Madison’s city Council unanimously voted to approve the $192 million 2013 Capital Budget Tuesday.
Included within the Capital Budget is a package of amendments, which was introduced Nov. 7 by Council President Shiva Bidar-Sielaff and President Pro-Tem Chris Schmidt and sponsored by 14 alders.
Council members approved the amendment package, which includes providing city funds for two Metro Transit hybrid buses, eliminating funds for a digital model of the Isthmus and designating funds for a biodigester, a machine to decompose organic waste, on a 16-4 vote.
Mayor Paul Soglin introduced his own amendment changes to the budget Monday, but Council did not vote on the package.
Some city officials who did not co-sponsor the set of bundled amendments said they thought voting on the package as a whole detracted from the discussion amongst all Common Council members.
“Neither of these packages is completely perfect,” Ald. Lisa Subeck, District 1, said. “I wish we could’ve hammered out one package all together.”
Additionally, Ald. Jill Johnson, District 16, said the 14 alders co-sponsoring the package without discussion from the entire Council “gives the feeling of a party you weren’t invited to.”
Before the deliberation on the Capital Budget, approximately 30 community members spoke on the budgets, many of them speaking in favor of the Council’s amendment to grant the Overture Center for the Arts an additional $900,000 for a total of $1.75 million in city funding. The Council will vote on Overture funding at its next meeting Wednesday.
In the original executive operating budget, Soglin dedicated $850,000 to the Overture, which was a $1 million cut from the $1.85 million the city gave to the arts center in 2012.
Soglin has proposed granting the Overture $1.35 million, but $500,000 would be contingent on funds from Friends of Madison Parks, which owes the city $350,000, and on how the Council decides to use premium funds.
Overture President and Overture Center Foundation CEO Ted DeDee said he supports the Council’s amendment.
“[Overture] cannot be fiscally responsible and carry $500,000 worth of ‘maybe’ on our books,” DeDee said.
Madison’s city Council will deliberate on the operating budget Wednesday.
