The Madison City Council is scheduled to adopt its budget for the upcoming fiscal year at its June 28 meeting.
Unless something is changed at the last minute, the upcoming budget projects General Fund expenditures of $5,640,353 – more than $800,000 less than the previous year – and a total budget of $22,937,516.
The largest General Fund expenditure is, as always, the Madison Police Department with a total cost of $1,824,105, but that figure is $121,845 lower than last year’s budget.
However, the Madison Fire Department will cost $57,515 more with General Fund expenditures of $398,690. The fire department also hopes to replace Engine 22 at some point in the near future. The fire department responded to 235 calls in 2012 but that number rose to 446 by 2022.
The city will cut more than $500,000 from funds budgeted for buildings and grounds compared to last year, but the finance department will cost $112,527 more, with most of that extra expense involved with employee benefits and compensation.
Revenue from property taxes is slated to increase by $225,000 for a total of $1,825,000, but Madison City Manager John Klimm insists a tax increase is not going to happen.
According to a letter penned by Klimm that was included in the city’s 163-page budget book, the upcoming budget differs from past drafts in several ways.
“Like so many other U.S. cities, our decades-old incremental budget served this community well over the years, but we are in need of a transition to a performance-based budget,” Klimm wrote. “That will not be fully accomplished overnight, as our budget format is decades old. Citizens increasingly want to know not only where their hard-earned dollars will go, but just as importantly, they want to know why.
"But, of course, we cannot set real community priorities unless and until the community has told us what their wants, needs, hopes, and desires are. That is why we propose, in this budget, a comprehensive community survey to be conducted over the coming year, so that our residents and taxpayers have a real say in setting our priorities.”
Madison’s department managers were tasked with creating a plan that justifies the spending level being requested for the new budget.
Madison has already initiated an organizational change that streamlines the city’s organizational chart into six distinct departments: Police, Fire, Public Works, Finance, Planning and Development, and Human Resources.
“Similar to our local businesses and our residents, the cost of operations from fuel to vehicles, to equipment are all more expensive than they were several years ago,” Klimm wrote. “We are not proposing a property tax increase next year as a solution to dig ourselves out of the looming financial challenge. We are going to do what our citizens do regularly when they face financial challenges at home. They tighten their belts. They economize. They make choices and set priorities. They go without. Shouldn’t we do the same?”
A study recently completed by the engineering firm Carter and Sloope determined water and sewer rates were too low “to account for proposed capital expenses and that residential solid waste rates do not cover leaf and limb pick up, junk truck, and proposed capital expenses.”
The conclusion: “It is our recommendation that rate and fee adjustments be considered over the next five fiscal years. The city should evaluate the effects of these adjustments at each interval to determine if projected trends are accurate and if additional increases are necessary.”
An evaluation of the city’s compensation plan for employees revealed that numerous positions in Madison have not remained competitive.
Klimm suggested instituting residential, and possibly even limited commercial, glass recycling and a new communications system called CodeRed that improves the connection between the city and its citizens, especially in times of emergency.
Klimm also wants to draft a storm-water management plan to address the drainage and flooding issues and supports renewed commitments to the police and fire departments, including a new fire station, funded by a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST).
As he explained at the first budget meeting on May 28, Madison will continue to work on solving downtown parking problems and a Madison bypass “to get those trucks (not servicing businesses downtown) out of downtown, once and for all.”
The Madison budget book for the next fiscal year also has more columns of numbers and percentages. It also includes a look at the City of Madison as it is currently situated.
According to the budget book, “Madison is currently growing at a rate of 1.04% annually and its population has increased by 3.17% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 4,141 in 2020. Madison has a population density of 526 people per square mile. There are 872 minors and 3,269 adults, (925 of whom are seniors) in Madison.”
Men make up 45.2 of the population and women 54.8 percent.
The median age for males is 31.3. Women are slightly older with a median age of 42.6.
Madison’s population is 62.64 percent white (2,594 residents) and 36.06 Black (1,458 residents). The remainder is classified as other races with 1.67 percent (69 residents) or two or more races at .63 percent (26 residents).
Almost 17.82 percent of Madison residents have an undergraduate degree with 17.69 having advanced degrees.
The Madison workforce has changed over the last several years and 25.4 percent of employees work in education or library occupations, a figure that is up 123 percent from the previous census. Another 26.7 percent work in production and manufacturing with 18.2 in food service, production, or related occupations, an increase of 200 percent.
Sales jobs have declined by 22 percent and office jobs by 35 percent.
The Madison City Council held a public hearing on June 21 to hear input from citizens on the budget, but the meeting only lasted a few minutes when no one showed up to challenge it or approve of it.