Let's Talk Budget - 2025 Outlook

Hola!

As we step into the final stretch of the City Budget season, a crucial period for our city's financial planning, it's important to note that the Mayor's Executive Budget will soon be available on the city's Finance website. This season also brings a significant referendum question on the November ballot, proposing a $22 Million levy increase, which translates to about $20 per month for the average assessed home value. The referendum will shape our city's future. While news outlets have been covering the story, it's essential to approach this issue with a clear understanding, free from the fear, misinformation, and disinformation that often cloud such discussions.

Empower yourself with the truth by exploring the city's budget history, available online from 2011 to date. City budgets reflect our values and priorities and hold the city's history. While we can't change history, we can gain knowledge and understanding. This knowledge will equip you to engage in informed and impactful budget conversations.

2025 is my fourth budget as your alder and my third year on the Finance committee. These positions come with great responsibility. Every decision I make impacts people's lives, and every budget season has been frustrating and challenging, especially when trying to secure funding for the youth, families, the unsheltered, and other disadvantaged communities that lack access to basic needs such as food, transit, and housing.

Often, I found myself frustrated when forced to make choices based on decisions made by others before my time on the council. It must be equally frustrating for the handful of new alders who came in eager to help their communities and found themselves with the constraints imposed by alders and mayors who had served before their current terms (25% of council have served 5 years or more, 30% have served 2 years or less and 45% of us have served 3 to 4 years).

There has been a lot of finger-pointing and little self-reflection on how our values impact the budget. It's crucial that we all take a moment to consider our individual and collective roles in this situation. Nextdoor is plagued with anti-metro rhetoric from people with an easily traceable history of supporting increasing funding for police at ANY COST. The same people who oppose density in their single-family home neighborhoods have become renter advocates concerned about rent increases. It is true that it is difficult to estimate the impact on renters, but according to the Finance Director, “using an average value for a multi-family unit of $169,211, a $22 million increase in property taxes would be approximately $85 annually, $7 per month, and 23 cents per day”. Perhaps this newfound advocacy for renters translates to supporting more dwelling units near existing services and amenities.

2011 to 2024 STRATEGIES

Prior mayors are using their platforms to desperately try to fulfill the promises they failed to deliver during their cut-short terms by attempting to re-introduce old ideas that, under their terms, yielded no results. They quickly provide solutions and turn to name-calling but intentionally leave out their contribution to the current deficit. From 2011 to when this administration took over, the prior mayor accumulated $40 million in debt services to update decaying infrastructure. These are the hard decisions Mayors and Alders must make during each administration. The operating budget expenses have increased yearly (see past budgets 2011 to date).

With the aim to safeguard service levels, Mayors and Alders have consistently employed sound strategies to balance the operating budget since 2012. These strategies, proven to be effective, are as relevant today as they were when first implemented:

• Fees and special charges (Forestry Special Charge, Ambulance Fee & Room Tax %, Vehicle Registration fee & Resource Recovery Special Charges),
• One-time funds (Debt Premium, Fund Balance, Metro Subsidy, ARPA),
• Have shifted funding from general funds to enterprises, other fees, and the Room Tax (Overture Center to Room Tax, Library Collection to Capital Budget, Staff time to Forestry Fee, Parking Enforcement to Parking Utility & Alliant Energy Center, Henry Vilas Zoo and Olbrich Gardens to Room Tax),
• Tax Increment Districts (TID) have come to closure and
• The current administration has also included staff reductions.

2022 to Date Budget

I stand by the decisions made in the past three budgets, and I recognize that these decisions have a significant impact on this and future budgets, just as prior administrations also influenced us today. Understanding the ripple effect of past decisions on our present financial situation is crucial, as it fosters a sense of awareness and responsibility among us all.

Over 25 years ago, the city mayor and council decided to welcome the Town of Madison and mandated to complete the annexation on October 31, 2022. Welcoming the people of the Town of Madison was a multi-year project; not even the pandemic stopped planners from completing that task. I participated in all town halls and learned about needed city services, differences in infrastructure, and their population makeup. Planners poured themselves into this project and led the rest of the city agencies to the meetings. Agencies supported the newcomers with inspections, street reconfiguration to allow access for refuse collection and snow removal, and the park system absorbed new parkland; these and more needs increased already stressed agencies' regular operations workload. A decision made 25 years before I became an alder forced my hand on voting to add eight more police officers to an already stressed budget to facilitate services for another 5000 residents.

After the implementation of Act-10, only sworn positions in Fire and Police and Metro drivers were protected by Collective bargaining, which divided the city between the haves and the have-nots. Municipal employees' wages kept falling behind, creating a wage parity gap across all agencies. Mayors and councils, including current seating alders, made promises they should have kept. Hence, once again, I was in the middle of an issue that pre-dated me. How hypocritical is it to expect city staff to conduct city business via an equity lens while, at the same time, we deny them equitable wages? We continue to ask people to do more with less; staff has not kept pace with city growth for years. With the support of other alders, we fought for parity and supported wage increases.

Another area that I will own is the Violence Prevention (VP) Unit under Public Health. Every year, I have fought for ways to increase their budget. However, to date, the Animal Services program has a slightly larger budget than VP. The budget reflects the city's values. We care about our animals in this city—that's great! But VP continues to be underfunded. We allocated funds to contract services to transport people under MPD's supervision who were having a mental health crisis to Winnebago, giving back between 4 - 6 hours for MPD to patrol our streets. The Council and Mayor implemented CARES in 2021, and today CARES continues to grow, with counties' municipalities joining the efforts to provide much-needed services. Another initiative I supported as your alder is the Parks Volunteer Coordinator position; this position has already increased volunteer engagement. Savings through volunteer hours have bypassed the cost of the position wages. Volunteers are essential to the park's ecosystem, and Madisonian love their parks.

Neighborhood Centers continued to step up throughout the pandemic, giving more with less; their last funding increase was over five years ago. We could not increase the 10% asked but added 7.5% to support their essential operations. The unsheltered population has gotten a lot of attention during and after the pandemic, yet city residents continue to deprioritize the needs of this population. The operations of the First Street Shelter, Zeier Road Temporary Shelter, and the Urban Campground were paid for mainly by the American Rescue Plan (ARPA). Finally, the last budget, $300,000 of tax levy, was allocated for the future operations of the Permanent Shelter.

The role of Alders and the Mayor is to safeguard the health and well-being of all residents, not just in a fair but equitable manner. Making decisions that impact individuals' finances takes research and work, and it's equally challenging to make cuts that affect those whose finances put them at a disadvantage. However, by prioritizing equitable decision-making, we can ensure that all residents' concerns are heard and addressed. Every dollar invested in prevention ensures a healthier and safer Madison.

To learn more about the budget, check out the city finance page. If you have any questions about it, please contact me or subscribe to my blog for updates.

2011-2024 Budget Strategies

TIMELINE - BUDGET BALANCING 2011-2024