The budget debate might have been the first salvo in the election campaign between Mayor Paul Soglin (left) and Ald. Scott Resnick (right).
The Madison Common Council fought Mayor Paul Soglin Tuesday night in an epic battle over the budget that involved lots of grandstanding, speechifying and what may have been opening salvos in the 2015 campaign for mayor.
Soglin was demanding -- with the threat of a veto -- that the council reopen debate on the 2015 budget it approved last week, a $231.8 million operating budget and a $264.7-million capital budget. The mayor's principal demands were that the council give an extra half-percent raise to non-police and non-fire employees and amend the capital budget in order to reduce borrowing costs by $20 to $30 million. He also objected to approving a $100,000 grant to the Madison Area Sports Commission, without specifying what it is for.
The council refused in a series of votes. And on Wednesday, Soglin issued a statement saying that although he would not veto the budget, he would not sign it either, meaning it goes into effect without his approval.
Here are a few takeaways from the spat, which can be watched on Madison City Channel.
Some council members really hate the mayor
Local historian Stu Levitan, who is chairman of the Landmarks Commission, says he has to go back 50 years to find a similarly contentious relationship between the mayor and a common council. Mayor Henry Reynolds, who was mayor from 1961 until 1965, fought bitterly with his council, Levitan says.
"Reynolds was censured by council in '64, relations were terrible," Levitan says. "The relations between the council and Mayor Soglin are approaching that."
Levitan, who watched the meeting at home, says "It sounded to me like a lot of the debate was very personal. It wasn't based on the substance of the policy."
Levitan surmises that the relationship has grown so contentious that the council voted against something most members support -- bumping non-police and non-fire employees from a 1.5-2% raise. (Police and fire employees are slated for a 3% raise.)
"How many alders in their heart of hearts thought what the mayor was proposing was a good thing, but they just wouldn't go along with him?" Levitan wonders.
In all, 13 alders voted against giving the extra half percent raise, with only David Ahrens, Marsha Rummel, Paul Skidmore, John Strasser, and Ledell Zellers voting in favor of it. Two alders, Mark Clear and Lisa Subeck, were at a conference in Austin.
The mayor's handling of the budget has clearly damaged relationships with even some allies, like Rummel. She refers to last week's budget deliberations, saying she wished that Soglin would have been more upfront about his desire for a bigger employee raise. She says that his tactics felt manipulative, noting he could have raised the issue of pay raises last week during the council’s initial deliberations.
“It looked like he was calculating whether to say [something] or get some drama out of it,” says Rummel. “I felt disrespected that he chose the drama.”
Regardless of the mayor's tactics, it's hard to see how he comes out looking bad. He pushed for a tiny raise and some of his opponents voted against it.
Former Ald. Brenda Konkel says: “Maybe the mayor outsmarted them, but he handed them something they could have voted for and felt good about.”
The Act 10 factor
This brouhaha never would have happened had Gov. Scott Walker not signed Act 10, which eliminated collective bargaining rights for most public workers.
In the past, the Common Council has been told to stay out of employee negotiations on pay and benefits. These were generally handled through union negotiations with the mayor's office, and then rubber-stamped by the council.
But with public employees now restricted in what they can negotiate for, Ald. Larry Palm feels the council needs to begin paying more attention.
He suggests that members of the Board of Estimates review employee contracts each year before beginning the budget process. “Post Act 10, the council cannot be so complacent,” Palm says.
Neil Rainford, a spokesman for AFSCME Local 60, which represents some city employees, doesn't disagree.
"There was a system in place prior to Act 10 that worked very efficiently to help employees and management to work together," he said. "We're in a period of transition in the wake of that and still feeling our way."
Mayor's race heats up
Soglin is facing a reelection campaign against Ald. Scott Resnick, former Ald. Bridget Maniaci, former Dane County Supv. Richard Brown and activist Christopher Daly.
"Last night will figure heavily in the mayoral campaign," says Levitan, who considers Resnick the leading challenger. "Last night was certainly the opening salvo of Resnick v. Soglin."
Resnick immediately turned the fight into a campaign point, issuing a statement and telling Isthmus that "Paul Soglin continues a top-down leadership style where he places all of his priorities above listening to others. We need to look at how to unify not divide."
Ald. Mike Verveer, a supporter of Soglin, says that the budget fight might have happened anyway, but politics added fuel to the fire.
"This being silly season, it just upped the ante and made the mayor and some of his critics amp up the rhetoric more than it needed to be," Verveer says.
City borrowing out of control?
The mayor's other main point of contention was that city borrowing for capital projects is getting out-of-hand.
In this, he had an ally with Ald. Ahrens, who has often been a foe on other issues. Ahrens outlined to the council how payments on debt are slated to grow by 8% by 2020, which would force the city to cut its operating expenses by that much. Ahrens said 8% is the equivalent of $19 million.
"Where are we going to come up with that kind of money? It's not going to be police and fire or roads and public works," he said. "It's going to be the rest of the budget. If we shut down the library system, we'll be short [of the needed cuts]."
"We are going deeper and deeper into the hole," he added. "We can fire 150 people and ask the rest of the people to take a 5% pay cut. Or we can shut down the bus system, that's $9 million."
Although many council members agree that the debt needs to be reined in, several people say the picture isn't quite as dire as Ahrens paints.
Ald. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, who did not return a call from Isthmus, told her colleagues the problem couldn't be fixed in one night or a few weeks. "There is no urgency here," she said. "The urgency is starting in 2016, which means we can have a measured and thoughtful process."
Verveer says that the city never borrows all of the money it authorizes in a capital budget, as numerous projects never get approved or are delayed. "The whole issue of the capital borrowing is somewhat of a red herring although we're somewhat guilty of not being truthful in budgeting."
However, he adds that the council and the mayor did informally agree to take a closer look at the capital budget in coming months to amend it, removing projects that really aren't a priority.
Palm says the mayor's desire to hike the pay of employees doesn't jive with his concern about lowering the debt.
"I cannot fathom his story line," Palm says. "He says, 'I'm concerned about the city finances and budgets in future years, therefore, I took money out of a savings account, to create more pay [for employees], that every year after I will have to cover.' Then he calls me 'fiscally irresponsible.'"
Don't rush the budget
When the council met last week to approve the budget, it did something unusual: it wrapped up its work in one night. The council schedules three nights of meetings on the budget each year and often uses all three of them.
Ald. Lauren Cnare told the council Tuesday night that's clearly a better approach.
"Budget's always take at least two nights," she said. "Let's not fake it next year."
Verveer agrees: "We should sleep on our initial recommendations and take advantage of at least two of the three nights we leave for budget negotiations."
Overall, it was a depressing night for Verveer. "In all my years on the council, I really felt like last night was a low point for city hall in terms of how personal the tenor of the conversation was and how rushed everything was," he says. "It was a rotten position for all of us to be in, the council, the mayor, city employees, who ended up being pawns."
