Madison expects to spend at least $1.5 million from reserve funds this year, due in large part to payments to police.
The Madison Police Department alone is about $1 million over budget, but according to George Twigg, spokesman for Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, such shortages are a routine part of budgeting.
'We have one of these resolutions every year, pretty much,' said Twigg. 'There's always some adjustment needed at the end of the fiscal year.'
But Ald. Paul Skidmore, District 9, was less nonchalant about the issue. 'When you look at the overtime for Halloween and Mifflin, and other events that [the police] have to take care of?? that's a real problem.'
Skidmore went on to call the two events 'a terrible expenditure.'
'These are private parties at public expense,' he said.
Ald. Austin King, District 8, said the city is working toward 'a better understanding of the exact costs' of Halloween and Mifflin. But, he said, the role of the parties in putting the city over budget was negligible.
'The reason we have the cost here is an unexpectedly large number of retirements,' King said, pointing to the nearly $500,000 needed to cover costs related to officers retiring this year. 'This isn't unprecedented,' he said.
Twigg agreed that police retirements were a large part of the extra expenditures. 'We had more police officers retire than was expected, and as part of their retirement they get paid out for unused sick-leave time,' Twigg said.
Twigg said that 2005 costs for police overtime at Halloween and Mifflin were high, but that they were not a factor in the city going over budget. 'We plan for some of these costs from the outset,' he said.
Though the budget overages may seem excessive, Twigg stressed that they were not out of the ordinary.
'That's why we have things like the contingent reserves and the fund balance out there,' he said. 'So in case one of those projections is off we are able to adjust accordingly.'
But Skidmore, upset about more than just the issue of police overtime for student parties, criticized the city as fiscally irresponsible for not sticking to its original budget.
'It's not sustainable,' he said, 'That'd be like you taking your credit card and spending a huge amount of money to buy groceries not knowing how you're going to pay it back.'
