A new online tool encouraging civilian participation in the 2014 city budget conversation turned up “curbside composting” as a primary concern among community members, and Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, said an amendment expanding the current pilot program addresses that demand.
Resnick said the proposed additional $83,547 would create another full-time compost collection position within the current city program and cover transportation costs to support expanding the pilot project to roughly 5,000 more homes and several downtown businesses.
Other proposed amendments include $53,000 more to go toward replacing and adding surveillance cameras downtown, increasing the Overture Center for the Arts funding from $1.45 million to $1.6 million and allocating the Madison Police Department $35,000 in addition to Madison Mayor Paul Soglin’s proposed $65,000 to put more officers downtown and along State Street Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.
Composting was the most sought-after initiative Madisonians said they wanted to spend taxpayer dollars on, according to IdeaScale, an online solicitation tool the city used to garner a local consensus about how to distribute more than $275 million. Resnick said he authored the composting amendment to honor the between 1 and 1.5 percent of the population that participated in IdeaScale.
“The number one idea from that program, and this is around a six-week initiative, was composting,” Resnick said. “So I felt that at the very least we should listen to that kind of feedback, and that was part of the justification for bringing forward the amendment.”
Resnick also said the city will most likely use the online discussion format in the future and said there is actually $50,000 in the budget to increase “tech-related initiatives when it comes to communication with constituents and community engagement.”
Resnick also co-sponsored an amendment to transfer funds freed up by lower-than-anticipated fleet service fuel rates to maintain Metro Transit bus rates. Resnick said although the city cannot afford to pass all 31 amendments alders offered, he is “fairly confident” the Metro Transit one will be approved.
According to Resnick, the proposed amendments, totaling approximately $630,000, would overshoot the budget levy by about $290,000 if accepted. Therefore, Resnick said the Board of Estimates and city Council will have to make some “difficult” decisions to reject certain amendments before voting on the budget in November.
