2019 Capital and Operating Budget

On Tuesday, November 13 (and November 14, if necessary), the Common Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing and adopt a capital and operating budget for 2019.

For those interested, this is post provides details on what's happened so far and what's next.

The City of Madison has a capital budget and an operating budget.

The capital budget provides funding for the City's major construction projects including building new facilities, improving our transit system, maintaining our roads and parks, and purchasing major equipment. The capital budget includes the Capital Improvement Plan, which lays out anticipated projects for the next five years. The capital budget is primarily funded via borrowing over a 10 year period.

The operating budget provides money for running City departments and services. It pays for the day-to-day spending on employees and materials and supplies. The operating budget is primarily funded via taxes.

On September 4th, Mayor Soglin introduced the 2019 Executive Capital Budget. The Executive Capital Budget includes $133.39M in reauthorizations and $203.23M in new projects for a total of $336.63M.

You can explore a very cool project map, which outlines proposed spending for 2019 to 2024, the money sources, spending categories, reauthorizations, and a map of facilities, parks, transportation and utilities that are covered in the budget.

For 2019, reauthorizations are focused on the Madison Public Market ($13.2M), Pinney Library ($9.0M), Olbrich Botanical Complex ($4.5M), Breese Stevens Renovations ($1.5M), Judge Doyle Parking Structure ($20.5M). Major projects for 2019 are Fleet Headquarters ($30.0M), Metro Headquarters Renovation Phase 1 ($7.0M), TID 36 Developer Loans ($5.0M), and John Nolen Dr Reconstruction Planning ($2.9m). The Mayor's Executive Capital Budget Summary does a very good job of outlining the 2019 proposal.

Because much of the budget was prepared before the August 20th storm, there isn't a lot of proposed spending related to flood mitigation. I, along with a few of my colleagues, are introducing a budget amendment to fund some flood mitigation projects. I'll have a separate post up about that shortly.

On September 12th and 13th, the Directors from each of the City's departments presented their capital budget requests to the Common Council's Finance Committee. The meetings were very long, but very informative. Here's a Capital Improvement Plan Overview that was presented to the Finance Committee at the beginning of the hearing.

September 12th focused on Monona Terrace, Public Health, Engineering: Facilities Management, Information Technology, Police Department, Fire Department, Library, CDA Redevelopment, Planning Division, Community Development Division, Economic Development Division, Finance, and Henry Vilas Zoo.

September 13th focused on Transportation: Traffic Engineering, Transportation: Parking Utility, Transportation, Transportation: Metro Transit, Engineering: Bicycle & Pedestrian Projects, Engineering: Major Streets, Fleet Service, Streets Division, Parks Division, Water Utility, Engineering: Other Projects, Sewer Utility, and Stormwater Utility.

The videos of these meeting are indexed and it's very easy to skip to a department.

• September 12, 2018 – Online Video (4 hours and 40 minutes) | PDF Presentation
• September 13, 2018 – Online Video (6 hours and 21 minutes) | PDF Presentation

The Finance Committee is the Council's first opportunity to amend the Mayor's proposed budget. Any Council member not on the Finance Committee was able to submit amendments with courtesy sponsorship by the Council President. On September 24th, the Finance Committee discussed and voted on those amendments.

• September 24, 2018 – Online Video (1 hour 22 minutes) | Proposed Amendments | Approved Amendments

Starting November 13th, the Council will discuss and vote on new proposed capital budget amendments.

You can see the full legislative file for the Capital Budget here.

On October 2nd, Mayor Soglin introduced the 2019 Executive Operating Budget. The Executive Operating Budget is $598.1M.

You can explore the budget more here.

The highlights of the Mayor's Executive Operating Budget:

• An additional $300,000 for peer support programs to help address rising violence in some parts of our city (on top of the $400,000 reoccurring spending added in 2017).
• Fully funds the 8.0 FTE police officers added in the 2018 budget
• $100,000 for a new detective position to expand the work of the Special Victims Unit on investigating human trafficking and crimes against children, and deploys smartphones to all Police field staff.

From the Mayor's Executive Summary:

City expenditures are projected to grow 5.5 percent, funded by a 4.7 percent increase in the property tax levy. Debt service is rising by nearly 17 percent as our capital budget expands at a rapid pace for a new police station, new fire station, renovated municipal building, new library branch and major streets projects.

The budget increases General Fund appropriations by 5.8 percent and increases the levy 4.7 percent. Based on the latest estimates of a 7.6 percent increase in net taxable property value, the city tax rate is expected to decrease by 2.7 percent to 9.06 per $1,000 of assessed value. With the average home value up 5.8 percent, taxes on the average value home are expected to increase $72, or 2.9 percent. There is approximately $1.5 million of capacity to still qualify for $7 million in aid under the state Expenditure Restraint Program, assuming a $500,000 appropriation in the 2018 year-end resolution. The property tax levy can be increased by approximately $400,000 within the state-mandated levy limits above the $241.8 million reflected in the 2019 executive operating budget.

Due to strict state limits on the City's ability to raise the tax levy and the raising cost of debt service related to capital budget expenditures, there isn't a lot of room for the Council to add additional spending. The Mayor's Executive Summary does a pretty good job breaking down the areas of expenditures and the sources of income that fund the budget. 

On October 8th and 9th, the Directors from each of the City's departments presented their operating budget requests to the Common Council's Finance Committee. Much like the capital budget hearings, the meetings were very long, but very informative.

October 8th focused on Assessor, Public Health, Monona Terrace, Room Tax Commission, Library, PCED, Building Inspection, CDA Housing Operations, Economic Development Division, Planning, PCED Office of Director, CDA Redevelopment, Community Development Division, Parking, Traffic Engineering, and Transportation.

October 9th focused on Common Council, Mayor's Office, Municipal Court, Attorney, Civil Rights, Clerk, Employee Assistance Program, Human Resources, Information Technology, Treasurer, Finance, Metro, Fire, Police, Fleet, Streets, Parks & Golf, Engineering, Landfill, Sewer, and Stormwater, Water Utility

The videos of these meeting are indexed and it's very easy to skip to a department.

October 8, 2018 – Online Video (6 hours and 18 minutes) | PDF Presentation (which include an Overview Presentation)
October 9, 2018 – Online Video (8 hours and 27 minutes) | PDF Presentation

The Finance Committee is the Council's first opportunity to amend the Mayor's proposed budget. Any Council member not on the Finance Committee was able to submit amendments with courtesy sponsorship by the Council President. On October 22nd, the Finance Committee discussed and voted on those amendments.

October 22, 2018 – Online Video (5 hours and 13 minutes) | Proposed Amendments | Approved Amendments

Starting November 13th, the Council will discuss and vote on new proposed operating budget amendments.

You can see the full legislative file for the Operating Budget here. 

Details on the 2018 budget is available on the bottom of the budget site: https://www.cityofmadison.com/budget

Information on the upcoming budget meetings:

• Tuesday, November 13 @ 5:30 p.m. in Room 201, City-County Building
• Wednesday, November 14 (if needed) @ 5:30 p.m. in Room 354, City-County Building (If Dane County finishes their budget deliberations on November 12 the meeting will be in Room 201)

The agenda for both of those meetings is available here.

If there is anything I can do to help, feel free to reach out: district19@cityofmadison.com

-Keith F