Alder Grant Foster has a proposal to lower the Wheel Tax to $35. Think it will fly? Will anyone else have such a proposal? Council meets tonight, we’ll see!
COUNCIL MEETING
Council meets at 4:30 in a special meeting with only this item on their agenda. If you ask me, they should also be appointing an alder to the empty campus seat ASAP! From the agenda “NOTIFIED ABSENCES: ALD. BIDAR, ALD. HENAK, ALD. TIERNEY, ALD. ALBOURAS”
BRIEF OPINION INTERLUDE!
Keep Wheel Tax lower now
I gotta say, I feel more comfortable with Alder Foster’s proposal and would like it to go even further. I think there are going to be more expenses in the future and we will have to raise it in the future, so I think keeping it as low as possible now saves room to raise it in the future for costs associated with operating BRT.
County
I also think the county has to participate in the costs in the future. What are we paying that county wheel tax for? What are we getting?
Reimbursements for others besides WIC program participants?
I also want to see someone propose that seniors can get reimbursed through the Senior Center if they have a food stamp card. And that people that are homeless can get reimbursed at the Beacon and people with disabilities can get reimbursed through . . . I don’t know where, but there has to be a place! Just providing the reimbursement for people on WIC isn’t enough. This is who is covered by that program “In order to qualify for this benefit program, you must be a resident of the state of Wisconsin; a pregnant, breastfeeding and/or postpartum woman; an infant or child up to 5 years of age; AND individually determined by a health professional to be at nutrition risk.”
ALDER FOSTER’S PROPOSAL
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2019 21:34
Subject: $35 Wheel Tax Amendment
Colleagues,
In advance of tomorrow’s meeting, I wanted to share with you my intent to move an amendment that would reduce the VRF from $40 to $35. I will speak more to the rationale behind the amendment tomorrow, but wanted to give you some advance notice and an accompanying proposal that would result in a balanced budget at a $35 fee level.
At the heart of this proposal is a reduction in wheel tax revenue of $1.47M and a corresponding reduction in operating expense of $1.31M (with use of the remaining tax authority under the levy limit to close the $160K gap).
This reduction in operating expense is accomplished by shifting the $1.05M in Metro studies from our Operating Budget to our Capital Budget and by delaying the start dates of several new positions ($257K).
While this proposal does add $1M to our 2020 GO borrowing, it is a relatively small increase and results in nearly $2M less borrowing than was originally proposed in the Executive Capital Budget ($94.8M as opposed to $96.6M).
There are many other factors to consider in this decision, but wanted to give you all some advance opportunity to review the below ahead of tomorrow’s meeting. Looking forward to seeing many of you then.
Grant
______________________________
| Under levy limit following Finance recommendations | $162,398 |
| Under levy limit with below changes | $1,381 |
| Reduce revenue from wheel tax in Metro budget to reflect 2/1 start date and admin fees | -$547,985 |
| Reduce revenue based on $35 wheel tax | -$920,414 |
| Reduce Purchased Services for Metro by $1.05M (Fund studies via capital budget) | $1,050,000 |
| Reduce funding for Police Auditor to begin 7/1 | $100,000 |
| Reduce funding for new Metro Operators (3) to begin 4/1 | $41,171 |
| Reduce funding for IT Spec 2 (formerly PIO) to begin 7/1 | $40,638 |
| Reduce funding of new Pinney Library positions to begin 3/1 | $32,333 |
| Reduce funding for new Metro Technology Specialist to begin 4/1 | $25,000 |
| Reduce funding for WIC gift cards to $81,760 at $35 x 2,336 (volume prorated for anticipated 2/1 start date) | $18,240 |
| Impact on Capital Budget | |
| Executive Capital Budget Proposed GO Borrowing | $96,627,577 |
| Capital Budget as Recommended by Finance | $93,707,177 |
| Capital Budget with Funding of Metro Studies | $94,757,177 |
