After city Council approved the $192 million Capital Budget and $267.1 million Operating Budget this week, Mayor Paul Soglin signed the City of Madison 2013 budget Friday.
The Operating Budget appropriates $1.75 million for the Overture Center for the Arts and does not increase Metro Transit bus fares for the coming year. Highlights of the Capital Budget include funding for two Metro Transit hybrid buses and a biodigester, a machine which decomposes organic waste.
In an unprecedented move, the Council considered bundled sets of amendments for both the Capital and Operating Budget instead of voting on each amendment individually.
Common Council members voted 16-4 for both the Capital and Operating Budget amendment packages during deliberations Tuesday and Wednesday.
Council President Shiva Bidar-Sielaff said at the Operating Budget deliberations Wednesday she hopes her idea of bundling amendments can begin earlier and involve all Council members in future years.
“I fully realize because it was a last minute idea, it wasn’t fully flushed at maybe its best of how it could work,” Bidar-Sielaff said.
But while Bidar-Sielaff said there is room for improvement, she said “looking at things [in the budget] in correlation to each other” was a worthwhile new idea.
Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, said despite the city operating in difficult financial times because of a decrease in state aid and lower property values, the Council and city staff were able to produce a working 2013 budget.
Resnick said the city will face challenges in 2014 because officials do not know how the state will calculate municipal aid and it will also have to face an increased debt load.
“Our challenges ahead in 2014 will only be more difficult, but I do believe both with the future members of the Council and the current administration, we will work through our issues,” Resnick said.
