Monday, November 17, 2025

City of Madison Adopts 2026 Budget

I'm pleased to share that the City of Madison has adopted the 2026 Operating and Capital Budgets, and Metro’s budgets were approved without any amendments from the Administration or the Common Council.

While the substantial deficit identified for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 remains a critical challenge, the 2026 budget provides an essential opportunity to pause, evaluate, reassess, and improve how Metro conducts its operations and delivers service.

2026 Operating Budget Goals

Metro’s 2026 Operating Budget is focused on maintaining service and utilizing data evaluation to inform future improvements:

Moving Forward: The 2026 Division Work Plans

Metro’s leadership team (GM, Chiefs, Supervisors, and Managers) will immediately begin a deep dive into our existing processes, system needs, policies, staff coverage, professional development, organizational structure, regulatory compliance elements, contracts, and agreements.

This comprehensive review will culminate in the 2026 Division Work Plans. These plans will serve as our primary tool for accountability to the public, administration, council, and each other.

Each Division’s Work Plan will focus its priorities around these four critical areas:

• Doing the Basics Well
• Safety and Security of all Metro staff and riders
• Financial Stability
• Improving Communications (internally and externally)

Thank you for your continued dedication to Metro and our community. I look forward to this period of evaluation and strategic planning, and I’m committed to building a financially stable and high-performing transit system for the future with you. I’ll continue to provide updates as the 2026 Division Work Plans take shape.

2025 City & County Combined Employee Giving Campaign Oct 20- Dec 2

An invitation from Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway.

“You are invited to participate in the 2025 City & County Combined Campaign to support local and national nonprofits who are doing vital work to make our community better. If you are a returning donor, thank you for your past support!

Giving Campaign Website
There are also tabs at the top of the link page with more information in selecting an organization. 

If you are ready to give, you may participate online

It's your choice! You can give through:

• Payroll contribution during 2026
• Credit card (processed now, or options to charge later - one time, monthly, or quarterly)
• ACH (one time- processed immediately)

City of Madison Employees

• Enter your User ID. This will be your Employee ID # (4- or 5-digit number).
• Enter your password. Your password will be wi + your birthdate in 8-digit form. (Ex. August 27, 1990 is wi08271990)

When you click on Give Online button it will give you the option of updating your password.”

Compensation Study Update

An update from HR Director Erin Hillson.

“Last week we held several meetings where Baker Tilly presented their findings and draft pay plans resulting from the citywide Compensation and Classification Study. If you were unable to attend one of these meetings, a recording is available as is the presentation shared by our partners at Baker Tilly.

Some of the key highlights of the findings include:

1. In general, City compensation is very similar to that of our closest market peers, even when not factoring in the up to 12% longevity that City employees benefit from.
2. Notably, 86% of City positions are “at” or “leading” market at the midpoint. This means that the vast majority of our positions are paid about the same, or even more than the organizations we were compared to.
3. Only 3.5% of City positions were significantly lagging the market, and most of those were hourly positions.
4. The benefits we provide are equivalent to, or better than, most of the other Cities we were compared to.

We have published the full presentation including some of the initial findings on the HR website, along with the proposed new “grades” or “ranges” that the City’s existing employment classifications would be placed into. As you review the new pay ranges, there are a few things I want to remind you of:

1. These proposed pay plans need to be aged forward to add the (generally 3%) wage increases employees received at the beginning of this year, as well as any increase given to employees in 2026.
2. These findings are still being finalized, and the report is yet to be completed.
3. The changes proposed as a result of the compensation study, including the new pay plans, will need to be implemented as part of next year’s budget process, including approval by the Common Council. Before that occurs, the Steering Team and HR will develop a training and implementation plan that they will use to provide recommendations to decision makers.

Any position studies we receive are being placed on hold until we have modified our Position Study process in accordance with the Baker Tilly evaluation process. Questions can continue to come to hr@cityofmadison.com while we work through the next steps of this process. However, we will be sure to continue to update you as we complete next steps.  

Thank you for your time and attention last week, as well as your patience related to our communication of these findings.”

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