Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway announced the city’s 2024 operating budget proposal Tuesday.
The operating budget is part of the city’s budget plan that allocates funding for services, programs and staffing. The budget includes over $404 million in spending but also calls for 1% budget cuts to all city agencies as Madison faces funding challenges after 2024.
Despite the cuts, improvements to numerous city services are a top priority, Rhodes-Conway said during her budget announcement Tuesday.
“We are managing our limited resources wisely and doing our best to invest in the things that helped to build a better Madison,” Rhodes-Conway said.
The budget provides funding for an expansion of the city’s mental health programs, including funding for a new EMS coordinator within the fire department to help manage the Community Alternative Response Emergency Services (CARES) program, paramedic teams and a contract with a third party transport system to escort residents to a secure mental health treatment facility in Winnebago.
It also provides funding for overnight shifts for park ranger and parking enforcement officers, a pay raise for general municipal employees and increased city support for housing stability as well as early childhood care, positive youth development, employee training and career development, and crisis intervention and prevention.
Initiatives to “tackle the challenges holding back our economy” require funds normally distributed more equitably by the state Legislature, Rhodes-Conway said in a press release on October 3rd. This limits the ability of the city to address problems like lack of housing and childcare, she said.
Madison is not allowed to implement a local sales tax or income tax under state law. This is not a standard practice for most major cities throughout the country, Rhodes-Conway said.
Rhodes-Conway cited the Republican-controlled Legislature as the primary cause for “unusually” high budget cuts this year. Budget cuts, combined with the state’s restrictions on Madison’s ability to tap into income and sales tax revenue as a measure to fund essential services, raised funding concerns.
“We have no option but to raise property taxes,” Rhodes-Conway said. “[The] Republican-led state Legislature has told us that loud and clear.”
This is also the final year Madison is entitled to federal COVID-19 relief funding. The budget forecast for beyond 2024 “is pretty bleak,” Rhodes-Conway said.
“Our challenge now — as it has been for many years — is to find ways to maintain the city services our residents expect while facing extraordinary fiscal constraints imposed by a state Legislature determined to undermine a city that is a key contributor to our state’s economic success,” she added.
Madison has had a structural deficit — a gap between the revenue the city raises and the cost of maintaining current government services — since 2011, according to the city. As a result, revenue cannot keep up with the rising population and increased need for services, Rhodes-Conway said.
“If annual state aid had simply kept pace with inflation from 2000 levels, Madison's share would be $9 million higher than it is today,” Rhodes-Conway said.
Maintaining quality staffing with the rising cost of medical insurance has been a challenge with limited funding, Rhodes-Conway said. The city has grown substantially over the past decade, but the city’s staff has not expanded at the same rate.
“Today, there are 10% fewer city employees per 1,000 residents than there were in 2011,” she said.
The Common Council must approve both the capital budget and the operating budget by Nov. 16.
