties both have seven commissioners.

The 19 St. Croix County supervisors to be elected in April will represent about 80,000 residents, Caflisch said.

Washington County commissioners earn $52,713 a year and meet weekly. Supervisors in St. Croix County earn per diems that average about $2,300 a year and meet monthly, Campbell said.

She said she doesn't hear a consensus of opinion among current supervisors over the referendum.

"It's what the voters said, so they're moving forward with it," she said.

Kevin Giles • 612-673-4432