Mayoral candidate Dave Cieslewicz announced a strategy Monday to offset looming city budget cuts.
The plan includes a 5 percent pay cut for the mayor and his staff, a hiring freeze until 2003 and the elimination of out-of-state travel by city employees. Doyle’s current budget proposal would mean $3.5 million in cuts to the city of Madison, 27 percent of its revenue.
Candidate Paul Soglin held a press conference Monday after Cieslewicz’s announcement to criticize the plan.
Jane Richardson, Soglin’s campaign manager, said Soglin respected Cieslewicz’s effort, but his lack of specificity did not reflect the complexity of the issue. He said he would hold meetings with city officials if elected to thoroughly discuss the issue before creating a plan.
Cieslewicz bristled at Soglin’s criticism and criticized his lack of specific recommendations to address the problem.
“I have a plan, but Paul’s plan is to wait and hold a bunch of meetings, ” Cieslewicz said. “Soglin wants to avoid tough choices.”
Soglin said his own experience and “seasoning” make him the best candidate available to handle budget issues.
Cieslewicz agreed that Soglin has experience, but it is “experience in raising taxes.” Cieslewicz criticized Soglin’s unwillingness to “share the pain” if elected mayor and cut his own salary to maximize available city funding. Cieslewicz said salary cuts would save $50,000.
Soglin said savings would already be made in the new administration when long-time employees with raises over the last six years would be replaced with new employees. He also criticized Cieslewicz’s proposal to eliminate travel by city employees, saying the value of improvements and suggestions gained from employee travel could easily outweigh the travel money saved.
Cieslewicz said in response that he decided to cut travel funding because it was one of the few cuts he could make without creating a directly harmful impact on city services.
Cieslewicz’s 10-point plan to manage state-aid cuts also included a review of budgeted capital spending, the consolidation of city and county health services and the study of a tax-base sharing plan the Twin Cities has used for over 30 years, which would spread out 60 percent of money from new developments over surrounding neighborhoods.
Cieslewicz also proposed energy-saving techniques to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to save money in the long term.
The cuts include a 7 percent cut to Madison’s shared-revenue programs that include police, fire and city services like garbage collection and snow plowing. Cieslewicz said he would lobby to make shared-revenue cuts more evenly shared by Wisconsin cities.
His campaign manager, Anna Landmark, said Doyle’s current proposal bases revenue cuts on the city’s average income, and because Madison is a relatively rich city, it will bear more weight in revenue cuts. She said Beloit is facing cuts of only 3.5 percent, and Milwaukee’s funding will be cut 4 percent.
