Tonight starts the City Council marathon meeting. We will be meeting tonight, tomorrow night and likely Thursday night as well. Here’s a few things you should be aware of:
PUBLIC TESTIMONY – WHEN, HOW LONG, HOW OFTEN
Public testimony will be taken tonight. I’ve talked to several people who expected to be able to speak tomorrow night, but that’s not how we traditionally do it. We take all the testimony this evening. However, if people show up on Wednesday or Thursday, I’ve promised to make a motion to suspend the rules to allow people to speak. However, it is not encouraged and there won’t be any forms so you’ll have to let an alder know that is why you are there and then the council would have to vote to allow you to speak. And then, the rest of the council will have to vote to allow you to speak and I can’t guarantee that the vote would pass.
Also, this is a public hearing, so people have 5 minutes to speak, instead of 3 minutes. It is strongly encouraged that you speak to all the items in those in each of the budgets in those 5 minutes. However, we have over 70 items and you can speak for 5 minutes on the Capital Budget Amendments and then 5 minutes on the Operating Budget Amendments. If you really can’t do it and your items are really diverse, it may be possible that the council would suspend the rules and allow you additional time. Again, I can’t guarantee that would happen. I can make a motion to suspend the rules, but the vote has to pass the council.
REGISTRATION SLIPS
The meeting starts at 6:30 and it is recommended that you show up at that time. If you’re late, you can register as long as you register before we get to your item. However, it is always difficult to know how many people might show up, so we do recommend that you show up around 6:30 so you don’t lose out on your opportunity to speak or register.
There will be two registration slips there this evening. One slip is used early testimony, for those who have issues that make it so that they have to leave early. Health issues, transportation issues, childcare issues and the homeless folks who need to get to the homeless shelter by a certain time can use those slips and speak first. Questions can be taken for those folks immediately so that they can leave and get to wherever they need to go. Everyone else’s testimony will be taken in order of budget amendments, first Capital, then Operating.
Several people choose not to speak but instead fill out a registration slip. If you want people to know which items you support or oppose, I’d recommend that you fill out a separate slip on each item. It’s really hard for the council to keep up if a bunch of items are rattled off by number. On that note, when speaking, it’s probably better to not refer to budget amendment numbers unless you also say what the subject is, we don’t have the over 70 amendments memorized by number.
IF YOU CAN”T MAKE IT
If you want to give us input and can’t make it to the meeting, the easiest way to reach most of us is to send an email to allalders@cityofmadison.com and mayor@cityofmadison.com. Most of us will read our email before (or during) tonight’s meetings. And, if you hear things during public testimony tonight on things that we will be voting on later, you can email us over the next two days.
WHERE WILL WE BE?
Tuesday night we will be in our regular room at the City County Building Room 201. If you want to testify, you should show up at 6:30 to register. We will take all public testimony first and then discuss the amendments.
Wednesday night the clerk has it listed as MONONA TERRACE, ONE JOHN NOLEN DRIVE, MEETING ROOM K-R, but yesterday I found out that we will likely be in the same room as Tuesday since the county board finished their budget last night.
Thursday night we will be the MONONA TERRACE, ONE JOHN NOLEN DRIVE, EXHIBIT HALL B.
BIG PICTURE ISSUES
There are two huge issues that we will all be concerned about throughout the budget discussions. The first is if this budget is going to be sustainable into the future. The Mayor very foolishly put the $3.9M of TIF windfall money into the budget. That means that next year, we have a gap of $3.9M in revenues, some of which will come from more of the TIF windfall. In 2010 we won’t have that money. This, combined with adding 30 police officers is really stressing our budget. The police officers are of concern because the costs for 2008 are not a full year of costs since the officers start in February or May and the following year we will need to pay the full year of their salaries. So, adding 30 officers will cost far more in 2009.
The second issue is that if we add more than about $364,000 to the budget, we will go over the state imposed levy limits and we will lose about $5M in state aids. Alder Brandon has amendments in place to fix the windfall issue above and to spend that one-time money on one-time costs, but that then will put us over the levy limits and end up costing us $5M in state aids, and we’ll have to raise taxes to pay for that. At the moment, that’s a lose-lose situation.
THE AMENDMENTS, WHAT ARE WE VOTING ON
Here are all of the amendments.
Capital Budget
Operating Budget
What we actually end up voting on is the Mayor’s Capital Budget and the Mayors Operating Budget, plus the Capital Budget Amendments and Operating Budget Amendments that pass over the next three nights, plus the amendments that passed the Board of Estimates.
