Overture Center for the Arts: Do You Really Want More Money?

The  spending increase from 2011 to 2012 in the proposed city of Madison budget  is $1,000,000, or less than 1%. This was accomplished by significant sacrifices made by many people and agencies.

While the city budget increase is .93%, some are expressing concern that the Overture Center for the Arts is not getting the expected increase in city funding of 66% from $1.265 million to $2 million. The 2012 executive budget recommends $1,325,000.

The proposed 2012 budget works because:

• 448 city police officers and 337 firefighters voluntarily agreed to compensation cuts of $2,485,300 to avoid layoffs among their own ranks and the rest of the city workforce.
• Represented city employees, members of Locals 60 and 236, agreed to reduce their own scheduled salary increases by $767,664.
• The funds for the city fleet, mainly heavy equipment, was cut by $3 million.
• The City of Madison and Dane County are laying off five public heath employees who administer the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program.
• The State of Wisconsin Voter ID Law is an unfunded mandate that increases next year's budget by $325,000.
• The approximately 50 community service agencies that help the poor  are getting the exact same level of funding they received last year - during a period when the agencies need increased funding as demand for their services goes up.
• The city is not making payments into its salary continuation and life insurance funds this year, saving over $1.9 million.  This is possible due to the high levels in these funds.

All this was done as we face state reductions in aids to Madison of $4.2 million.

 The Madison City Council did make a promise to make a payment to Overture of $2 million for 2012.  That was however, before Governor Walker devastated our revenues, broke sixty years of commitment to city employees, and drove up our operating costs for the administration of elections.

Lots of contracts have been broken or re-written as a result of the Walker Administration changes we are facing. The Overture Center is one of the few agencies getting more money than last year. How much more should we take from the others and the taxpayers?

My administration and previous city councils have done an outstanding job funding the arts, including the performing arts. We created the Madison Civic Center, we fund local performers, we have concert programs, and we have other long term commitments.

The Overture Center can find private sources of funding. The City of Madison however, cannot find private sources to fund the Police, Fire, and Health Departments or to keep the streets plowed.

 

 

 

Comments

[antpoppa]

This is not the way things happen, life follows art!! Philosophically. Artists have had the vision to stimulate representation of beauty, truth and good. And we mimic (Mimesis) through the child-eyes of the artist the presentation of the self. The people are doomed to become what they mimic. Shall we become poets or budgets?
..
‘Sons of Whitman sons of Poe
Sons of Lorca &Rimbaud
or their dark daughters
poets of another breath
poets of another vision
Who among you still speaks of
revolution
Who among you still unscrews
the locks from the doors
in this revisionist decade?’
..
We are doomed unless a miracle of good fortune intervenes.
Populist Manifesto #2
Tepotzlan-San Francisco

[janeofdane]

The police, firefighters and represented city employees have my respect and thanks. Thanks for sacrificing on behalf of our city. Thanks for showing others how to do their part. Thanks for believing in Madison.

I hope the city will treat its employees with as much respect and generosity as possible. Relationships take a long while to build and very little effort to destroy. The relationship between management and workers is very important and good relations will benefit our city.

[Joe koberstein]

I think its interesting that you blame Walker's policies for today's problems. Wasn't it really the over spending in the Thompson and Doyle administrations that caused Walker's policies? Oh and the cities had a lot to do with it too. We went through a national crisis of too much spending both from govts and individuals and now were are paying for it. That's as it should be.

[steve]

Their should be some cuts in this city. When I first moved here 3 years ago. I watched the city workers plant a tree 2 to dig the whole, 8 city workers to plant 1 tree, 1 to hold the tree straight and 2 to shovel the dirt back in and 5 to supervise ( standing there leaning on a shovel) that took over 1 hour and they all came in 3 trucks now that is a waste. Job security. This fire department can save a lot of money also. Why do you need to go grocery shopping with the ladder truck and why does the ladder truck need to go out every time the ambulance goes out, I can see in an accident but not to residential calls. That ladder truck uses a lot of fuel, plus all the maintenance to keep the truck up. The city police department that is a whole different story there should be some more cuts there also. The police department should learn to work for a living and not sit on there butts. Get out there and stop the crime before it happens.

[antpoppa]

Steve
You tell me that you observed men planting a tree for over an hour, and then offer to comment on productivity?
You’re a laugh riot!! Please keep posting. See you at the comedy club.

[Dan Sebald]

Joe,

Cities are the least responsible for any financial crisis. Cities tend to operate on marginal budgets, meaning they spend about as much as they take in. Cities don't attempt to make profits.

To say that a government overspends means that it takes on a lot of debt, which if is too great will be reflected in a poor bond rating. It's the federal government and the ballooning debt where overspending is, and S&P downgrading was justified in that case and welcome in my opinion.

As for individual debt. There you are spot on.

I would point out that Gov. Walker doesn't appear to be that much more frugal than predecessors. He's just reapportioning. And no matter whose to blame for financial crisis, I still argue it is unkind to just pull shared revenue out of the blue. Had the governor proposed a gradual tendency toward self-sufficiency, stating that by 2015 all state grants would be eliminated, that would be preferred.

[Meade]

"The Overture Center can find private sources of funding. The City of Madison however, cannot find private sources to fund the Police, Fire, and Health Departments or to keep the streets plowed."

Sincere thanks. This is what Mayor Dave could never say or do and it is what formed the margin for his defeat last spring. Please keep up the good work.