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A move to consolidate and reduce the number of city of Madison committees is getting a new push.
City of Madison residents currently serve on 71 committees, 56 of which are hosted solely by the city, Deputy Mayor Christie Baumel said during a presentation to alders at the Jan. 28 city council meeting. Comparable cities — state capital cities with universities — have around 35.
City employees staff these panels and are typically on standby to answer questions during committee meetings, Baumel said, arguing that reducing the number of panels would save taxpayers money and streamline city government.
“Nobody’s proposing not to do the work,” Baumel said. “It’s a matter of how.”
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and several alders plan to introduce an ordinance this month to combine three committees that address community services and two that focus on economic development. The CDD Conference Committee, Downtown Coordinating Committee, Ho-Chunk Nation-City of Madison Coordinating Committee and Public Safety Review Committee would be eliminated — Baumel said these committees have largely gone dormant. Further consolidations or eliminations are already planned.
Alders voted in 2017 to create a government structure task force examining inefficiencies in city government; among its recommendations was reducing the number of city committees. Dane County Supv. Keith Furman, a former council president, was on the task force and a subsequent implementation group. He tells Isthmus now that he supports the current consolidation effort and believes it will help boost civic engagement.
“The single biggest reason to do the committee consolidation is for the residents,” Furman says.
He says that proposals are now sometimes referred to “four or five” different committees, posing a burdensome time commitment for those who wish to come and speak on an issue.
“It really ends up giving an advantage to people that have more time,” says Furman, calling it an issue of “equity.” “It’s a really broken process.”
At the council meeting, Ald. Marsha Rummel told city staff she’s concerned about potentially shifting power from the public to city staff. She noted that one of the roles of the Public Safety Review Committee was to review the police department’s budget.
“You want to throw that away for good?” Rummel asked.
