District 19 Capital Budget Agency Requests

Capital Budget Process

Madison's annual budgeting process begins with the capital budget and plan – investments in assets that have long lives and funded with borrowings rather than current property tax receipts. Our property taxes do pay for the debt service – interest and a gradual repayment of the principal.

The Capital Budget is for investments to be made in the following calendar year – in this case 2027. The Capital Improvement Plan covers the succeeding five years – in this case 2028 through 2032. We take this long view because many projects take multiple years to complete. The annual process begins with all city agencies submitting their requests for capital projects. Documents available now include the full capital requests list (713 pages), a summary (110 pages), and a Finance Department overview of the implications (28 pages).

Madison has a goal of holding annual debt service to 18 percent or less of the total tax levy. Sustaining this ratio has allowed Madison to maintain the best possible debt rating for many years and therefore get the best possible interest rate and competition from many fund sources. Since the requests for 2028-32 would push us over that 18% goal, there will probably be some surgery on this list as we move to the Executive Capital Budget and amendments approved first by the Finance Committee and eventually by the Common Council.

District 19 Agency Requests

I've combed through the available documents and highlighted the following major requested investments in District 19 projects. The acronym “TID" stands for “Tax Increment District". As noted above, some of these projects may not make it into the final adopted budget in November 2026. District 19 is also benefited by projects identified as “city wide" and not included here.

• Community Development Division 
  • TID 41 affordable housing fund (University/Whitney Way): $1,389,332 in 2027
  • TID 46 affordable housing fund (Research Park): $10,457,562 in 2029
• Economic Development Division
  • TID 46 small business loans (Research Park): $550,000 in 2027 and $500K in 2028
  • TID 56 small business loans (Grand Teton): $250,000 each in 2027, 2028, 2029
  • TID 57 small business loans (Medical Circle): $250,000 each in 2027 to 2032
• Library
  • Alicia Ashman flooring: $115,000 in 2027
• Police
  • Body-worn cameras for East, Mid-Town, and West districts: $214,550 in 2029
• Public Works Pavement Management
  • Resurfacing N High Point between Old Sauk and Norwalk: $1.35 million in 2028
  • Norman Way/Wood Circle reconstruction: $1.97 million in 2028
• Parks
  • Marshall Park boat launch improvements: $300,000 in 2027
  • Owen Conservation Park repaving: $800,000 in 2027
• Madison Metropolitan Sanitary District
  • S Yellowstone capacity increase: $860,000 in 2027 using TIF funds
  • Whitney Way offramp sewer crossing $534,000 in 2028
• Stormwater
  • West Towne Pond enlargement: $3.0 million in 2027 for the project that is starting in 2026
• Madison Water Utility
  • Unit well #16 (6706 Mineral Point) improvements: $165,926 in 2032
  • Norman Way main replacement: $800,000 in 2028
  • N High Point main improvements: $50,000 in 2028
  • Risser main improvements: $900,000 in 2029
  • Ozark Trail, Antietam, Shenandoah, Jetty, and Natchez main improvements $900,000 in 2029
  • Greening and Camus main improvements: $516,000 in 2031