Man, I miss Warren Onken. The council ended up, to me, looking like whiny kids who didn’t get their way and voted more about who they like or don’t like instead of on a good policy and no one was able to craft a reasonable compromise. Who would believe after all the marching around the capital the council wouldn’t vote for a .5% increase in pay for some employees who got a 1.5% increase (not police and fire, probably paid less than them as well) instead of the 3% (police and fire) increase others got? Seriously? What happened to all that union talk? It will take 5 – 6 years to get the two groups back to being equally compensated (referred to as parity or equity). This is a result of contracts that expired at different times. It is also the result of the forestry fee and the council left $288,000 that could have been spent in the budget. This would add $3 to the $64 increase for taxpayers. In the end, the .5% increase to the city workers was turned down.
Wow, they must have had a really good reason to do that, right?
Wish I could say yes.
They used every excuse in the book. (full, poorly typed recap here.) Fingers were pointing in every direction.
– The mayor didn’t communicate well.
– The mayor didn’t say anything at the meeting at 1:00 in the morning.
– The mayor didn’t mention this during the BOE meetings.
– The mayor didn’t make a budget amendment. (Well, I don’t think he could when there was money left on the table at 1am – he’s the chair and can’t make a motion.)
– We didn’t understand that when the mayor wanted a 10 minute recess this is what he meant.
– We don’t want to use $217,000 from general (rainy day) fund ($30 – 40M) for these expenses, its too risky. (Seriously?)
– They need this extra money for upcoming tough budgets? (Again, really, in a $200,000,000 budget?)
– They can work on this later, when they have more time.
– They were tired and can’t think about this now.
– They feel good about their budget they passed (not the mayor’s budget)
– The worked really hard on this. We put our heart and soul into this.
– “This stinks” (can you just hear your favorite 3rd grader saying that when you tell them to go to bed.)
– We’re done with the budget.
– This change came too late.
– The mayor didn’t like the increase in the forestry fee and then he used it, that’s not fair.
– The mayor disrespected them.
– The mayor lectured them.
– This is the right thing to do, just the wrong time. Bidar “not this way, not now.” (Seriously? MLK Letter from a Birmingham Jail “justice too long delayed is justice denied” 5 – 6 years of not getting paid as much as city employees.)
The goofiest thing was the council was all bent out of shape about
– Process
– Transparency
I’m not sure I understand those issues. This is the process. Executive branch of government presents a budget, the legislative branch of government tinkers with it. Executive branch of government either signs it or vetoes it. If the executive branch vetoes it, the legislative branch then can override the veto. In this case, the mayor attempts to avoid the drama and WORK WITH council leadership on his concerns. Council leadership crafts an amendment so it doesn’t get vetoed. Council pouts cuz they don’t want to work on it any more, they’re tired. Maybe they shouldn’t do the job if this is just too hard for them. Besides, they got their pay raise, what’s the big deal?
The transparency thing is even more perplexing to me. The mayor met with council leadership and told them exactly what he wanted to do at 8:30 the next morning! He called council members to tell them, but stopped short of a walking quorum (can’t talk to more than 10 or 13 or 14 people, depending upon the issue and how many votes it needs to pass.) The meeting was properly noticed the Friday before. The amendments were out 24 hours in advance (except the fiscal note came out at about 9 – 10 am). It’s about as good as it gets when there is a threatened veto. It was pretty clear to me what was being proposed, it wasn’t that complex after they talked about the $200,000 budget for 3 months.
This was the whole amendment.
Fiscal Note
This resolution amends the adopted 2015 operating budget by increasing general fund expenditures by $595,100 to fund an additional 0.5 percent pay increase for general municipal employees. This will result in a total pay increase in 2015 of 2 percent for the estimated 2,000 FTE employees that are not Police and Fire commissioned staff. This increase in expenditures is funded through an application of $217,000 from the general fund balance. Of this amount, $117,000 is related to one-time items in the adopted budget related to services to the homeless. The expenditure increase is also funded through deleting a new $100,000 allocation of room tax revenues to the Madison Area Sports Commission and increasing the transfer from the Room Tax Fund to the General Fund by an equal amount. The remaining expenditures are funded by using $278,100 of the remaining $288,274 in allowable increase under the state levy limits.This amendment will result in total General Fund expenditures of $283,698,932, an increase of 2.87 percent from 2014. The resulting levy will be $203,148,433, an increase of 2.37 percent from 2014. The estimated mill rate is 9.509.
Title
Amending the 2015 Adopted City Operating Budget, including compensation for general municipal employees, use of general fund balance applied for certain one-time items and items funded from the room tax fund.Body
WHEREAS, the Common Council adopted the 2015 City Operating Budget at its budget meeting that convened on November 11, 2014; and
WHEREAS, the adopted budget had $288,000 of unused levy limit authority remaining; and
WHEREAS, the adopted budget included funding to support a collectively bargained pay increase of 3.0 percent for Police and Fire commissioned staff and funding for a 1.5 percent pay increase for general municipal employees;
WHEREAS, this differential in pay increases is detrimental to employee recruitment and retention and will be difficult to recoup in future years; and
WHEREAS, providing funding for an additional 0.5 percent pay increase for non-Police and Fire commissioned staff, for a total pay increase of 2.0 percent, would help to mitigate that differential in the long-term; and
WHEREAS, the adopted budget includes one-time funding of $117,000 for transportation, laundry, storage and youth services needs associated with homelessness; and
WHEREAS, the adopted budget includes $100,000 from the Room Tax Fund for a payment to the Madison Area Sports Commission functions shared with the Greater Madison Convention and Visitors Bureau (GMCVB) as well as $215,400 related to the first year of a multi-year effort to increase, from 20 percent to over 30 percent, the share of room taxes paid to GMCVB for destination marketing; and
WHEREAS, the City’s General Fund balance has sufficient resources above the stated goal of 15 percent of General Fund expenditures in the subsequent year to provide support for one-time expenditures and to share in the cost of employee compensation; and
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the 2015 adopted City operating budget is amended to do the following:
1. Apply $217,000 from the General Fund balance for one-time funding for services to the homeless that are included in the adopted budget and to share in the cost of an additional 0.5 percent pay increase for general municipal employees.
2. Delete a $100,000 payment to the Madison Area Sports Commission and increase the transfer of room tax revenues to the General Fund by the same amount.
3. Appropriate $595,100 from the General Fund ($750,000 all funds) to Supplemental Compensation to support an additional 0.5% pay increase for general municipal employees.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, these amendments will be included in the reported 2015 adopted City operating budget and that the City budget resolution that establishes the 2014 property tax levy will be amended to reflect these changes.
They couldn’t deal with that little language after three months of discussing the budget. I don’t buy it. All of the excuses were pretty ridiculous. And the council looked less than professional and pretty petty.
The mayor smacked them pretty hard.
Mayor says that you heard alot about process and transparency, comparisons to Washington and state capital, but there are no specifics, he would like to hear what they are. A budget is not a series of programs, but linkages. He is concerned about the fact that if parity is an equity, if we do not make the commitment to it at this time, this money will be spent elsewhere. He is particularly concerned after amendment after amendment spending funds after the forestry tax. He was comfortable until they doubled the forestry fee and when they did that and didn’t include parity, a serious problem occurred. He says when the forestry fee was proposed by Clear or Schmidt he made it clear he was opposed on a matter of principle because it is regressive. It has a disparate impact on lowest and most modest income families, even when distributed to property tax exempt entities. He asked staff to look at the fees and when they looked at landfill and remediation, given the size of the fund they could make reduction in the fee comparable to the forestry fee, he said he was willing to go that far, about a half a million that is offset by the landfill remediation fee. We talked about that at BOE and you know the outcome. He says they were meeting programming and meeting with units to get to parity as close as possible, but he couldn’t get it over 1.5%. That disparity and lack of parity weighed heavily on many of us, he tole them his objective was to get to 2%, you have a solution before you which is workable that can be done now today, it involves only one cut, that is the $100,000 for the Madison Sports Authority and now we will talk transparency! On Wednesday he met with council leadership, he expressed the concerns and agreed to meet the next day at 8:30 to see what they could come up with, nothing hidden there. They took input form all of us, he had three meetings til 11:00 and much of what was fashioned was fashioned by others, it has only one cut. He wants to talk about that item. $100,000 about the sports authority, he spoke to some of them about this, by the way he didn’t talk to the public employees and they weren’t involved and didn’t know until later that day until labor relations staff met on the handbook with them when he informed them of what they were working on. He talked to 5 of them about the Madison Sports Authority, asked what the money was for, how was it vetted, how was the org chosen, what were the deliverable and not a single person could tell him. Is there anyone in this room, besides someone who works for them, can tell us what the money is for. Where is that transparency, where are the standards they apply to the nonprofits and give them hell over 15,000, they file paperwork, they sit in meeting, they answer questions and there are so many out there that don’t come to us anymore, because of the challenges and demands we make in the process and transparency. He recalls so many times they tried to respond and be nimble with special funding and people said no we can’t do that, even when they set up the emerging fund they make people go through the process, where was the process for the $100,000? And where was the lack of transparency to preparing this amendment. Remember when we marched around the squared and with a flourish we signed contracts, how much more transparency was there then. That is only half way through, the rest is capital budget, for now he will spare them, except to make the observation of taking care of it later, he absolutely believes it is true, the situation is so serious, he believes the council will act and take care of it. It is clear from the meeting with council leadership and staff that there is an appreciation as to how severe the problem is. There are some other things that he doesn’t think they have seen. He wants the Municipal Building (Judge Doyle Square) he wants it postponed for half a dozen years. This is not new, they had 4 presentations, about debt service and the capital budget, he can do another presentation tonight. There is the question of parity and fairness, there are no issues regarding transparency, that is a fraud, if you are concerned about transparency, talk about the sports authority. This isn’t their fault, they didn’t ask for it. He had hoped to not say anything, at this point in the discussion, some faint hope this motion would be approved, its clear from what people said it will not, not sure if it will be successful on reconsideration. He would be glad to answer questions about transparency and openness especially after someone tells him about the sports authority.
He should have just vetoed the budget, of course the result would have been the same, the people who are all whiny would have voted against the mayor no matter what he said. Lisa Subeck and Mark Clear were missing from the meeting, but I don’t think they would have made a difference. Of course, if the mayor vetoes this, a different set of people will be gone and that could.
So, why do a miss Warren Onken. When things got messy on the council floor Warren would turn around, talk to Ken Golden and Jean MacCubbin, talk to Mike Verveer and me sitting next to him, maybe get up and go talk to someone who cared alot about the issue or Tim Bruer and craft some sort of a resolution to get us out of the soup. That kind of skill is just lacking on the council. He was always the adult in the room when we started getting silly. Didn’t like voting for some of his solutions, but you kinda couldn’t help it cuz he was always so damn right. They don’t have a Warren Onken any more.
Instead, we have this . . .
From: Schmidt, Christopher
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2014 1:29 AM
To: All Alders
Subject: The non-update updateHi All,
Mayor Soglin did not indicate to me what his intentions are regarding a veto. He leaves town at 9:30am Wednesday (today), so I expect we will know by then. If we need a special meeting, Tuesday November 25 at 6:30 or later was the best choice with 18 Alders indicating they could attend.
more to come,
Chris
Mayor is leaving town at 9:30, so we’ll see what is in the clerk’s office at that time.
I just have to note, no one ever addressed the mayor’s concern about the Sports Authority. Rummel simply noted she voted against it, what’s the story behind that one? Why didn’t anyone try to justify it?
It’s silly season, elections are coming up, many people are making political and personal decisions instead of doing what is right for the city. Makes me sad. Anyone want to run for office? Let’s talk!
