Eric Murphy
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City finance director David Schmiedicke presents information about Madison's 2025 budget deficit to a west-side audience May 16.
Madison leaders have not yet decided whether to seek a city-wide referendum to address a $27 million budget deficit in 2025, but there are early signs of opposition to additional taxes.
Before the start of a May 16 budget engagement meeting at Vel Phillips Memorial High School, a group of west-side residents handed out flyers accusing Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway of creating the deficit: “You mean the mayor was spending money she didn’t have? Yep! That’s what a deficit is.”
The flyer, which was also emailed with a news release to the media, took aim in particular at the city’s spending on human services, especially in the last few years. “The human services budget in the city ballooned after the federal COVID funds arrived in 2021. We don’t know what the city is spending it on.”
Spokespeople for the residents include Nino Amato, a former city council member, and Randy Bruegman, a former fire chief in California who now lives in Madison. “I believe that most people would oppose the referendum until there is greater transparency regarding the city’s expenditures and potential areas for reduction,” Bruegman said in a statement emailed to media. “The only viable way to catch up is by cutting unnecessary programs and personnel. Both the police and fire departments are not viable options for reduction.”
A number of groups appear to be joined in this effort, including Friends of Sauk Creek and a new group calling itself the Tamarack Trails Women’s Leadership Group.
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway’s chief of staff Sam Munger fired back at what he says are “off-base” and “easily disprovable” claims in the flyer. “This is pretty clearly not actually about the budget — it’s about particular, mostly extremely local, projects that people are opposed to, and their attempts to use the current public discussion around city finances as simply another way to push back on them,” he says in an email to Isthmus.
“City spending is incredibly accessible and transparent — the public can track every phase of budget development and passage on the city budget website, from what agencies ask for to what is ultimately passed by the Common Council to how actual spending compares to budgeted, and we invite them to do so,” he adds. “The claim that residents can’t access accurate information regarding what the budget is being spent on is simply not true. I think we need to ask as a community why we are letting a small group of privileged residents spread disinformation about the city and its budget.”
City leaders are currently considering their options to fill a $27 million structural deficit in the operating budget, which is expected to grow in future years. A ballot referendum in November for the full $27 million is one option — others would be cuts to city programs, services or staff; hikes to fines and fees; or a combination of methods. State law prevents the city from raising its own local sales tax and certain other ways of generating local revenue.
The city did recently get some surprising good news on its budget situation — once the books for 2023 were closed, the city was actually $31 million in the black. In his statement, Bruegman asks why a referendum is necessary now that the city is anticipating a surplus this year.
City finance director David Schmiedicke answered that question at the May 16 meeting.
“That’s one-time money,” he said, noting it is the result of higher than anticipated investment income and lower spending. “If we spend that one-time money in that one year, the deficit will just reappear next year. Can that one-time money be a part of an overall plan? Certainly. But it’s not going to address the long-term issue.”
Schmiedicke also took several questions from residents about cuts and budgeting. While service cuts are being considered by alders, additional spending will be needed to maintain services that currently exist for a rapidly growing city, he said. “Not increasing spending is a reduction in services. That’s the trade-off in the end,” said Schmiedicke. If spending isn’t increased to keep pace with inflation and higher staff costs, “then something else will have to be reduced.”
Munger argues that Madison’s current budget situation “is the direct result of laws passed by former Gov. Scott Walker and the state Legislature that prevent city funding from meeting the growing needs of our community.” The city’s share of state revenue funding has continued to shrink over the past two decades, says Munger. Madison receives just $29 per resident from the state while the statewide average is $195 and some smaller towns received nearly $1,000 per resident.
Jayne Meyer, a member of Friends of Sauk Creek who attended the meeting, tells Isthmus the city “would have to show where they’re making some significant cuts on their own” to win her support for a referendum. “The answer isn’t necessarily, okay let’s immediately ask for $27 million, but let’s look at a combination of what we might end up having to do. Maybe a referendum for some of it, maybe we can do some program cuts.”
Amy Kell of the Tamarack Trails Women’s Leadership Group says that a more organized opposition effort to a referendum will depend on how alders respond to community feedback about spending concerns. “If the city works with us and restrains things the way we’re suggesting…I think we could find a way.”
Among the group’s suggestions is to identify cuts to “unneeded services in transportation and human services” and to stop the practice of cost-to-continue budgeting, where the city budget assumes the same level of services in the following year.
Three more budget engagement events are scheduled: at the Goodman South library on May 29, intended for south-side residents; at the Madison Municipal Building on May 30, intended for downtown, campus and isthmus residents which includes a virtual attendance option; and June 5 at Black Hawk Middle School, for north-side residents. City residents are free to attend any of the meetings.
