Monona Budget Vote Preview

The Monona City Council takes up the 2009 operating budget and tax levy on Monday, December 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Media Room at the library. To see the agenda and packet go to: City Council 12/1/08

In this post I am only covering the proposed amendments. (For an overview of entire meeting see Monona Council Preview)

For more on the overall budget, see previous posts on the Monona city budget: Monona Budget Proposed by Mayor Kahl and Monona Budget Meeting and More on the Monona Budget . To see the budget itself go to: Proposed 2009 Budget

Alderman Miller's name is on the proposed amendment to eliminate the proposed new police officer for traffic enforcement. Based on prior discussions my guess is that will pass.

Mayor Kahl proposes a related amendment to add police overtime in the amount of $35,580 - to be funded by a $35,580 increase in fines. I would support adding some OT, but this increase in fines (even with increased penalties) seems like a stretch.

Alderman Wiswell proposes to add $5,000 for 50 stop signs to be installed at 25 intersections. At the last meeting he proposed that the city council could select the locations. His source of revenue: fines.

OK, that ends the traffic engineering portion of the budget.

Alderman Wiswell also proposes to eliminate the entire $7,700 amount in the CATV budget for 'new transmission methods'. That funding was proposed by the committee to pay for live web streaming and start up cost for the LPFM radio station (basically a low-cost, low-powered community radio station for Monona and immediate environs). I give the committee big kudos for this proposal that improve communication between the government, schools and residents and amongst the residents directly.

I propose to use an additional $55,740 of the fund balance to hold down the levy. This amendment would leave us with 17.5% in reserve and would reduce the levy by $14.23 on the average homeowner.

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There are also seven capital budget amendments. One thing to bear in mind is that we have already borrowed for the 2009 capital projects (we did a two-year borrowing for the 2008 and 2009 capital projects.)

I propose to use $25,000 from boat launch fees to pay for new floating piers at the Winnequah Trail and Tonyawatha boat launches.

Alderman Wiswell proposes to eliminate $25,000 for a new unmarked car for the fire chief from the budget.

Alderman Wiswell proposes to reduce street ROW tree replacement from $30,000 to $20,000.

Alderman Wiswell proposes to reduce the playground equipment budget from $15,000 to $5,000. When I was chair of the Parks Board we worked hard to develop a maintenance program for the parks, including adequate funding for new playground equipment. Alderman Wiswell is co-chair of that committee, but did not take this proposal to the Parks Board.

We have added playground equipment at Maywood Park and Oneida Park the last two years. Other parks still have some pretty sad equipment. Moreover, $5,000 is not enough to buy one park's worth of playground equipment.

Alderman Wiswell proposes to reduce the senior center budget for a computer lab upgrade from $15,000 to $12,000. I chair that committee, but I have no knowledge of this proposal.

Alderman Wiswell proposes to reduce the community center budget for interior painting from $6,500 to $4,000. Again, this proposal did not come through the Parks Board that oversees the Community Center.

Alderman Speight proposes $20,000 for traffic safety improvements. The proposal would create a placeholder for to-be-determined capital projects to improve speed control and public safety.