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Meetings and Updates Week of August 12

posted 
  • City Meetings:
    • Urban Design Commission 8/14
    • Board of Park Commissioners 8/14
  • Remember to Vote in the August Primary Election on Tuesday 8/13
  • Operating Budget Reduction Scenarios and Impacts
    • Recap of the Operating Budget Structural Deficit
    • City Agencies’ 2025 Operating Budget Reduction Scenarios
    • District 3 Impacts
  • Events & Announcements

City Meetings

Note: This is not a complete list of meetings for this upcoming week. All meetings and their details can be found on the Meeting Schedule page.

Urban Design Commission

The Urban Design Commission meeting will take place on Wednesday, August 14, 2024, in virtual format at 4:30 PM. Agenda items include adopting the Northeast Area Plan and West Area Plan.

Board of Park Commissioners

The Board of Park Commissioners meeting will take place on Wednesday, August 14, 2024, in virtual format at 6:30 PM. Agenda items include adopting the Northeast Area Plan and West Area Plan, and an informational presentation on Parks staff’s proposed 2025 operating budget with 5% cut scenarios to meet the mayor’s directive for an Operating Budget if the referendum is not authorized by the Common Council on August 20th or does not pass in November. Here's a very helpful memo from the Parks Superintendent explaining Parks' reduction scenario. See more information about the reduction scenarios in a lower section of this blog post.

Remember to Vote in the August Primary Election on Tuesday, August 13th

Tuesday is the Fall Primary Election! There will be elections for State Assembly, State Senate, Dane County Executive, and two constitutional amendments. Here is a UW Law School Explainer on the two Constitutional Amendments on the ballot and here is the League of Women Voters’ Candidates and Issues webpage.

If you haven’t voted absentee, remember to make a plan to vote in person on Tuesday. Polls will be open from 7am until 8pm on election day. You can find your polling place using this myvote.wi.gov webpage.

More Information About the 2025 Operating Budget Structural Deficit: Budget Reduction Scenarios and Impacts

Recap of the Operating Budget Situation

Folks who read my blog posts will remember that the City is currently trying to figure out how to address a structural deficit in the City’s Operating Budget, most recently estimated at $22 million in 2025. See my July 21st blog post for more information about the legal limits on Operating Budget fund sources that make it overly-reliant on the property tax and prevent city revenues from keeping up with the cost of maintaining the existing level of City services over time. The City must adopt a balanced Operating Budget every year so the 2025 Operating Budget will need to be balanced with new revenue, with cuts to services and staff positions, or a combination. Cuts to the Capital Budget for things like buildings or vehicles, while reducing the property tax burden overall, does not free up funding that the City can move to the Operating Budget for staff/services because of the way the State's tax levy limits are structured.

At the July 16th Common Council meeting the Mayor and the Finance Department presented two potential multi-year Operating Budget plans that extend to the 2030 budget, one that maintains the current level of City services with a successful referendum to exceed the property tax levy limit, and one without a referendum that cuts approximately $6 million per year. Both scenarios include new “special charges” for City services that the state doesn’t require be funded with property tax (such as street repair or park maintenance). Note that both budget plans also include finding smaller-scale reductions of $1 million to $4 million each year by finding efficiencies.

Some have proposed that the City should push this deficit problem out by a year by plugging the 2025 deficit with the City’s General Fund balance (the “rainy day fund”) to avoid service cuts, and again asking the State Legislature for help in the meantime. (The Legislature rejected this idea last year when Governor Tony Evers proposed a state budget that helped Madison.) If the City does that, the Operating Budget’s structural deficit will continue to grow to an estimated $28 million, as shown on slide 4 of this staff presentation to the Finance Committee on June 10th, in 2026 AND the General Fund will have been spent down. The City and residents should absolutely continue to ask the State to correct the current, significant imbalance in shared revenue. However, I consider a plan that raids the General Fund for 2025 with the hope of being rescued by the State by 2026 to be irresponsible.

City Agencies’ 2025 Operating Budget Reduction Scenarios

In her 2025 Operating Budget instructions to City agencies, the Mayor directed each agency to prepare Operating Budget reduction scenarios of about 5% of their Operating Budget funding without compromising the agencies’ core operations. Here is a link to the City’s press release listing most of the reduction scenarios. I noticed that this list doesn’t appear to include reduction scenarios submitted by two agencies: the Municipal Court proposes a reduction in supplies and purchased services which may affect efficiency and security of operations for court users ($18,532); and the Office of the Independent Monitor proposes a reduction of funds for conferences, legal services, board stipends, and board member training ($23,380). All of the City agencies’ complete budget requests are available on this Finance Department webpage.

I have been hearing from residents struggling with the increase in the cost of living in Madison, who want the City to explore alternatives and creative solutions to the Operating Budget’s structural deficit. I think some of the scenarios in the agency list of reductions are reasonable, for example: reclassifying the vacant Senior Center Manager position to free up funds ($117,621), raising the threshold for City spending amounts that require bids in order to reduce Finance Department workload ($91,156), doing less of the auto-body repair work (think: fixing dents) on City-owned Fleet vehicles ($130,000), allowing Parks to charge for parking at some high-traffic parks ($65,000), increasing fees for sign permits ($17,500). I wonder if the business groups who operate downtown can pick up the tab for the City’s share of the State Street Business Improvement District ($62,225) or the operating cost of water fountains around the Capitol Square, State Street, and Peace Park ($20,000). However, I don’t see a path to solving the deficit via cuts alone without reducing some of the core municipal services that residents expect from the City.

District 3 Impacts

Under the multi-year budget plan without new revenue from a referendum, the City would need to adopt about $6 million in cuts (about 60 staff salary/benefits) each year for the foreseeable future. Some of the reduction scenarios, if adopted to balance next year's or a future Operating Budget, would have specific geographic impacts on services in parts of District 3 that residents should be aware of.

  • Karmenta/Salvation Army Family Shelter
    • One of the Community Development Division’s proposed reduction scenarios is: “Reduce the City’s financial contribution to case management and outreach services for persons experiencing homelessness, which help individuals find housing ($438,000).”
    • This cut would reduce the services that help homeless families access the Family shelter, and services that help those families navigate the housing voucher process for placement in permeant housing.
  • Community Outreach Officers:
    • One of the Madison Police Department’s proposed reductions is “Eliminate Community Outreach section which would require the repayment of the federal COPS Grant. Reduction of 12 FTE ($805,955).”
    • This cut would discontinue the funding for MPD’s Outreach Officers, including the position currently held by Officer Victoria Wickersheim who builds relationships with and convenes weekly activities with youth living at Harmony Apartments in partnership with other groups and services. Five similar positions that support struggling properties elsewhere in the City would also be affected.
  • Community Policing Teams:
    • Another of the Madison Police Department’s proposed reductions is: “Reduce staffing for patrol services and Community Policing Teams. Reduction of 15 FTE ($1,561,800).”
    • This cut would reduce staffing for officers who are involved with responding to issues related to transient homelessness in parts of District 3, including encampments or panhandling, and referring folks to community resources. The Northeast Community Policing Team is active in the Nakoosa Trail, Burke Heights and Mayfair Park areas of District 3 and nearby around the East Towne Area.
  • Focused Interruption’s Gun Violence Prevention programming:
    • One of Public Health’s proposed reductions is “Eliminate Violence Prevention Contract - Focused Interruption Coalition has been the recipient of this funding since the funds were allocated. Funding provides hospital-based intervention and prevention services to those involved in violent incidents. ($210,000).”
    • This cut would discontinue the contract-for-service funds for gun violence prevention. Focused Interruption is currently a partner and member of Public Health’s Violence Prevention Coalition and is involved in gun violence prevention, de-escalation, and conflict resolution programming at Harmony Apartments. They have been and will continue to be on-site at Harmony following Thursday night’s shot- fired incident.
  • Heritage Park Ice Rink:

Events & Announcements

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District 3 - Alder Field

Alder Derek Field

Alder Derek Field

District 3
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