More on the Monona Budget

First, the Monona City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget next Monday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the Media Room of the Library. Feel free to show up and offer your comments on specific items or overall priorities on stuff you like or stuff you can't stand.

The new police traffic safety officer is attracting a lot of interest and I plan to do a separate post on that issue and the police/dispatch budget.

The budget is largely a status quo budget (except for the added officer). For a more detailed discussion of the overall budget go to my earlier posts: Monona Budget Proposed by Mayor Kahl and Monona Budget Meeting. To see the budget itself go to: Proposed 2009 Budget.

This past week's budget meeting covered the Library, Parks, Police and emergency communications, and all the general government areas. A general observation: we have solid to truly exceptional staff in all these areas.

For the first time ever I do not plan to put in an amendment asking for more library funding. I know, I can hardly believe it myself. The library will receive a 2.23% increase from the property tax levy, but the Director and Board believe we can not only operate within that budget but improve our operations. This confidence is partly due to the capital funding that the council approved for 2008 and 2009 that will fund collection expansion and also to grants the library is receiving, but the real reason to have this confidence is the exceptional staff led by Demita Gerber. The Board adopted her proposal for increased hours and the creation of a deputy director position to ensure smooth operation now and to plan for succession.

In Parks and Rec, which includes the parks, rec programs, the outdoor pool, and the community center, there are not a lot of changes. P&R Director Jake Anderson has some excellent programming ideas and ways to generate more revenue by creative fee structures. He proposes a some fee increases, but also structural changes at the CC and Pool. Many of the fee changes serve to make the fee structure more rational with different fees for different CC rooms and different amounts of time. At the pool, Jake proposes to offer pool rentals beginning at 6:30 p.m on Saturdays and Sundays instead of 8:30 p.m.

As previously mentioned, we are also planning to buy new floating docks for the Winnequah Trail and Tonyawatha boat landings.

I have a high comfort level that Jake will successfully carry out city policies with creative doggedness. He's planning a couple more movie nights and a concert in the park. He's developing a program for dogs-in-the-park (to-scare-the-geese). The program, BTW, does not require an ordinance change or much funding. And he is engaged on Woodland Park, is pursuing implementation of the professionally developed plan that we paid for, and is flexible in developing the plan based on new information. Along with many others, I have championed restoration work in Woodland Park. At long last, I do not feel like I personally have to make sure that the action plan does not just sit on a shelf (and Jake, if you are reading this post, don't get the wrong idea; I'm still paying attention!).

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The most noteworthy part of the discussion on general government operations (using the term broadly) is debt service and use of the fund balance. The good news is that our debt service will decrease next year by about $200,000. That decrease is essentially locked in. The bad news is that Moddy's (Moodys.com) threw cold water on the idea of using more of our fund balance. My thought was (and still is) that we should use some of the fund balance to hold down this year's levy increase. I really doubt that using another $60,000 and having a 17.5% reserve will actually impact our future rating.