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December 17, 2005

Analysis: Madison's budget process

This year's City of Madison budget was a vehicle for several significant insights to the Council's current state. With a backdrop of priority setting, pledge making and positioning for the future, there is a book's worth of short stories to write about the budget. But we've only got so much space, so here are the items of most interest to progressives. Thanks to Kristian Knutsen of the daily page for providing alot of data and analysis that helped us with this article.

Memo to local government: City residents view this as their budget

In spite of the difficulties people had navigating the City's budget debate and registration process, the City budget proved to be a very public document with more than one hundred of people weighing in on dozens of amendments over an unprecedented three days of debate by the City Council. Initially, the Mayor's budget has held out as giving everyone a little to love, a little to hate. Instead, the Mayor's budget proved to be a good draft, but one that needed some serious editing; Alders and the public went to work in earnest.

Full funding for Metro, in the wake of dramatic fare increases and promises to avoid dramatic service cuts, mobilized teachers, students, sane transportation policy advocates, bus riders, communities of color, workers, and advocates.

The attack on planning councils, led by Alders Zach Brandon and Larry Palm, mobilized neighborhood activists from across the city, moving the council to reject the 11th-hour sea-change in policy in favor of a future full debate.

The business community showed up to support bus shelters on the square and to oppose a handful of items.

The list goes on, and the testimony clearly helped some alders decide their votes. The public had a good day.

Pledges give way to actual priority setting; progressive ideals carry the day. Of keen interest to the Madison media was the emergence of a large group of alders that pledged fealty to an arbitrary line in the sand for the tax levy (a 4.1% increase, as compared to the final outcome of 4.3%). But when the debate moved beyond the headlines and onto the actual budget, the hard core Tax Cappers looked a lot like the parade at end of Animal House: a small group of marchers stuck in a deserted alley with Drum Major Brandon squished up against a wall.

Metro was made whole. Sister Cities, Race Study Circles, neighborhood planning councils, an extra neighborhood planner, a child care inspector, a receptionist at the senior center and Sunday hours at the downtown library avoided the axe. Funds were added for snow removal for disabled access to public transportation, the City's Weed and Seed coordinator, planning for Regent Street, and a bus route for LaFollette students.

Taxpayers were protected from a big bump in the levy by new revenue sources from the Transit Utility and developers and targeted cuts to overblown budgets in some agencies.

In every instance progressives voted with a diverse, varying list of centrists and conservatives to win key changes to the budget. Priorities had a good day.

Perhaps ironically, Progressive Dane endorsed alders proved to be the real centrists when it came to balancing progressive ideals and the effect on taxpayers.

  • While voting for increased funding for the initiatives noted above, every one of the seven alders endorsed by Progressive Dane cast votes that would have had a net result on the property tax levy of between $29,000 and $124,000 lower than the budget that was presented to the Council.
  • To no one's surprise, conservative Alders Brandon, Cindy Thomas, Jed Sanborn and Paul Skidmore were five of the top six budget cutters, mostly due to their votes to let Metro whither. Alders Judy Compton, Paul Van Rooy and Santiago Rosas broke ranks to support Metro and other initiatives.
  • And what became of the 'moderates'? Palm proved to be an outright libertarian, voting against, well, just about everything, even more so than the conservatives. Ald. Lauren Cnare similarly allowed herself to be shackled by her pre-budget pledge. Alders Noel Radomski and Isadore Knox acknowledged they'd been duped by the supposed appeal of the Almighty Pledge and voted as the independents they said they would be.

Finally, the Mayor broke from his hard stance and embraced a budget that was built from the ideas he began while incorporating modest, but important changes that position Madison well for the future. Representative government had a good day.

Posted by prodane at December 17, 2005 09:10 PM