News and Updates

With last week’s referendum passing on the ballot by approximately 57% of the vote from Madison residents, the City’s 2025 Operating Budget will now reflect a boost in revenue to avoid $5.6 million in potential cuts.  With a number of proposed cuts involving MPSEA-represented positions, we are pleased to see that these drastic measures are no longer necessary to close the City’s budget gap, and we support the upcoming steps to adopt the additional property tax levy per the referendum.

In addition to maintaining staff positions, a 3% wage increase at the beginning of 2025 for general municipal employees remains part of the proposed 2025 Operating Budget.

The Common Council meetings for the 2025 budget hearings will take place on Tuesday, November 12, at 5:30 p.m. in hybrid format. Agenda items include budget deliberations and adopting the additional property tax levy.  If the Council doesn’t finish its work on the budgets during Tuesday’s meeting, the Council will reconvene in additional budget hearing meetings on the 13th and 14th as needed.

Additional Resources:

• Statement from Mayor Rhodes-Conway on the City’s Referendum Result

• November 12 Common Council Meeting Details

  • Meeting Agenda

  • Register for Public Comment

  • Watch Online

• 2025 Operating Budget Executive Summary

  • Note that the alternative budget (referendum not passing) can be disregarded.

As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to any MPSEA Board members.

Solidarity,

The MPSEA Board

The Wisconsin Policy Forum is hosting a free discussion on the upcoming referenda in Madison! This event will focus on the November 5 Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) referenda to raise property taxes by $100 million more than otherwise allowed under state law over the next four years and to allow the district to borrow up to $507 million to renovate or replace 10 schools. In addition, there will be a discussion on the $22 million operating referendum for the City of Madison.

There will be a brief presentation on the facts about the ballot questions and their impacts. Afterwards, there will be an interview with the Mayor and MMSD superintendent about the questions and follow that up with a discussion with two panelists.

Thursday, October 17, 2024

6:00 -- 7:30pm

Edgewater Hotel

1001 Wisconsin Place, Madison

Registration is free but required for this event. Register here.

At the upcoming Common Council meeting on August 6, the Mayor and members of the City Finance team will be presenting their vision for a sustainable long-term plan for the City’s budget in upcoming years:

• Link to Council Memo (from the Mayor)

• Link to Presentation Slides

• Link to Agenda Item (Legistar)

  
  

These topics presented will be open for both Council discussions and public commentary.

MPSEA leadership will be in attendance and there to speak, and this is also an opportunity for all members to have their voices heard on these subjects by either contacting the MPSEA Board or registering to speak themselves.

IMPORTANT REMINDERS IF CONSIDERING REGISTERING TO SPEAK:

• Because this topic includes a proposed referendum, do not use any City resources, including City equipment, supplies, computers, telephones, vehicles, or uniforms to advocate for or against any referendum result. This applies while working or while off duty.

• City employees may appear before the Council or other City bodies regarding a resolution to authorize a referendum or other legislative action, and may indicate their City tyle or position while doing so, provided that they are off duty and do not use City resources to engage in that activity.

Below is a calendar outline of related 2025 committee and council budget actions through the end of the year:

• Common Council (CC) Meeting:

  • August 6

    
    

  • Presentation and Public Comments

    Heard,

    No Council Action

• CC Special Meeting

  • August 20

  • For Voting/Action Only, No Public

    Comments

    
    

• Executive Budget Introduced CC

  • October 8

• Finance Committee (FC) Briefing

  • October 14-15

• FC Amendment Meeting

  • October 28

• CC Amendment Week

  • October 30-November 8

• CC Budget Adoption Meetings

  • November 12-14

Please reach out at any time to any MPSEA Board Member with additional questions ahead of these pivotal dates.

Solidarity,

The MPSEA Board

MPSEA Members,

You will notice that your next paycheck shows a bump in wages. It has been an ongoing goal of MPSEA over the last several years to eliminate pay gaps between our members and sworn MFD / MPD Staff. This wage increase of 2% now eliminates that aforementioned pay gap.

We would like to thank our partner organizations of Local 6000, Local 236, and the MCAA for their ongoing efforts with us in helping to make this happen. We would also like to thank the Mayor for making employee wages one of the priorities in budgeting and, looking even further ahead, we appreciate the Mayor’s verbal commitment on working to ensure that pay gaps will not re-emerge in 2025 and beyond (this would mean an upcoming wage increase of 3% around January 1, 2025).

As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to any Board member.

Solidarity,

The MPSEA Board

Thank you to the many members who stepped forward to share their own stories and data related to the ever-increasing demands on City staff. MPSEA has taken this information into account and provided THIS write-up to the Mayor and the Common Council to put additional background to the City's ongoing budget discussions. They have heard, and will continue to hear, the impacts upon staff as we work to continue to provide quality services to the residents of our fair City.

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MPSEA and our Coalition partners firmly believe that a solution to the City’s projected budget shortfall needs to address long-term structural deficits rather than rely on short-term measures such as furloughs or cutting staff.

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Next Steps:

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• At tomorrow’s Common Council meeting on 3/19, THIS guidance document for developing the 2025 budget is on the agenda. MPSEA supports this guidance, as it outlines important measures to protect against cutting staff; to further educate the public about the circumstances that contributed to the current budget issues; and to provide additional opportunities for making clear the importance of the work that we all do for the City every day.

• If you haven’t yet - please consider attending the upcoming MPSEA annual meetings on April 11th, and complete the RSVP/survey for another in-person opportunity to coalesce and ask questions of both the Mayor and the MPSEA board. Plus, free food and drinks!

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We will continue to post updates and information as it develops, and please reach out to any MPSEA Board member at any time.  Thank you for all your help and support.

Solidarity,

The MPSEA Board