Council prepares for busy budget agenda

Kristin Czubkowski  —  11/07/2008 1:51 pm

The Madison City Council will take up discussion of nearly 75 amendments to the capital and operating budgets at next week's council meetings.

The amendments range from adjusting the cost of supplies for several departments all the way to delaying the opening of Fire Station No. 12 on the far west side, and several of them will revisit what have been some of the more controversial aspects of the mayor's budget in recent weeks.

For instance, Alds. Brian Solomon and Satya Rhodes-Conway have proposed a third alternative to raising bus fares on Madison Metro after seeing two others fail at the city's financial committee.

The amendment is a compromise between two earlier ones, Solomon said, that preserves many of the benefits of raising the fares that Mayor Dave Cieslewicz included in his budget while maintaining bus fares at $1.50 instead to $2. By not adding money to Metro's reserve fund, reducing the amount spent on the low-income bus program Transit for Jobs and reducing the amount spent on transfer point security, the impact on the tax levy will be $242,000 instead of $682,000.

While the two Metro fare amendments failed 2-4 at the Board of Estimates meetings on the budget, Solomon said he hopes to convince enough council members that keeping fares the same will benefit many different stakeholders in the city.

"I would love to see us all stand up and say, regardless of where we come from, that either everybody agrees that this is potentially negative for the long-term health of Metro, for the economy and for low-income ridership, or that every single one of us can grab onto at least one of those and say, we don't want to that for this reason," he said.

Solomon is also the main sponsor of an amendment to re-itemize the Office of Community Services budget. The mayor changed the budget into a lump-sum for money paid to individual agencies for community services in an effort to "de-politicize" the community services budget on the council floor, but Solomon said he is concerned the amendment will take away the voice of those agencies in the budget process.

"Yes, that could lead to political decision-making, but what doesn't?" he asked. "When the police come to us and say, 'We have these terrible, terrible issues and we need more police,' is that politicized? Yes, but there's a need and we talk about it and we make a decision based on what we see."

Two other operating budget amendments deal with the city's hotel room tax fund, with one adjusting a previous amendment by putting a minimum and maximum on what the Greater Madison Convention and Visitors Bureau can receive as an increase this year, and the other invalidating any sort of increase at all.

Ald. Brenda Konkel, who authored the amendment to eliminate the increase, said the city should follow the terms of its contract which the bureau, which guarantees the bureau 20 percent of room tax funds each year. Moreover, she said the earlier amendment is based on a study that has yet to be approved by the council and was done, in her opinion, at an illegal meeting during a Board of Estimates break.

Ald. Michael Schumacher, who has been the main supporter of increasing the amount of money given to the bureau, called allegations of an illegal meeting "hogwash" and said the most important part of the increased money given to the bureau is that it will keep Madison's tourism industry competitive.

"When the product and the service is of quality, but you're not getting the customers in or you want to increase the numbers of customers coming to, you need to learn market and sell," he said. Schumacher said he was "cautiously optimistic" that the increase in funds directed toward the bureau that was passed at the Board of Estimates meeting would stand, with at least 11 council votes needed to overturn it.

Konkel is the main sponsor on 33 other amendments and a co-sponsor on five more, which have an almost neutral impact on the budget between cuts and increases. The most controversial of hers may appear to be an amendment to delay opening Fire Station No. 12 on Madison's far west side. That amendment, though, is not what it seems, she said, calling it a direct response to editorials written questioning the opening of the station.

"I think it's important that the fire chief has the opportunity to come before us," she said. She said she expects the fire station to move forward, but that a discussion on the council floor will to clear up public misconceptions on the station.

Other key amendments for next week:

-- Restoring funding for Madison public television station WYOU in future years.

-- Providing sick leave for hourly employees.

-- Eliminate the Citizen's Academy in the police department.

-- Implement a recycling program at city parks.

-- Keep park restrooms open during normal park hours between April 1 and Oct. 1.

-- Restore the weekly large-item collection reduced to every other week in the mayor's budget.

-- Removing funding for multi-space street meters until the city negotiates low credit card fees.

-- Restoring funding for neighborhood grants to 2008 funding levels.

-- Creating a landlord registration program for residential and commercial buildings.

-- Provide funding for homeless outreach workers and create an eviction prevention program.

-- Restore the Office of Community Services' cost of living increase and add up to $390,000 in its budget for increased services.

-- Restore funding for a full-time Healthy Neighborhood Liaison.

-- Provide funding for two "auto-chalking" machines to make the parking ticket process more efficient.

-- Delaying several streets projects including County M to County PD, County M at Midtown Road, Valley View Road, Watts Road and County M through County S.

-- Remove 2009 funding for Central Park.

-- Remove funding for a parking garage at the Madison Municipal Building.

-- Restore funding for planning a public market in Madison.

Kristin Czubkowski  —  11/07/2008 1:51 pm