The hour of 430,
having arrived,
I will call to order the
Finance Committee meeting of Monday,
July 27th, 2026,
and ask Director Schmedekiti to
please call the roll.
Council President Madison?
Here.
Alder Revere?
Here.
Alder Bidiver?
Here.
Alder Evers?
Holder Vankella?
Here.
Holder O'Brien?
Mary, go for them.
Thank you.
I assume that Alder Ever's
dog is making noise and thus he's
not unmuting.
Thank you, Alder.
Our first item is
general public comment.
We have a number of people
registered for general
public comments.
I, however, do not see
them on the Zoom.
So I would just ask our
tech facilitator to confirm
that.
I do not anyone except
for Mary and the attendees,
Mayor.
To his city staff.
So it's the will of the
body, but might
be appropriate to have
a motion to table
item one, which is general public
comment to the
end of our agenda to see if
folks do show up.
A motion to table the
public comment until the end of the
agenda to give folks time to join.
Second.
Moved and seconded to place on
the table. Is there any objection to
placing this item on the table?
Seeing none, that is
on the table.
Then are there any disclosures or
recusals on items on
tonight's agenda?
Seeing none.
And we'll move on to the
consent agenda.
In addition to item one, which is
now on the table,
and we have, I believe,
presentations on items 16
and 18.
So those will be separated.
Are there any other items that
members of the body would like to
see separated from the consent at
this time?
I'm Alda Revere.
Thank you, Mayor.
We could please separate agenda
items three and
13.
And I vote three
and thirteen.
And I was gonna suggest agenda item
nine because the fiscal note
was inaccurate, but we just noticed
it looks like it's been corrected
since I reviewed the agenda earlier
today.
Thank you, Alder will separate items
three and 13.
Thank you president Madison
Not on this but I did get
a message from someone who said they
registered to speak but did not get
a link an email link
Can we have our
tech facilitator just check on that,
please?
Yes.
Thank you.
All right, are there any other items
that members of the body would like
to see excluded from the consent
agenda? Alder Viteber.
I just, very
briefly, items two and four allow
our continuing staff
to just say hello.
Thank you all there.
Are there any other items
that members of the body
would like to see separated from the
consent agenda at this time?
Seeing none, then we will be
separating items one, two, three,
four, 13,
16, and 18.
If I could get a motion please on
the balance of the agenda, which
will stay on consent.
Move to adopt.
Sorry, second.
I moved and seconded to adopt
the balance of the agenda
and the recommendations therein.
Is there any objection to recording
unanimous vote in favor?
Seeing no objection, we'll record
that vote and
move on.
So our first item
then is item two,
which is legislature 94051.
I'm pleased to submit to you
the appointment of David Schmidke
for a confirmation of an additional
five-year term as finance director.
And if I can get a motion in
a second, we could ask the director
to say a few words if you'd like.
Motion to accept or adopt.
Moved and
seconded to confirm.
And Director Schmidke.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you members of the Finance
Committee.
I'm honored to
have been asked
by the Mayor to continue serving
as Finance Director, and
I look forward to continue
work on a lot of the efforts
that we have around transparency
in the budgets, our efforts
around bringing data
into the process
for decision-making
and continuing
to to
serve both the mayor and the council
in the stewardship of the
city's financial resources.
So again, I feel very honored and
thank you again for this
opportunity to serve.
Thank you, Dave.
Are there any questions for
Director Schmidke?
Well, I would just like to
appreciate the fact that DeBecter
Schmidke is willing to continue
serving. I'm sure the rest of you
feel the same way.
So without further ado, it's
moved and seconded to recommend
confirmation to the full council.
Is there any objection to recording
a unanimous vote in favor?
Seeing no objection, we'll record an
enthusiastic unanimous in favor of
confirmation and move
to item three, which is
Legistrar 94053,
submitting the appointment of
Christine Knapp.
And Christine is here with us.
I'm delighted to introduce you to
her and recommend her
confirmation for a
five-year term as
the water utility general manager.
And if I can get a motion
recommending confirmation.
But I'm also.
To accept second.
Moved and seconded to recommend
confirmation.
Christine, welcome.
Thank you for joining us.
If you'd like to introduce yourself
to the body and just say a few
words.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you for having me, members
of the Finance Committee.
I am Christine Knapp, and I
look forward very much to getting to
know all of you and learning
the ins and outs of the water
utility and making
sure that my contribution to
the fiscal responsibility is
on par with what you're all
expecting.
So I could go on, but I will
leave that to the future.
But thank you for have me very much.
Thank you for being here.
Are there any questions for
Christine?
Seeing none, oh, all the bit of her.
Just, I mean, if you just want to
like a very brief,
like summary of like,
what brings you here today?
Like what's your background and
why, why Madison?
Sure, so I'm currently,
for the next couple of weeks,
the water plant manager for
the City of Cedar Rapids in Iowa.
And I oversee the
operations and regulatory matters
for our two treatment plants
in the city.
And why not Madison?
I've visited there and I've
loved it every single time.
And I think it was about three years
ago, I said I would.
Love to retire here and
I actually am possibly
going to see that happen.
So I look forward to that.
So yeah, thank you
Thank you alder any other
Any questions?
If not, it's been moved and
seconded to, Alder, Revere, go
ahead.
Yes, thank you mayor and I
separated this item first and
foremost so that we could meet
Christine so very warm
welcome from me, Christine.
I really look forward to working
with you.
Thank you for coming to Madison and
for being with us today.
I did have a question.
However, Mayor, not for
Warranty Utility General Manager
nominee, but rather perhaps
for HR Director Hilson
or for you.
And that is when I read the
contract that's before us employment
agreement.
It looks like perhaps
there might be inconsistency
in the provision that's
entitled general responsibility and
then further down personnel actions
as it relates to
direct reporting and
who the
general manager would serve at and
report to.
So I was just wondering if you could
clarify, obviously this is a whole
new world for us with the next
agenda item of our exciting.
New public works director and
how that all fits in.
But to be more specific
in general responsibility,
it says this position
reports to the
water board and the mayor
and works as a member of the
public works team, but then further
down under personnel actions, it
says the general manager serves at
the pleasure of the mayor, and
the director of public works.
So just looking for a clarification
and wonder if we need any.
Minor amendment to
the draft agreement.
Director Hilsen.
Not yet, you're still muted on our
end.
I can try and unmute
you.
There you go, you should be unmuted.
Yes.
Okay, thank you so much.
Yes, this is a
little bit of a new world for us,
but not entirely.
We are really excited about
Charlie's transition to
the Public Works Director.
And so there
will be a simultaneous
reporting requirement
between
uh Christine and
the mayor and the public
works director um
obviously it requires that
the two of them be on board with
um directions that she
receives that um they're
on board with any sort of
disciplinary action any sort
employment action
um that they may receive
but I think the call
out to the
board is really sort
of the reporting requirement to
the Board.
But I can take a look at that
after today's meeting and see
if maybe that needs to be tweaked or
modified so that.
It doesn't seem confusing.
Yeah, thank you very much, Aaron.
Just to clarify the water board
part, I totally get, and I'm sure
that's our past practice all
the years I've been here for this
position. My question was just
with Charlie now as our Director
of Public Works, and
my understanding of his new role is
that those divisions
in this department in the
Public Works team would directly
report to him and
perhaps continue to direct report
to the mayor as well. So I was just
wondering if we needed to.
Add director of public works in that
general responsibility section
that the position reports
to the board the water board
the mayor and the director of
yeah public works to make it
consistent with a section later
on about, again, personnel actions.
Yeah, I think that definitely adds
clarity so I can get that taken
care of before it
comes back to
Thank you so much, Erin, appreciate
it.
Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you all there.
Welcome again, Christine.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Alder.
Thank you Director Hilleson.
Is there any other questions or
discussion?
Seeing none,
it has been moved and seconded to
recommend confirmation.
Is there any objection to recording
unanimous vote in favor?
Seeing no objection, we'll record a
unanimous vote in favor of
recommending confirmation to the
full council.
Thank you for being here, Christine,
and we'll see you at the council
meeting.
All right, that will bring us to
item four, which is Legistrar 93925,
submitting the appointment of
Charles J.
Romines for a confirmation of a
five-year term as Director of Public
Works. I'm delighted to
submit this recommendation to
you.
And if I can get a motion,
please, to recommend confirmation.
Motion to accept,
motion to adopt, motion to- Motion
to recommend. Move Charlie here.
And second it.
Thank you.
I know that
Charlie
is traveling at the
moment and can't be here.
So perhaps we can forgo
any questions or congratulations
until the council meeting.
But it's been moved and seconded.
Is there any objection to recording
a unanimous vote in favor to I
recommend confirmation to the full
council.
Seeing no objection, we'll.
Record that vote.
And then that will
take us to
item 13, which is
legislature 93941,
approving a revised rate for the
2026 resource recovery special
charge and amending the 20 26
streets division operating budget.
On item 13.
Can I get a motion please?
Motions for adapt.
Moved and seconded to adopt item
13
Alder, Verveer, I believe you had
questions and Roger Kleist is
here.
Yes, thanks again, Mayor,
and welcome, Roger.
I think this is your first time
before this committee, at least
in your newly well-deserved promoted
role, so welcome and thank you for
being here.
Yeah, I obviously read the
resolution and I just had a couple
of curiosity questions.
The first one was it was
wondering, and I presume you know
the answer to these questions, but
anyway, I was wondering about
the $125,000 in
lost revenue projected from
Pelletary and our contract with
them.
And I was wondering if you could be
more specific as to
which recycled commodity
is the one that's
decreased in market value currently
and that sort of thing.
If you could explain the lost
revenue from pelotaries a little
more.
That's the cover.
We had a surplus in revenue
in the past, and
that's to cover up the last five
months of the year that we won't
have that surplus anymore.
So we'll have to cover the
additional tipping fees, how the
loss revenue and just what the
material is, that extra
money we had in the fund, and then
salaries that weren't covered by
that.
I see, so it's not that the.
Commodity market.
Decrease for like single stream
recycling.
It's just on what are
what we had from last year It's
a it's a combination over the last
year of the commodities tanking
And then losing that
a little extra revenue we had as
as a cushion and then just added
cost Thank
you
And then obviously the biggest part
of this increase, according to the
resolution, is increase in diesel
fuel costs, which are pretty
understandable.
The other part I just wanted to ask
about is salary
savings and the ability
to
meet our target for salary savings.
Could you discuss that a little
more?
Did we simply not have any turnover
in the positions that
are responsible for?
Resource recovery.
Sorry, Alder. Could you repeat that?
I just... Charlie was trying to call
me while you were asking the
question. Oh, okay.
I hope he's not trying to tune in
because you're doing a fine job
answering these questions.
I hope he's trying to jump in.
But anyway, yeah, sorry, Roger.
What I was saying is obviously the
biggest piece of this is the
increased diesel costs, which are
pretty self-explanatory.
The other part was $170,000
projected deficit
due to our salary savings
and the inability to reach
your salary savings target
for these positions.
So I was.
Hoping that you could explain that
elaborate on that a little further.
Is it simply that you've had hardly
any turnover you've done so well in
retaining the employees that are
covered by this special charge or
what exactly do
you attribute that to?
So it's, the salary savings
is hard to do with the RISC
because we only bill actuals
to it.
So unless we were to reduce
services, we can't actually see
a salary savings on that because we
don't need bill actual, and we
didn't cut any services with the
recycling collection.
So we're actually taking that out of
the next, this next budget process
to have a salary savings on
recycling, or at least try to reduce
it. Cause we only build for actuals.
We do have a surplus in salary
savings on the general fund.
We're probably about $300,000
over the target that we're at now
that we are trying to fill open
positions. So we have salary savings
somewhere else.
Just can't make salary savings
without reducing services on the
recycling side.
Thank you.
Yeah, thanks again Roger.
I see their recycling guru Brian is
joined us and engaged as camera
brand did you wish to add
anything especially about my
question about our pellet areas
contract in the single
stream recycling commodities market
or anything
Yeah, with the commodities thing,
really, it's sort of across the
board. I mean, most of what we
recycle is paper products.
So you think cardboard paper stuff
and demand has been soft and
low for that for a while, and then,
and so that's been a big part
of it. Over half of what goes in the
cart is that. So if that value was
very low, that hurts that
material too. Plus just
as it tends to
be where oil prices tend to
be high, plastic prices tend a
track with that. But most of what
By weight in our recycling cart, not
a lot of that are actually plastic
by weight, and that's how you do
recycling, is all by weight.
And plastic is just cheap to
manufacture, too. A lot of people
that even use that are choosing to
use like virgin plastic materials,
as opposed to recycled materials,
because so that's part of that,
too. But. Really a lot of it's that
paper value.
As paper is worth more, that helps
us. When paper is worth less, that
doesn't help us.
And as shipping changes
and as our buying behavior changes,
as the economy shifts around too,
that's kind of where the cardboard
stuff comes in, where all that paper
products really, this is the big
driver of it.
Thank you.
Thanks for explaining that.
Thank you, Mayor, I'm complete.
Thank you, Alder.
Are there any other questions for
staff on item 13?
Seeing none, then item
13 has been moved and seconded.
Is there any discussion?
Seeing no discussion, is there any
objection to recording unanimous
vote in favor of item 13?
Seeing no objection, we'll record a
unanimous vote in favor of item 13.
Thank you, Roger and Brian, for
being here to answer questions.
And that will take us to
item 16.
Item 16 is Legistrar
93981, authorizing
the issuance and establishing the
parameters for the sale of not
to exceed.
A lot of money in general obligation
promissory notes
of the city of Madison, Wisconsin
and directing the final approval of
the terms thereof.
On item 16, can I get a motion
please?
Motion to adopt.
Second.
Moved and seconded to adopt, I
believe staff have a presentation on
this.
Yes. Thank you, Mayor.
It's not a screen.
While we're getting that
presentation set up, I'll just note
for any of the public who may be
watching and wanted to comment
on item one, we did place item one
on the table and we will
return to it and
allow anybody who is in the meeting
at that time to
make their public comment on items
one.
That will be, we have this
item that's before us right now and
one additional item before we come
back to item one.
Go ahead, Dave.
Thank you, Mayor.
So the agenda item before you is
the 2026 GEO
General Obligation Borrowing.
And I'll give you an overview of
that as well as
just a quick summary of
the resolution that's before you
today.
So just a
quick background on what is what
we call GEO borrowing or general
obligation borrowing.
It's either tax exempt under
federal law or taxable borrowing for
10 or 20 years.
And we sell that debt to
finance projects, which are
included in the 2026 adopted
capital budget.
And a state law change a couple
years ago allows us now
to do 20-year promissory
notes,
which prior to that time, we
could only do 10 years.
So that's definitely a benefit.
The capital budget includes both
new projects, as well as
projects that were adopted in prior
budgets and carried forward.
By general obligation, this means
this is a debt of the city and
the city is pledging its
full faith and credit through
authorizing irrevocable
property tax levy to repay
that debt, including interest.
The first property tax levy
to repay this debt will
be the 2026 levy
in December of this year,
which will be due in 2027.
And we do have other city revenues
that pay this besides property
taxes. For example, stormwater
user fees and things like that.
We're issuing about 45%
of the authorized debt.
And a lot of that is due to the
timing of projects.
Tax flow needs for those
individual projects, as well
as requirements under federal tax
law regarding arbitrage, meaning
how much debt we can carry for
how long until we actually spend it.
We're borrowing $142 million of
what we call new money.
And these are the amounts by agency.
The largest is funded from tax
increment districts for
a variety of different things,
both infrastructure as well
as developer loans.
Engineering major streets is the
next largest most prized there
and that fleet services
being vehicle acquisitions
fire as a significant
part of this because of the
borrowing for the new fire station
six that's a part of the park
Badger development.
Then you can see the remaining by
agency.
This borrowing is for about 400
projects or programs
about 20 of those
400 are over one
and a half million dollars and
represent $76 million of
that 142 million.
So, as I said,
the fire station six,
as well as the South Madison Public
Health Clinic,
which are both a part of that Park
Badger development, are the two
largest single projects.
As well as, the recent
property acquisition at Royster
Commons that was approved by the
council, fleet vehicles.
Affordable housing and so on.
This is a history of general
obligation borrowing over
the last roughly 10 years.
You can see it does fluctuate at
times and we
are on an upward trend
with a number of very large building
projects in particular as
I mentioned for this year as
well as upcoming projects.
This is the long-term
interest rates on the city's debt
since 1988.
And you can see how we
remain in a historically,
you know, relatively
low interest rate environment,
but obviously higher than what we
saw post the Great Recession
and fueled,
I think, by what's happening,
both in high inflation
in the economy over the last
few years.
And recent geopolitical events.
So we are seeing some increase
in interest rates and
we do expect interest rates for 2026
to be slightly higher than
what the city received in 2025.
So turning to the resolution that's
before you,
beginning about three years ago, we
moved to what's called a parameters
resolution, meaning we
set up the boundaries for which,
under which we could issue.
The debt, and that allowed us
flexibility in the date upon
which to issue that debt and
get the most favorable
conditions from an
interest rate perspective.
So it does allow the finance
director to carry out the intent as
expressed by the Common Council,
and those have to fall within the
parameters and the resolution.
Many government entities use this
approach, and
what the parameters will be, the
maximum power mount, so the
borrowing there.
The maximum true interest cost,
that's how we compare competitive
bids, and the max amount
of cost of issuance for
the no proceeds.
So So maximum power amount's
about $173 million, as you
see in the title of the resolution.
About 85 million of that is 10-year
borrowing, tax-exempt.
20-Year or borrowing is about 27
million. That's primarily for those
large building projects that I
mentioned.
And then we have about 32 million
that's taxable.
That includes primarily
those types of
borrowing such as for developer
loans under TID.
Affordable housing type of
investments and things
like that that are not eligible for
tax exemption under federal
tax law.
29 million of that 173
million is possible refunding
of already issued debt.
And these are possible opportunities
based on where the
market is right now.
And we
might refund 29 million.
We might.
Refund something less than that or
zero, depending on the market
conditions at the time of sale.
And if we have an economic
savings, sorry,
from that possible refunding.
And then our
maximum true interest cost is
5% on
the tax exempt and
is 6%
on the taxable.
And then, our maximum cost of
issuance is $390,000.
That's for our municipal advising
services, our bond council,
as well as various actions
we have to take to register the
notes.
That parameters authority expires
at the end of this calendar year.
We do expect to sell debt
on August 25th
based on timing to date.
So with that I'll stop sharing.
I'm happy to answer any issues.
Thank you, Director Schmidke.
Are there questions on
item 16?
That we both
take out loans
to fund for street improvement
projects, and there's assessment.
Can you just speak to a little bit
about what the
determining factors are about,
like, what goes
to where, how much do we decide that
is supposed to be for bonds versus
how much is for assessments and
kind of how can
community members get engaged to
understand how this works.
So we probably, I don't
think they're here today.
We probably need city engineering to
speak to that because the
assessment policy determines,
you know, is it curb and gutter,
the extent of the improvements.
And so it's based on the engineering
determination of what's happening in
the roadway that determines
how much of a project will
be funded from special assessments,
how much from city debt.
And depending on where the project
is occurring, there could be other
funding sources involved in the
project, such as federal aid,
state funding, county
funding, other local funding for
that project.
But there is a
city assessment policy that
determines how those costs
are allocated that
was recently updated, and
I believe came before the council,
if I remember correctly.
So, um.
And individuals can see that policy
and obviously, you
know, through the process, the
legislative process, if that is
changed in the future.
Thank you all there.
All there for your questions.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you very much, Dave, for the
presentation.
And moreover, thank you for
re-upping for perhaps as much as
another five years or more with us.
We really appreciate that and your
leadership.
My question is,
when the results of the borrowing
exercise this year that you and your
team engaged in
that led then to the number that's
before us in this resolution,
how does that?
How does that number compare to the
adopted 2026 capital
budget and the amount that
we had anticipated
we would need for
for borrowing proceeds last
fall.
It's about 45%
of the authorized
borrowing. So that's both the new
borrowing that was authorized in the
2026 budget as well as
amounts carried forward from prior
capital budgets.
Thank you.
And how does that compare
historically, would you say,
to, I don't know. That's roughly
where we.
Been each year is
around 45 to 50 percent
for the reasons I mentioned in
the presentation which include
you know just timing of projects
these are multi-year projects
we don't want to borrow too soon
for projects because of federal
tax law arbitrage requirements
and things like
that so the projects could be
delayed for a number of different
reasons and that's why
we have to continue to carry over.
That authorization from one
year to the next.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome. Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you, Alder.
Are there any other questions for
staff on item 16?
Seeing none, it's been moved and
seconded. Is there any discussion?
Seeing no discussion then is there
any objection to recording unanimous
vote in favor of item 16?
Seeing no objection we'll record
that unanimous vote and that will
take us to item 18.
Item 18 is legislator 94055
which is the mid-year appropriation
resolution amending the 2026
adopted operating budget by
taking a number of different actions
and amending
Yes, taking a number of different
actions, which we are about to have
a presentation on.
So I will not read the whole thing.
But first on item 18,
can I get a motion please?
Motion to adopt.
Second.
Moved and seconded to adopt item 18.
And I believe this one will be
budget director Christine Koh.
Hi, everyone. Good afternoon.
Um, as the mayor mentioned, this
item has a lot going on in it.
So the presentation, um,
this evening will provide a high
level overview of our projection
process as well as the
actions recommended through the
resolution.
Thank you. At the end of the
presentation, we'll also have
Metro General Manager Jamie Acton
provide some more context
on the projection for
Metro specifically.
So I'll run through my slides,
transition to Jamie and we
can decide if we wanna stop for
questions before or wait for
the whole presentation to
be complete.
So there are two main components to
the slides. The first is explaining
how we create the major projections.
And then a review of what is in the
resolution itself.
One important thing to note is that
the budget projection is
based on a point in time analysis
of projecting spending through the
end of the year.
So on June 1st, we pull
data for all of the actual
expenditures through May
31st and prepare
data for the projection process.
It takes us about a week to prepare
all of this data.
We send it to agencies.
And then there's about a two-week
period where our budget
analyst team and agency analysts
are independently completing
their projections to estimate how
they're going to end the year.
And then after this two-
week process, the budget
analyst meets with every single
agency in the city to
discuss their assumptions
and finalize projections that
takes about two weeks, plus
or minus, depending
on availability.
And then it takes us as
a team about an additional two weeks
to compile the citywide
resolution.
So, I
put all this out because there
is a bit of a lag in what the
data represents,
what's not included, and
it really is based on a point in
time for the first five months.
And given staff capacity, how
long it takes to do the detailed
analysis, coordinating with
agencies, it just.
Does take almost a full two
months to produce this resolution.
So please keep that in mind as you
see any of the numbers.
This table provides a high-level
summary of the projection for the
general fund.
In the columns, we have
the budget at different phases, so
we have the 26 adopted budget,
the revised budget, which reflects
any transfers or legislative
files that have been approved to
date, our estimation
for the mid-year projection based on
this collaborative process with
agencies, and then the
difference, which is the major
production.
Minus the revised budget.
And then negative numbers typically
indicate where
we're either underspending in
expenses or overperforming
in revenues.
And then for the
rows, we have our general fund
revenues, property taxes,
and our total general fund revenues
for the first three rows.
And then the second section in
the bottom, it reflects our
expenses.
So I'll go into
this. More detail on
subsequent slides, but for general
fund revenues, we're projecting to
overperform or have more revenues
than budgeted due to a number of
areas where we
anticipate receiving more
local revenue than the budget.
This is primarily related to
ambulance billing and
building
building revenues.
Property taxes we budget at
So, in total,
our revenues are about $767,000
above what we projected.
In terms of agency expenses,
our total agency expenses.
We present certain revenues are
presented in the agency budgets and
we look at the net of agency
revenues and expenditures
to do our projections, and
that's also how we build our budget.
And when you take these numbers
together.
In total agencies are
projecting to underspend by about
$4 million.
So, this combination of
overperforming revenues,
underspending in
expenses leads to a
projected surplus of about $4.5
million.
And that's really just taking
this total revenues number
plus total expenses.
And the footnote is just a technical
note about how we factor
in carried forward encumbrances.
I'm not going to get into that
detail right this second.
So, just looking at the high-level
summary for
general fund expenses, in total,
expenses, net of agency revenues are
projecting about $4 million below
budget.
If we just look at it,
something also to remember about the
budget is that we have a
budget for what we call direct
appropriations, which is where we
centrally budget for costs
that are difficult to allocate
specifically to agencies.
So that includes things like our
contingent reserve, payments
for comp absence escrow, which is
sick leave payout for retirees,
and some other miscellaneous
benefits and costs that are really
benefiting the whole of
the city.
If we exclude direct appropriations
and only look at agency budgets,
agencies are actually projecting to
overspend by a little over a million
dollars.
This overspent is driven by
a few things.
The largest item being personnel
cost being about three
million over budget.
And when I speak about personnel, I
mean both salaries and benefits.
This three million dollars over
budget is a combination of various
factors.
One is it includes the
COMPAPS disaster repayments.
When they are made they hit the
agency budgets and then at the year
end they
show up as an actual in the agency
budget. We budget for it in
direct appropriations and in
our year end resolution we
make a transfer from direct
appropriations to the agency.
But until we know the full cost we
don't make this transfer.
So it appears to be a deficit in the
Agency. When we really do have
another pocket of money to cover
those expenses.
So that's a portion of this $3
million.
In addition, starting with
the 2024 budget, we implemented
what we call budget efficiency cuts
that were 1% in
24 and 25 and
0.75% in 2026.
We budget for this in
this kind of overall
budget reduction in personnel.
Because most people recognize
that savings through salary savings
and turnover.
However, agencies may actually
achieve that savings by
underspending and purchase services,
supplies, or somewhere else.
So, personnel cost being over budget
is somewhat overstated because
they're achieving, agencies may be
achieving savings in non-personal
objects and they also might be
showing the full Comfy Absence
escrow costs that will be covered
through a year-end transfer.
So, that's
the personnel side.
For non-personal items, agency
budgets as a whole are
projecting to be about two million
under budget in purchase services.
And this is mostly related to
the timing of multi-year software
agreements and prepaid
expenses. So, there's a pretty
significant underspend in
the IT budget, for example, and
a number of other agencies where
agencies may have prepaid a full.
So, for
example,
if you look at We project
Concabson's escrow at zero because
the agents, again, the actual
costs are hitting in the agencies,
so it's reflected in this top
number.
We also typically
project contingent reserve
at zero.
This year, there is a small actual
and contingent reserve based on an
earlier resolution to fund the
continuation of the MADCAP customer
assistance program for the utilities
through general fund money.
And that moved $70,000 from
the general fund to various
utilities.
So, when you add these two
numbers together, agency
overspending
plus underspending and direct
appropriations, we get to this $4
million of budget
of underspend across
the general funds.
In terms of general fund revenues, I
mentioned there are a number of
areas where
revenues are performing higher
than budget.
For context of the projection,
the 26th budget included about $2.2
million in fund balance applied to
close the budget gap and
buy down the property tax levy.
The projection actually assumes
using $0 in fund balanced
due to the strong performance in
other revenues.
So we project fund balance at zero.
And the areas that are making up for
that are really in ambulance
charges, where we're getting
1.9 million above
budget due to changes in Medicaid
billings and how
we're collecting for those
costs.
And then in building permits, which
are projecting about 1.1 million
above-budget.
A lot of this is related to
construction, related
to the spring hailstorms.
And prior mid-year resolutions,
we may have adjusted the
interest numbers based on trends.
Right now, the projection projects
interest at budget, which is
about $15.2 million.
So we have narrowed in on that
number a little bit.
So we're keeping it at budget for
the purpose of this projection.
Um, so going a little
bit more in depth into agency
projections, um, if you've been part
of this committee before, you may
have seen slides where I have, you
know, 10 slides that
copying and pasting tables from an
Excel file, it's, um
that shows changes
by agency.
So this year,
instead of, you now, copying and
paste as images, I've attached
that agency analysis
as an Excel file.
To the Legistar file to make it
more accessible and easier to
use.
So I'm just going to pull
that up here.
And the way that this table is
set up, it shows all of our general
fund agencies.
Functional area is just how we group
agencies in the budget, so all the
admin agencies.
If you like to
play with data, create pivot tables,
you can group this on your
own. So we have our different.
Categories for functional areas.
We have our agencies
And then the columns are mostly the
same as the table i presented on one
of the first slides where we have
the original budget revised
budget actuals
projections And then, the variance
is the difference between our
projection and revised
budget In this
presentation, any positive number
is showing where an agency is
going to be under budget and
essentially generating a surplus,
and a negative number is where an
agency is over budget.
And then I have
a number of
comments related to the
major drivers of
these variances.
So I'm not, I'm just
gonna hide some of these. I'm not
gonna go through every single item
right now.
But just to illustrate,
Assessor is projected to be under
budget by about $353,000.
That's really because they've had
two vacancies for much of the
year. Those salaries and benefits,
along with some other items, make
up the majority of
this underspend.
They're expecting a slight overage
in non-personnel for costs like
postage, transcription, and other
costs. So, the resolution does
include an intradepartmental
transfer where they're taking some
of their salary savings and applying
it to these non-personal items.
Again, areas where you see
underspending a lot of this,
in the example of the attorney,
is related to being over budget and
personnel. And this is a combination
of.
And there's also like
a payroll allocation issue in the
attorney's office where staff time
wasn't being charged correctly to
tids and capital projects.
So that's a technical issue that
will be cleaned up before the end of
the year.
So you can read through these
comments. I'll highlight a few
because areas where
we have a big number.
The clerk's budget is projecting
to be over budget by about
$900,000.
About half of this is related to
being over budget and personnel.
This is due to higher uses
of hourlies and election officials
to cover capacity due to vacation
and turnover.
I think last year the budget
was being developed when there
was a lot of transition in the
clerk's office, so we didn't
adequately budget for supplies
and counting all
of the elections scheduled this
year.
And then related to purchase
services, the
agency is projecting to be over
budget because of
a new lease
for equipment for a facility
to store election equipment related
to construction of the Dean County
Election Center.
That project was known, but the
lease costs were not known.
There's a resolution on that item
recently that was adopted by the
council, so we need to
fund to that.
IT, I mentioned, has a surplus
of about 1.1 million.
This is the largest surplus of
any of the general fund agencies.
And this is a combination of having
a kind of above average number of
vacancies for the first half of the
year that IT is taking steps to
fill.
Um, and a pretty
significant under being
significantly under budget and
purchase services Related to
the timing of software costs and
prepaid expenses that
were paid in 24 and 25
um There was a change in
um in in gas b rules about
how to account for these software
costs We didn't fully
have understand the impacts of this
in future budgets.
So we carried forward more cost in
IT than we needed to in 26.
So they're showing as being
significantly under budget.
A few other items,
police, again, at the time of the
projection, which used data through
the end of May,
was projecting to be
over budget by about $750,000.
And this could – this
is fully attributable to cognizance
escrow costs.
There were a number of line items
that were projecting over or
under budget, but
– This deficit amount is related to
retiree payouts that would have been
covered through the year and
transfer.
And then one other item that's
somewhat unusually large is the
deficit and traffic engineering.
They were over budget and personnel
due to comp absence escrow as well
as not meeting the salary savings
target.
The 2026 budget,
we increased their salary savings
above the standard 3%
average because the agency had
been having consistent and
persistent vacancy rates.
So we kind of made a one-time
adjustment to salary savings to
increase that, lower their personnel
budget, and use that money to
reallocate with a non-personnel
cost.
This year, they've been able
to staff up and do not have the
very high salary savings rates,
which is resulting in an
agency-level deficit.
So I'm, again, not going to talk
through every agency.
I think I talked about everyone that
is 500,000 or
more.
And if people have any specific
questions, I'm happy to go back to
this during the question portion.
Um.
The resolution also,
we do have a projection for
every single agency, including the
non-general fund agencies.
So I've pulled a few highlights that
are specific to action items
included in the resolution itself.
I'm not including every single
non- general fund agency.
In the summary fleet
service is projecting to be $161,000
over budget and purchase services
for vehicle repairs and maintenance.
They are.
A little bit under budget in
personnel costs and can
fund this over budget amount through
an intra-departmental transfer.
One area that we have been watching
with fleet is their fuel costs.
And while these costs are
above budget, there is enough
savings in other objects
within the salaries, within the
supplies category,
that they're able to absorb higher
fuel costs,
golf.
Similar to the last several
years is projecting
higher activities
and higher revenues than budgeted.
So the resolution increases
our overall budget from facility
rentals and greens fees by $245,000
offset by higher expenses.
Library is projecting to end the
year about half a million dollar
over budget and this This is related
to a number of things.
Primarily related to their personnel
costs.
There was a large reclassification
for positions that was
adopted by the council a few months
ago that included significant back
pay. This wasn't fully built into
their budget.
There's lower vacancy rates in prior
years.
And while we did our best,
they also have hired the budgeted
absence escrow, which is paid
through the library fund, not
through the general fund director
appropriations amount.
And there were also a number of
costs related to the Imagination
Center that weren't
fully included in 2026, like
collections processing fees.
I think we did our best to
estimate that cost, but as the
project has moved forward there have
been some items that have come
up as needs in this year.
Metro is projecting a 4.2
million deficit.
That's a combination of revenues
being lower than budgeted
and expenses being higher than
budget. So it's not just that
they're overspending by this amount.
It's a combinations of factors.
And as I mentioned, Jamie will
provide a more in-depth
presentation on this item
after I go through my slides.
And I'll kind of leave the
details for that portion.
The streets agency
includes multiple funds,
so they are a majority of
their budget is in the general fund,
but they also have separate
budgets for resource
recovery, urban forestry,
stormwater.
So as discussed with
an earlier agenda item,
the RRC budget is projecting
a deficit of about half a
million dollars.
It's a combination of revenues.
Hire diesel on personnel expenses.
And earlier in this meeting,
this committee took action on that
item.
And all of the other enterprise
funds are projecting to meet budget
targets and not require any
transfers at this time.
Okay, so that was a lot of
information. What exactly does the
mid-year resolution do?
Six main components.
Some of these are very technical in
nature and are things that we do
every year to transfer money from
a central pot to an
agency.
Some of them are
larger issues.
So I'll run through each of these
six components.
The first is transferring funds.
From for carry forward encumbrances
for contracts that span multiple
years.
The second component is making
intra-departmental transfers to
cover deficits in major categories.
So this is where an agency is
projecting to be over budget in one
area, but they can cover that
by moving money across objects.
Number three is appropriating half
a million dollars from contingent
reserve to agency budgets to cover
projected deficits.
Number four is increasing budget
authority for Metro Transit.
And five and six are more technical
in nature where we're making other
appropriations and transfers and
amendments to the capital budget.
Right, so number one, this is more
of a technical item.
Incumbencies that are outstanding
at the year end can be carried
forward into the next year.
This happens a lot with services
that span multiple years.
So an agency might have
started a contract at the end of
2025.
That purchase order encumbrance is
carried forward into a 26, and
there is a
transfer to the budget and
their agency budget to increase
their overall budget authority to
recognize this carry forward.
In the general fund,
we had $356,000
in carry forward encumbrances across
multiple agencies.
We do budget for this in direct
appropriations.
We have $400,000.
So this resolution is
a technical adjustment to move the
budget authority from direct
appropriation to the agency's
incurring costs.
And then in the library fund and
public health fund,
there are most
funds do have some level of carry
forward encumbrance.
For the library fun and public
health, we're proposing transfers to
increase budget authority.
For this amount and using
fund balance applied to cover this
expense.
For the library, it's about
$29,000.
This is mostly related to the timing
of private donations and
expenses related to services
offered.
In public health, this is a larger
amount,
$430,000,
and public health has sufficient
fund balance to cover this.
The second item is,
again,
intra-agency transfers, so agencies
that have underspending in one area
can propose transfers across
what we call major expenditure
categories, so moving money from
supplies to salaries or
benefits to purchase services.
So this is a pretty
modest number
that reflects just cleaning
up the budget and it up to where
agencies are actually spending
money.
So, I've mentioned the
assessor having higher non-personnel
costs, so they're moving $25,000
from salaries to supplies and
services.
Civil rights is proposing
transferring $20,000 from
benefits to translation and
interpretation services.
And traffic engineering is proposing
moving $38,000 for benefits
to supplies and services,
and then I mentioned in the fleet
fund ...
They are projecting over budget
for vehicle repairs and maintenance,
but have enough savings from
salaries and benefits to cover that
cost at this time.
There are two areas
where we are proposing transferring
money from contingent reserve to
agency budgets, and this is areas
where an agency is
projecting to be over budget
in a non-personnel major,
and with non-personal items,
the agency will hit a budget stop
that will not allow them to
spend beyond their budget.
So, these are cases where
agencies really need to transfer.
From contingent reserve to be able
to continue providing the level of
services expected for the remainder
of the year.
These transfers are
for the clerk's office, addressing
the budget stops in
supplies and services
related to election supplies.
So that's moving 400,000 from
Continent Reserve to clerk's Office.
And with engineering transferring
$100,000 to
the budget for facility maintenance
supplies,
engineering has been seeing higher
costs for plumbing, HVAC,
other tools
Or related to inflation for
several years.
They've typically had enough salary
savings to be able to handle this
through an interdepartmental
transfer.
And as I've mentioned with several
other agencies,
they don't have the level of vacancy
that they used to have.
So they would need a transfer
from elsewhere to cover this cost.
Um metro transit i'm
going to very briefly talk about
this and then um, jamie will
go into more details But
the mid-year projection estimate
estimates metro will have a deficit
of 4.2 million dollars and
this is a combination of
Revenues coming in below budget
and expenses being higher than
budget The
resolution itself does not
address the full
projected gap of $4.2 million.
What it does instead is really
focuses on the areas,
the non-personnel accounts that
would hit a budget stop.
So what we're doing is increasing
the supplies for budget and purchase
services by about $3
million collectively and using
a fund balance applied account as
the revenue source to balance
the transfer.
And this allows Metro to
continue providing their services
without hitting budget stops.
It allows us to refine the
projection throughout the
rest of the year.
It allows Metro to evaluate
available federal sources,
and the year-end
resolution will have a lot more
information about addressing the
full, the full
metro gap.
And then I have.
Two more slides that are more
technical in nature.
So I'm going to address them quickly
and then I'll pause and we can see
if you want to keep going with Jamie
or you want ask some general
questions first.
So category five is kind of our
everything else bucket of other
appropriations and transfers.
So in a number of areas,
this is recognizing higher
revenues or grant revenues that
were not included in the adopted
budget. And
appropriating those revenues and
expenses.
So for golf, golf
continues to have strong
performance. We are increasing their
revenues and associated expenses
for the services they
offer.
Fire department had
a
large grant in
state funding or
EMS funding assistance program
that was not included in their
budget. So this appropriates
$854,000 in revenues
and increases supplies and purchase
services.
And parking similarly had a grant
from WisDOT that
they applied for and received, but
was never recognized in their
budget. So it increases
their budget for grant
funds and reserves applied for their
local match and increases
their consulting expenses.
And then there's, I've mentioned
Madcap a little bit in terms of
the earlier appropriation from
contingent reserve to the utilities.
Earlier this year, when we adopted
the resolution to fund MATCAP
through the general fund, we
assumed that the program would be
administered by allocating
costs across all of the utilities
that are impacted.
So we transferred money to storm
water, sewer, and water.
After that
was adopted and further discussion
with staff.
There was consensus that it would be
more administratively
efficient to consolidate
all of this instead of allocating
across utilities centralized
administration of the program and
water utility.
So this is a technical transfer to
move the money that
was allocated to sewer and storm
into the water utility
And then, finally,
the last component is capital
budget transfers and
adjustments.
The resolution has a long list of
projects that are being amended.
In almost all of these projects,
the project budget is increasing by
using a non-geoborrowing
funding source.
So projects span engineering,
fleet, parks, sewer, and water.
And these are mostly small
increases to total project budgets
based on proceeds
from insurance payments, donations,
reserves, and other sources
that do not rely on borrowing
that we
got more information about these
final numbers and need to make a
budget adjustment to be able to
appropriate that money.
And finally,
there are some amendments
related to TIF funding.
So in CDA redevelopment
for the South Madison Redevelopment
Project, there are two actions being
taken. One is transferring $5
million of 251
increment that was budgeted
in CDD, affordable housing,
to CDA Redevelopments for the
project.
And the second is appropriating an
additional $5,000,000 in 251
increment that's based on
an adopted project plan amendment
that was approved earlier this year.
And then the final.
Item is really a correction to
an error in the budget, where we
had included 1,040,000
in TIF increment to the Madison
Lakeway project.
And this should have always been
presented as TIF supported
geo-borrowing from TIF 53.
So that was a mistake that we are
correcting now by changing funding
sources.
So that's the last of my slides.
I'll pause and see what...
How the body wants to proceed in
terms of metro or
questions now.
Any sense of the body?
Should we keep going through the
presentation or do you wanna have
questions, President Madison?
I'd like us to keep going.
Any objection?
Seeing no objection, we'll go ahead.
General Manager Acton.
Hi, good evening, Jamie Acton.
With me, I have our new finance
director, Zal.
We refer to him as Buta, lovingly,
so he'll be joining me in tonight's
presentation to help just fill in
some gaps if we run into some
questions, as we both are relatively
new to.
This is my first full year in
the budget process with the city
and Buta just a few months in,
but happy to have him and really
diving into where we're
at today. So.
Christine, do you have our slides?
Great, thank you.
Can everybody hear us?
Okay, we're kind of chested out a
new situation with audio today.
So, okay, so
big picture right now.
Metro is over budget and
essentially will have been for
the last two budget cycles.
So in 25, we
came to you late
with about a 5.7
million.
And then as
Christine has been talking today,
we are currently projecting
4.2.
So obviously,
the 26th gap is smaller,
but we still are in a situation
where our revenues are below budget
and our expenses are
above the budget.
So that is
essentially, you
know, looking at our revenue
projections and the estimates that
have been given for prior budgets.
The rates of providing service
that haven't been keeping pace with
our actual costs.
And then those actual
costs continue to rise
and they aren't
in line with our current operating
realities, whether that is
service level or contractual
agreements or whatnot.
So as Christine mentioned,
our immediate need right now is to
have the increased budgetary
authority.
To be able to
make sure that we continue
to purchase supplies for
the busses, to continue to do
maintenance on, and then
also an increase to purchase
of services, which is
primarily our paratransit contracted
services that we are federally
required to provide since we also
provide the fixed route service.
Next slide, please.
So where does Metro's money come
from? In 2026, we
had these four main revenue
streams.
You'll see the general fund or the
city subsidy is about 30%
in the orange top right.
Below that, we've got the
intergovernmental funds which are
essentially federal and state
grants or funding that provide
us with some operating expenses
and assistance, that's
about 31%.
We have other, which is kind of a
mixed bag of wheel
tax, registration fees,
advertising sales, insurance
recoveries, and just some
miscellaneous revenue, and that's
about 9%.
And then we have our purchase of
services, and that is our
contracts, that's our fares, that's
are passes, and accounts for
another about 30%.
So that's where we're
sitting there.
Next slide, please.
So just a little bit more about
these revenues.
So our service contracts, as
we entered into them,
I believe they auto-renewed
last August for another five-year
period for some of them.
These are everything from the
community contracts that we have
with other municipalities to
provide service.
It's MMSD, it's the universities
and the colleges.
It's a bit of a mixed
group of
agencies, organizations,
communities that are purchasing
service from Metro that we provide.
What we have found based
on the information that we're
required to report to the
Federal Transit Administration is
that those contracts
were not initially set
up to cover our full cost
of providing said service.
So we're running into
some challenges around that
and those will need to be adjusted
and addressed.
We also have an
outdated agency fare
rate for our paratransit
clients that
have rides and trips booked through
different agencies.
That hasn't been touched since 2023.
Paratransite is definitely
one of the highest
modes of transportation, but it is
also one of most critical modes of
transport in our community.
The next update is
fair capping and past sales.
So we have some housekeeping
to do around fair cappin,
past sales, and really looking at
the way that we are applying this
and how we're doing it consistently
and what our process and our
policies are around fair-capping,
past-sales.
Is there a way that can simplify
this? Is there way that that we can
be more consistent to be able to
give ourselves some more,
I guess.
Brown truths revenue
projections in the
future.
And then we also, as you saw,
the federal and state
funds that are
provided to us annually,
these intergovernmental funds have
not kept up with inflation
and they have not seen
increases over
the last 10 years, at least, since
what I've been looking at, That
that would really keep up with our
actual costs to provide service
and to be able to cover those
costs.
So those are some
of the challenges around our
revenues that we need to kind of dig
into and dive into.
So the next slide,
please Christine,
talks a little bit about our federal
funds and how we can use
the federal funds.
So every year we get
specific categories.
We get four.
Four categories, three are shown
here, and then the
discretionary.
The one that's not shown here is a
5310 program, and that's a
pass-through program.
And it's actually a program that we
administer for the rest of the
county to be able to utilize.
So we get it, but then we
promptly put it back out into the
community for transportation
around seniors and people
experiencing disabilities.
So we have
these categories.
They have a lot of rules.
They have eligibility requirements.
They have timelines
and reporting and just
drawdown processes and
they all require a local
contribution and we
get that local contribution from the
general fund for certain parts
and then we get our local
contribution for the
capital budget as well.
The thing that's important about
these monies is that they can be
combined, but they're
their dollar amounts and usage
cannot be transferred
from plot to plot essentially.
So we have a
lot of moving pieces and
parts around the federal dollars,
but some of what Christine had
mentioned about us not necessarily
needing to come in for a
subsidy at the end of the year is
going to be tied to our ability to
leverage these federal dollars and
what we actually have
available to us this year.
So. We are leaving no
stone unturned and starting to
dig in and really see
where the flexibility in the federal
funds lie for us to be able
to try to help fill this
gap.
Next slide, please.
So what are major cost factors
impacting our 26th budget?
Obviously Metro provides
a lot of its service,
existing service
throughout the entire department
that it relies upon with
overtime dollars.
So that is definitely
driving our costs.
Bus parts, bus parts
came in in 2026,
higher than anticipated.
The warranties for the new busses,
the six-speed busses, are
now no longer covered
by the vendor, and we are
paying for those replacement parts
directly.
Those parts that
have seen increases in
their costs, and they just
weren't reflected in the 2026
budget.
And then paratransit,
as I said before, this is
federally required by anybody that
provides fixed route services,
and it's essentially for
people that are unable to
use the fixed routes,
something prevents them from from
using fixed route or BRT.
When our service chain area
changed in 23,
24, and then 25,
our paratransit demand increased
as the service area expanded
naturally.
You were required to provide
paratransit service within three
quarters of a mile of the fixed
routes.
And so we definitely saw
more demand around that.
And then we also have
three providers with three different
contracts and different terms and
escalators and costs that
are tied to providing paratranit
service that we saw things
later or earlier this year like
fuel turks.
Fuel surge charges
and things that we hadn't had
come into play
in previous years.
We also are on the final year
of our contracts with these
three providers, and so we will
going out to RFP in 2020,
well, this year to begin a new
contract in 2027.
However, I do not see costs
nationwide reducing for
paratransit services, if anything
may continue to increase.
So we are starting to look at what
that looks like for the 2027
budget.
So those are some of the major cost
factors for us right now.
In the next slide, please.
So what are we doing to look ahead?
Like I said, I'm incredibly grateful
that Buddha is now here and
looking to dive into all
of our finances here at Metro.
Short-term, third-quarter type
activities, we are going to
obviously continue to actively
monitor all of your spending.
And I think that it's important that
not just with the spending,
we're looking at.
How we're spending and where
we can use our
eligible federal dollars to
either charge against
or back bill essentially
where we should have used federal
dollars.
We also have several grants in
place that allow staff to be
charging time to and
we need to go back and look at
payroll and make sure the
appropriate staff is charging to the
appropriate grants and if we
And then we need to start having
these conversations on a larger
scale about our service contracts
and what that rate increase would
look like for our partners
that purchase service from us.
We also need to star longer
term, midterm, quarter four.
We need to the process for updating
the paratransit agency fare.
We need start the process for
updating The Unlimited Ride
Pass.
And take those to the Transportation
Commission and start the
public process around what that
looks like.
Last year, when I
learned about the deficit,
we immediately did
a purchase card cutoff,
which basically froze all of
our discretionary spending, our
nice-to-haves, or not
necessarily our needs.
What this does mean is that safety,
security,
maintenance, day-to-day maintenance,
anything like that will still
happen, but we will
pull off on other purchases that
we can make at
a later date or with a different
funding source once it becomes
available, but really trying to
protect the operating budget at
this point.
And then they'll start to look at
what those revised service contracts
would look for 2027 and
begin.
You know, negotiating and seeing
what we can do around those
service contracts and
get those rights sized as best
possible to be able to
cover the costs.
So next slide, I think is
the last.
So yeah, that is just kind of
a brief overview of where we're
sitting right now.
Happy to answer
questions and wanna see
where Christine's sitting too on
that, But
We'll defer to proceed.
Thank you.
I think questions now for,
on any of the presentation.
If there are any, that was a lot.
Other bit of her.
I'll start with Jamie since you went
last.
So one of the questions I had since
paratransit services costs
are going up and in part that's
because our service area has
increased our
partner municipalities for
lack of a better phrase paying their
fair share for paratranit in their
communities.
So my understanding of the way
that the contract rates
are paratransit is being
captured, but I do think
that this is probably part of the
rate adjustment that needs to take
place because we know that the cost
of providing paratranit has
increased as has the cost
of the fixed route in the BRT.
So we need to kind of lump those
together and right size that rate
and go from there.
And we won't make those adjustments
this year.
We'll just make them for 27.
Is that?
Yeah, so any
of the adjustments that Metro makes
right now will have to follow a
pretty rigorous public process,
whether it's increasing rates
or is looking
at service or whatnot.
But yeah, it all will have a
process. And I would say we
are starting it now.
And hopefully
there will be savings that are
realized sooner than later, but
more so projecting in 27
and beyond.
Christine, if you want to
continue with Jamie first
and then, or you want to do this.
Let's stick on Metro and
I'll come back to you, Alder.
Thank you.
Alder Matthews, questions on Metro?
Yeah, thank you, Mayor.
Just a follow-up on
evaluating the paratransit rates,
is that, do you mean the
individual rates that folks using
paratranit would pay,
or do we charge the
neighboring, like do
we manage that for neighboring
municipalities as well,
and are you meaning like a rate that
we would charge to, you
know, Sun Prairie or something like
that.
Yeah, thanks for that.
So there's kind of three different
things around paratransit right now.
So we have the individual rider
rate and fare.
That is not looking to be adjusted
at this time.
What we're looking to adjust is the
rate that the brokers come in and
pay to us.
That is what hasn't been adjusted
since 2023.
So I think right now the agencies
per trip are paying around $34,
$35, and that needs to be
adjust.
The rates of the contracts
of the partners that they are.
That are paying,
takes into account
of the fully loaded costs
of providing paratransit.
And we then have a
formula that we work through that we
will then associate with the fixed
routing BRT and paratranfit that
those folks will
be paying.
But that will be based off
of.
The information that we provide to
the Federal Transit Administration
and how we give that full response.
So that is not
any part of, like,
a process per se that's
guided,
like, the fare increases
to riders would be.
And then even this agency fare,
that has a very prescribed
process, but the contract rates
do not.
Great, thank you so much.
Thank you, all the Matthews.
Are there other questions from
Metro?
Well, they're over here.
Thanks very much,
Mayor. Yes, sticking with
Metro Transit budget questions
here.
First, thanks very much for being
here.
Jamie, I was hoping
that you would be here when
we heard back a
month ago in this committee meeting
about in our operating budget
outlook for next year that
Metro, according to
our finance department staff, was
anticipating a...
Nine point five million dollar
additional metro subsidy needed and
there were a lot of questions at
that time in my mind and I won't
I know we don't have the time for me
to ask all of my questions now
but your presentation was extremely
helpful as was
Christian Coe's presentation
as well as relates to metro
I want to state at the outset
that I realize that you inherited a
of these issues.
Same with certainly
our transportation director,
Christophe, who I know is with us
for this conversation, and
certainly Buddha as a recent member
of the Metro
family.
So I acknowledge all that, and I'm
sorry that we're in this situation,
obviously.
My first question, just speaking of
personnel, is in
the fact that you inherited a lot of
these issues.
Is do we still have the
assistance of some former
Metro finance staff
that were working part-time coming
out of retirement to help us, namely
Wayne Block and Kathy Schwann,
two folks that we used to see a
lot at finance committee meetings
before they retired?
Are they still helping out along
with the history of Metro
finances, etc.?
Yeah that's actually one thing that
has been really
great actually to have is Wayne
kind of in our back pocket to be
able to reach out and be like how
did how was this calculated how
did we do this how how
were we using that and Wayne
actually just helped us get through
our single audit and and whatnot
so I know you've been having
conversations and other staff have
been having conversations with
Wayne. Kathy Schwinn, she
was ready to.
Go off and be retired.
So we've had less interaction with
Kathy since I think it was back in
December.
She decided it was she
needed to to go
Be retired so
I appreciate that I certainly
can't be grudger that I'm happy that
you have Wayne as a institutional
memory to help you with the
financial issues that you're
struggling with here and
working to get Metro's financial
house back in order.
But why don't I perhaps
ask some questions.
Uh, in no particular
order, I will admit, beginning
perhaps with the service contract
issue, and admittedly, us
policymakers haven't.
Seen or heard much about the
service contracts since
we kind of reformed the process
many years ago where individual
contracts no longer go to the
transportation commission or the
common council and they're more
handled administratively, as you
said, kind of auto-renewed
and so forth.
So as it relates to those service
contracts, just to make sure that
we're on, I am understanding
correctly, the service contract,
that would include.
Are contracts with major
employers like the hospitals
UW correct?
So we have a variety of contracts.
We have the partner agreements
with the communities, we have the
W contracts, which actually we have
two with them, hospitals,
the other colleges.
The ones that auto-renewed that I
mentioned, those are the ones with
the partner communities.
And they do all have clauses in
there that are reopeners that we
can come back and say, hey, we need
to have some conversation
and this Warren
conversation.
Yes, thanks.
I'm glad we're clarifying the
vocabulary here.
So service contracts do include
intergovernmental,
local partners,
like say, Fitchford, Middleton, Sun
Prairie.
Okay. And then our service contracts
also then are also
include, as you say, UW employees
and hospital employees,
UW student bus paths.
Those are also all
service contracts that
have re-openers.
I guess everything
has a flaws to
it that we can come in and either
reopen or terminate
and start fresh or
whatnot.
Why don't I pause there because I
see Christoph Mayer is
seeking to help answer
my question.
Yeah, no, I think it's worth
probably separating that we have two
kinds of contracts.
One kind of contract is basically a
fair contract where somebody
has a contract with us where they
essentially bulk purchase fares.
The other contract is a purchase of
service contract where somebody who
has a contact with us where we
operate service.
In some cases like UW,
they have both of those.
And both of those obviously have
different economic drivers.
When we're purchasing fares, the
question is what rate are they
purchasing those fares at compared
to what a regular rider pays.
When they're purchasing service,
the question how does that
rate at which they're the purchasing
the service compared to.
The actual cost of operating that
service. So in terms of purchase of
service we have the school district,
we have UW, and we have
partner communities.
In terms of Purchase Affairs,
partner communities aren't doing
that.
UW and MMSD are,
and then a number of other
employers.
Yeah, thank you for the
clarification, Christophe.
So one of you anticipated some of
my follow up questions.
And again, anybody can answer these
not directed to anyone in
particular.
One of the areas that we've heard in
the past, particularly when Eric
Eric Nepp talking and
this committee forum about
financial issues when he was interim
general manager was the
MMSD Dodger
School Service.
And those monies that never
materialized to the extent
that we had anticipated.
Could you, many of you speak to
that and.
Sure.
Yeah, we recently started
having conversations with MMSD
around the way that our
work roles are formed and we
essentially run that service on
100% overtime, essentially.
So, MMS was able
to raise essentially
their budget line item for
purchase of transportation through
us for
the Bye bye.
I always get their school years
wrong.
Their 25,
26 school
year, and then going into the 27
and 28 school year
minimally.
I think we saw that go from
about 700,
and I think it was 780K to about
1.2 million.
Whereas our fully loaded cost
is well into
two and a half, three million
to provide that service.
So. We've already started to
have those conversations around what
does it look like and where can we
start to,
as Metro, look at
providing that level
of service that they require and
that they need for their students
and how we can do it within
our existing contact and work
roles with our employees and how
make that work happen and
how can we, I guess,
kind of both come out in a position
where where it works out for us
to be able to provide the service
and then they are able to help
fund the service at the right size.
So we've begun to have those
conversations.
That's great to hear.
And as it relates more to overall
overtime, and obviously
you had shared with us
what the current estimate is and
the deficit for
overtime.
I know much of this is built
into the Teamsters collective
bargaining agreement in
terms of some guaranteed overtime.
How much of the overtime projected?
In the next one.
Deficit or the overtime contributing
to your projected deficit,
would you say relates to
the MMSD
Dodger issue you just spoke of?
Is it a fair amount?
Thank you.
Doug into that dollar amount
exactly, but we could probably get
you that dollar amounts.
The one thing that I would
say is that we
are experiencing overtime from not
just the operators, it's also in
the shop with the mechanics and
keeping up with our maintenance.
And then also, you know, across
administration and
the work groups that are doing
some other behind the scenes work,
whether that's our payroll and
timekeeping people or our.
Our admin staff and
whatnot, customer service reps.
So we can probably get that broken
out here relatively easy and
provide that if that would be
helpful.
Thank you and all and all of not
all of those folks, but most of them
are covered by the collective
bargaining agreement correct the
mechanics the dispatchers.
No, not so much the dispatchers.
Essentially, we've got our
operators. We've got some training
supervisors and
operations.
Everybody else is non-rep.
And then we do have our
customer service reps
and some people
in timekeeping and admin
that are representative and then our
shop employees.
So I can get that broken out, too,
if that would be helpful.
Thank you.
Is it fair to say that
a good portion of
the overtime is built into the
collective bargaining agreement or
would you say that that's not
necessarily the case and it's more
that you just start dealing
currently with still a number
of vacancies as I
think since the pandemic Metro in
particular has had unfortunate
problems with recruitment and
retention.
Yeah, I think I think we have some
some level of vacancy, but I do
think that there is, you know,
there's there's some things built
into the CBA that definitely
drive drive over time.
And how are you doing with
vacancies, would you say, especially
operators?
Operators right now are
looking OK.
The last numbers that I saw,
we were
getting ready to start a new class.
And so I think we
had just wrapped up interviews.
I want to say.
For some reason, 10, I've been
looking at a lot of numbers and for
some reason like 10 is
standing out to me right now, but I
can get vacancy numbers for you as
well.
For the department.
Thanks, but I appreciate that.
These aren't time-sensitive
questions by any means.
And then moving into paratransit,
a follow-up question or two there.
The three current providers whose
contracts all expire at the end of
this year, do you know
at this point if
each of those providers
is interested in continuing their
relationship with us?
Um so actually the contracts expired
June 30 of 27 um
so we have we have time to
get a new RFP out and we have
a draft um at
this time I have not heard that
anybody's not interested in in
submitting a proposal for
paratransit but um
I do know that we're we're
looking at the RFP in the way that
we are needing to deliver service
and making sure that that is a
high quality So I
customer service focus,
we're receiving,
we've been having some challenges
around Parachanza in some
of the contractors and some
of the behaviors that we've been
experiencing and some deficiencies
in the program. So we're looking at
really standing that program up in
a different way.
And I have not heard
yet that the three writers
would not submit an
on-suite or
submit for the RFP.
Yeah, so I think it's I appreciate
that and it's important to
acknowledge that I think all of us
on the council have probably
received concerns from
paratransit writers about their
difficulties that they've had with
their experiences.
And I know that you're well aware of
that Jamie.
I'm
actually giving a presentation on
Wednesday nights at TC
about this.
Yeah. One of the things I noticed
when I looked at that
PowerPoint presentation that
you are anticipating
sharing at TC meeting this
week was suggesting
hiring a mobility manager.
And I was surprised.
I always thought that we had a
paratransit manager,
but apparently it has not
been the case that we haven't had a
position like that recently.
Yeah, my understanding is that there
was some movement in
the org chart around paratransit
and some shifting and that
there is essentially,
after the dust settled,
a paratranit supervisor
and two paratransit,
one was an eligibility assessor
and I believe that's the working
title, and then the other was
essentially a rights coordinator.
And they were, they
were standing up the program
in conjunction with the customer
service representatives in
conjunction with some
support from the customer services
supervisor. It was, it was kind of
an all hands on deck to,
to me, parent transit
operate, so.
Yeah, it sounds like my goal
around that would be in
and we have a position available
that would be converted into
that would essentially to
really do a lot of the oversight
and the contract management and get
into that day to day
kind of looking at the quality of
the program that's being provided
and having those regular meetings
and really able to support
the staff and stand of the program
in a way that.
I would, I would think that we would
all want it to stop.
Thank you, and I won't ask too many
more questions. I know we have other
general questions of finance
staff and then folks
from the community that probably are
waiting to speak under general
public comment still.
So I'll try to not ask too
any other questions, but perhaps
here in closing, as it relates
to Metro Transit.
When we received,
as I mentioned earlier,
our 2027 operating budget
outlook.
From the finance team in
this committee a month ago, and then
the council received the exact same
presentation a week later.
Director Schmidke had mentioned
three main reasons why
at the time, at least they were
projecting a nine and a half million
dollar additional metro
subsidy from the general fund next
year, and increased
personnel was one,
paratransit provider cost was two,
And the third was...
Rising fuel costs and
if you if we if
I'm perhaps I missed it but I
haven't heard fuel mentioned.
Yet in the in this discussion.
Yeah obviously we're probably
electrifying the fleet here and
so it's not as big an issue as it
would have been years and a few
years back, but could you
speak to. To the
diesel fuel prices and so forth and
how that's affecting your agency and
how it fits into the
projected deficit for this year.
Yeah so right now our
fuel costs are currently locked in
at a relatively affordable
rate which is why you're not seeing
it be such a huge driver.
My understanding and Dave correct
me if I'm wrong I'm not completely
familiar with the the details of
the the contract for the city's fuel
but that rate
is not going to be held going
into 2027, which is part of
the protection of the increase
that you'll see associated
with fuel for us then.
So we'll go from a variable,
it sounds like a locked-in rate to a
more volatile or variable
rate.
Is that accurate, David?
Yeah, that's correct.
Yeah, that makes complete sense.
Thanks for explaining that Dave.
Do you want to speak to do you know
when then are the
current contract dance.
Right, so we have futures contracts
on metro fuel basically
through the end of the calendar
year, depending on how much fuel
metro uses that
might go into calendar year 27,
but that's not
really expected.
So that's the cost
increase that we're seeing in 27
is that relative
change in price per
gallon coming off of
the futures contracts.
For much more.
And then perhaps the ending on my
part with questions about metro
transit. Why don't I perhaps ask
you, Dave, then my last question
on transit and that would be
It's obviously been about a month
since you provided at least this
committee or 27
operating budget outlook.
Would you still say that today
your team would be suggesting
it's you're still estimating a nine
and a half million dollar additional
metro subsidy needed for
next year.
We just got agency
requests and
we still need to talk with
METRO about
their specific requests.
And so that's the best
number we have at the moment, but
we continue to look at, and I think
Jamie talked about this as well,
really refining the federal
estimates, how we can use those
federal dollars.
And so, that's an ongoing process.
At the moment, the $9.5 million is
what we have.
Thank you, appreciate that.
Thank you Jamie and Christoph, all
you back man.
Thank you, Alder.
Alder, Lankala, questions from
Metro?
Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor.
Thank you, General Manager Acton,
for your presentation.
I should know this question,
but answer for this question what
I'm gonna ask.
I worked on a transportation
board before, so should
know the number there, but is that
number, you just mentioned about 60
vehicles out of...
Warranty.
Warrantee.
Thank you.
What percentage of vehicles
are those?
Is this historically a high number
or are we looking for
larger maintenance costs
because of moving forward
as they're getting older,
and does that mean that we also need
additional replacement of
all of those vehicles.
So the 62
vehicles that are
now out of warranty are
the vehicles that're
associated with BRT.
So we received those
in a large quantity,
pretty much in a very short
period of time.
And so they all came out of
warrantee basically at
the same time as well.
So I think
we will continue
to see costs associated it
with. All vehicles go
up at this point just based
on supply chain
demand.
We know that we only have two
essentially manufacturers in North
America that we are able to use
Proterra, not Proterrra, my
goodness.
We're looking at New Flyer.
Sorry, I'm thinking about a waiver
that I have to get.
We have New Flyr and Gaelic busses
in our fleets.
Once they get to a certain age
and mileage we are able to utilize
aftermarket carts but those parts
are not producing mass
quantities and the rest of the
you know the country is also looking
to try to get their hands on them,
so. You know, cables that
we had initially thought that were
gonna be around $5,000 are
now $8,000.
You know, things have just continued
to, costs have just continue to
increase in fleet maintenance.
So I think you'll see
that across the country.
We're not unique here, but
we do have 62
of them.
So it's 100% of
our BRT fleet
at one time.
And so we are starting to
look at ways that we can try
to.
Manage our inventory needs,
manage our preventative maintenance
within the intervals that is
required by the federal government,
and really kind of keep on top of
those things. But like I said,
just didn't take those things into
consideration for 20
So my assumption, so moving forward
for 27 and up, you're
gonna be putting those
into your projections.
So it will not be.
I will not let me not.
Yes.
We also do have
older vehicles in our fleets
that we are looking to retire
and that we will
be looking to right-size our fleet.
We have a
bit of grant money that we'll
be able to
kind of increase the, they
call it the state of good repair
and basically bring
newer vehicles in, transition
older vehicles, less efficient
vehicles out.
But again, it'll be a delicate
balance of how many do we
bring in at one time versus our
service level and making sure we
have what is called our spare
ratio right size, because
we can't just have a bunch
of busses sitting and waiting.
We have to have kind of an exact
right number based on our peak level
of sickness.
And I would add on the warranty
front,
these 60 something busses
are our first
electric articulated busses.
They are a new kind of bus in the
fleet. So some of what you are
seeing here too is our
mechanics,
our supply chain.
Ramping up for a new kind of bus we
were not operating or maintaining
before.
So some of this has been the
understanding of what it actually
cost to maintain them, which is a
different world than the diesel
busses we were operating before.
This is simply a new type of bus
that we haven't been as familiar
with and therefore it was much more
difficult to estimate
what they would cost to thing.
So now with the experience that we
have, I'm assuming we'll
have better projections for next two
years on, I think, right?
Yes, I would hope so.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alder.
Are there any other questions
for Metro?
Seeing none, then we'll go to the
general questions for Christine
Aldervidover.
Yeah, so thank you.
Christine, you'd mentioned the
amount of work it is to do these
mid-year budget updates, and then it
takes a couple of months.
So I guess my question is more about
efficiency.
Are there software systems
or other platforms that would
help allow for these updates
to happen on a more
ongoing basis so that you're not
basically every
three months having to do this big
job over and over and over again.
Thanks for that question.
Our team is definitely looking into,
is interested in creating
efficiencies and new ways of
working.
I would say we haven't specifically
looked at alternatives to
budget projections, but have looked
at technology to streamline
production of the budget book
with the digital budget book tool.
So that was really our big focus the
last year or two,
and I think it's on
my high priority and my work plan to
make this easier for all of us.
Excellent.
And then my other question was
specific.
So we know that
the federal Republican
big beautiful
budget, whatever the heck it's
called, is going to kick a heck
of a lot of people off Medicaid.
And that's going to impact
all of us in terms of higher health
care costs. It's going impact
probably we're going to have higher
ambulance runs, but it's also
likely going to affect the number of
people who are going to have
Medicaid coverage.
For ambulance runs.
So just wondering if we have built
in a projection going
forward for when that takes effect.
And that's really more about 27, but
it was one of the things that you
mentioned. It was the ambulance
charges.
So, just wondering if that's being
taken into consideration for 27.
So, Alder Vinterberg, we
really don't know what that impact
will be on ambulance and things like
that.
The ambulance revenues that
we're referring to is a new
Medicaid waiver program that
the state put into effect.
It's called the General Emergency
Medical Transport Program,
and that means that we get more
Medicaid reimbursement on
those runs for Medicaid eligible
individuals.
And that has resulted in
back payments from both
2023 and
2024, I believe that have
increased ambulance revenues.
And we expect going forward that
those ambulance revenues will
obviously remain elevated
due to that waiver program.
And then we'll continue to monitor
actual runs
and things like that
and impact on both
revenues as well as
our the waiver program
and things like that,
but definitely this enhanced
Medicaid waiver payment
has resulted in additional revenues
and will continue to result in
additional revenues coming in
through the ambulance fee.
Thank you, Alder.
Are there other questions on
the budget presentation?
Alder Revere.
Thank you, Mayor, and thank
you, Christine, for your excellent
presentation.
Helped answer several of
the questions I had just reading the
resolution over the weekend.
So I did have just
one
question and one request.
I'll start with the request.
Is it possible for you
and your colleagues to try to
make the agency projection
review Excel spreadsheet?
Convert to PDF file in a
more, so it's more readable, not
only to us, but the
community that might be accessing
this register file.
Several of the, the
end column, the commentary, you
probably haven't noticed yet,
the words are cut off and
you can't read like the ends
of some of your comments.
So I was hoping you could,
at your convenience, maybe make
another effort to convert the
Excel spreadsheet to a PDF.
We don't lose any of them.
Information.
This was brought to my attention at
the beginning of the meeting and
I've since re-uploaded that Excel
file. So you should be able to
open it.
Okay, great.
It had converted to a PDF
unintentionally that had the cutoff
issues, but I've re- uploaded it
as an original Excel file so
you can have full access to
the data and expand and
review cells. So I believe
the public facing legislature site
has had the correct attachment
for the last hour or
so.
Terrific. I just need to refresh
them. Thanks very much for that good
news And then speaking of your
helpful agency projection review
Excel spreadsheet.
I see Fire chief carbon
is with us. I want to acknowledge.
I don't have a question for you
Chris, but I do want to acknowledges
that how Great
it was to see finance
though. You're turning your camera
on anybody.
Let me just say congrats to you and
your team it was so great to see
Finance staff confirming full
staffing for your
agency and And,
uh... The best over
time projection I've seen in years.
I don't know if you, since you did
turn on your camera, if you wanna
say anything about that and how you
achieve that.
Um, no, I won't go into
a lengthy reply, but I'll just
say thank you for the support
and allowing the recruit class sizes
to continue.
And that's really helped us over the
last three to four recruit classes
in order to catch up,
maintain that staffing and allow the
creative staffing program to kick in
and be more effective.
So we really appreciate the support.
Thank you, thanks very much again,
Chief.
And then lastly, my question for
you, Christine, is I
was just curious in
response to one of my questions Dave
mentioned earlier, reminded us that
agency operating budget
agency requests were only recently
submitted. I know they were due on
the 17th of this month.
I was wondering if you could give us
an update as to what your best
guess estimate is to when those
agency budget requests will be.
Available to be viewed by
us policy makers in the community
online.
We're aiming for next week.
So if you go to our budget
web page, we'll note we'll
have two deadlines under budget
request. We have the date that it
was due from the agencies and our
anticipate anticipated date of
publication, and we currently have
eight three listed.
We're building the
request in the digital budget book
for the first time to
try and use some of the benefits of
the new platform that we have
purchased for the operating budget.
So we're still working through some
of those logistics and if that date
changes, we'll update our website
but definitely sometime next week.
Great, thank you so much, I
appreciate that.
Thanks again for all the helpful
information today.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you, Alder.
Are there other questions for
Christine or finance staff?
Right.
Seeing none, then
item 18 has been moved
and seconded. Is there any
discussion?
Seeing no discussion, is there
any objection to recording unanimous
vote in favor of item 18?
Seeing no objection, record a
unanimous vote in favor of item 18,
and then would
request a motion to
take item one off the table.
Motion to take item
one public comment off the tables.
Second.
Move and second to take it off the
the table, is there any objection?
Seeing none, item one is back before
us.
I believe we
only have one person
on the phone.
In the zoom and
so let
me just jump to the
list. And
can we have.
Our tech staff allow
that person to speak and see if they
are one of the registrants.
They should have permission to
speak. I didn't see that number on
the list,
but they are being asked
to unmute as well.
So for the person who's listening on
the phone, it's star six on your
phone, if you'd like to unmute
yourself.
And if you were registered to speak
to speak,
if not, perhaps you could just
confirm that you're not interested
in speaking.
Well, wait a minute.
All right, it seems like not.
So we have no other registrants
in attendance.
I would just direct your collective
attention to the
email comment that we
got on item one
and ask that you read that.
Staff will send an updated report.
I believe that comments were still
coming in through the meeting.
And so just ask that members
of the body go ahead and read that
report from staff when we receive
it.
That will bring us to the end
of our agenda.
So I would entertain a motion to
adjourn. Motion to adjourned.
Moved and seconded to adjourne.
Is there any objection to recording
unanimous vote in favor?
Seeing none, we stand adjourned,
have a good evening.