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 operating budget provides money for running City departments and services. It pays for the day-to-day spending on employees and materials and supplies.
Agency Requests
Agency requests are the first step in building Madison’s budget. These proposals are ideas from agencies on how best to achieve the goals outlined in the Mayor’s budget message. The Mayor and the Common Council will decide which of these potential reductions to make as they finalize the 2026 operating budget.
For the 2026 operating budget, the Finance Department is launching a new digital budget book through ClearGov. This digital budget book will improve user experience by providing web, mobile, and PDF formats that are easy to navigate.
Print copies of the budget book will be available at all branches of the Madison Public Library. We will also update this webpage with additional resources on how to navigate the digital budget book in the upcoming days.
