The highest office in the city comes with many daunting tasks, an for Mayor Dave Cieslewicz that means wading through an intimidating budget.

Cieslewicz will be forced to make some difficult decisions in this economic recession, and he took time to speak to the Herald before presenting his capital budget to the council Sept. 1.

The capital budget controls the city’s borrowing for large purchases like equipment, while the operating budget, which is due to the City Council Oct. 6, gives Madison’s agencies the funding to operate.

The mayor outlined the challenges of the 2010 budget in e-mails to the city department and division heads.

“As we look forward to our 2010 budget, we are facing drops in revenue, cuts in state aid and an economy in deep recession,” Cieslewicz said in the e-mail.

According to the e-mail, if spending continued on the same level as last year, the increase in the amount the city would levy in property taxes would be 13 percent.

In confronting this and other challenges of “the toughest fiscal environment in [the mayor’s] seven budgets,” Cieslewicz asked the city’s department and division heads to submit two budgets: one detailing how much it would take to operate as the agency currently stands and the other one with a 6 percent cut in funding.

Cieslewicz wrote to the department heads that his goal is to find ways for agencies to keep their base budget, but the 6 percent in cuts gives him “a menu of options” if the cuts prove warranted. In other words, the cuts are currently hypothetical situations not set in stone, but the mayor does reserve the right to make some of the cuts a reality.

For example, Madison Police Department Chief Noble Wray submitted his department’s budget with the 6 percent decrease.

According to the budget, more than $2 million would have to come from the salaries and benefits of 33 police officer positions, in addition to cutting nearly $600,000 from the crossing guard program.

“I don’t want to cut anything that would impact public safety,” Cieslewicz said. “I don’t want to do anything that would affect … basic services that we count on.”

As an alternative, Cieslewicz suggested finding other ways of saving money. For example, he said large item garbage pickup could be switched from having trucks roam the streets daily to once every two weeks, or perhaps on a monthly basis.

“We have to ask ourselves: Do we really need to do everything we do?” Cieslewicz said.

Other fiscal decisions are mounting during the budget season. According to Cieslewicz, the city of Madison currently has four hotel proposals; one of the proposals includes the proposed new central library.

Another hotel proposal is the controversial redevelopment of the Edgewater Hotel, which Cieslewicz has stated to other media will be in his capital budget.

“We have met challenges before and I am confident that, working together, we can meet them again,” Cieslewicz wrote.

Check badgerherald.com for the official announcement of Cieslewicz’s 2010 capital budget.