While Mayor Paul Soglin’s 2015 operating budget allows for raises for some city employees, he said state legislation from 2011 is still prohibiting other public employees from seeing their salaries increase.
Soglin said the amount of money available to the city is controlled by the city’s growth and the tax base, as well as spending limits imposed by the state. However, the city is inhibited by spending imposed by the state government and Legislature that limits city spending and tax increases, Soglin said.
“It’s basically a straight jacket they’ve put us in,” Soglin said.
Mike Mikalsen, chief of staff for Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, said the legislation in 2011 that capped tax increases was a property tax levy limit on local governments like the city of Madison. The tax limit only allows for Madison to raise taxes by the amount of new growth it has, which includes new buildings and new developments within the city, he said.
The limit was set to protect taxpayers from former yearly increases that made it difficult for some people to afford their homes, he said. By effectively freezing property taxes in some areas and either slowing the increase of property taxes or even decreasing property taxes in other communities, Mikalsen said the law has been successful.
“In general, the law has been extremely effective in doing the main mission, which is to protect the interests of homeowners and renters,” Mikalsen said.
However, Soglin said the legislation has created an unhealthy separation in the pay of city employees.
The budget allows for a 3 percent raise for the police and fire departments in 2015, and other city employees will not receive a pay increase, he said.
Everything is up for grabs, Madison Police Chief Mike Koval said. He said the new city budget suppresses police officers, firefighters and other city employees’ ability to properly manage public safety and health.
Gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke said Gov. Scott Walker’s revenue cuts for municipalities hurt local police and fire services, according to politifact.com. However, there is no evidence that the cuts have directly hurt the size of law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin, the Politifact report said.
Koval said the new budget was supposed to allow for the addition of at least two new police officers to the force. That addition has been up for negotiation as the budget tries to compensate other aspects of the city.
MPD has lobbied for new police officers since the spring, Koval said, and he expects they will continue lobbying for the additional officers through the fall.
“I’m in charge from discerning what’s best for the public safety for Madison … I’m going to do my very best to lobby aggressively for assets that I believe supercede other things people are lobbying for,” Koval said.
Without the proper funding toward public safety and health, Koval said it will be challenging to maintain Madison’s position as a top 10-rated city.
Nothing may be negotiated now, Soglin said, but there is hope for resolving the city’s monetary problems after the state Legislature elections.
The operating budget will be reviewed by the Board of Estimates this month. It will then be presented to the Common Council to be finalized the week of Nov. 10.