Madison residents will be asked on the November ballot whether they approve of a $22 million property tax increase to fund city services after the City Council voted on the measure Tuesday night.

After months of considering various options to close an expected budget gap next year – such as cutting city staff and services or adopting Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway’s plan to raise taxes – city councilors voted 17-2 in favor of the latter.

According to city officials, passing the $22 million referendum would increase property taxes on the average Madison home by about $230 a year.

“Madison has never been afraid to tackle difficult issues, debate the best possible solution and stand up for what is right. That spirit was on display tonight when the Madison City Council passed the referendum resolution by a vote of 17 to 2,” Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said in a statement after the meeting.

The mayor said the referendum is “the only budget path in 2025 that protects our values ​​as a community while working to address the chronic underfunding of local governments at the state level.”

“I’m glad the council agreed that putting this issue before the voters is the right thing to do,” Rhodes-Conway said.

The November election will be historic because, for the first time, Madison voters will be asked to consider property tax referendums for both the school district and the city of Madison. Madison school district leaders will ask voters to approve more than $600 million in two referendums. They estimate that these measures would increase the average homeowner’s property tax by more than $1,000 in a few years.

If voters reject the city’s referendum in November, Rhodes-Conway said the city would have to cut $6 million in services next year and the next, with even bigger cuts coming later. By 2030, Rhodes-Conway said, the city will have a budget deficit of $63 million, which would require more than $20 million in service cuts, in addition to other measures such as accessing emergency funds and raising fees for certain government services.

Even with a referendum, the city would still have to spend $25 million from its reserves through 2030, according to Rhodes-Conway’s long-term budget plan. And for next year’s budget, city leaders would still consider a fee increase to fund some services.

To avoid a fee increase and seeking a fairer solution, Councilwoman Marsha Rummel of the 6th District had advocated for an even larger property tax increase of $29 million. Rummel urged her colleagues on Tuesday to consider the plan despite concerns that it would raise taxes on the average home by another $73 a year.

The $7 million increase in Rummel’s plan would notably have eliminated the municipal forestry fee, which is estimated to cost $7.5 million in 2025 – half a million more than in 2024. The special fee is collected as part of the monthly municipal services bill issued by the Madison Water Utility. This year, the fee is $7.12 per household per month.

“It’s fairer in some ways for taxpayers to use the tax revenue for services. That creates opportunities because we’re not just looking at 2025, but we’re looking at the next six years to create a little more wiggle room in the options that we have,” Rummel said. “The bottom line is that it seems a little odd to the average taxpayer to ask for more money, but shifting that cost will cost them less. At some point, some taxpayers will pay more.”

While some city leaders – including Rhodes-Conway – praised the plan as a more progressive approach to funding services, it ultimately failed to gain traction over concerns that voters would balk at the higher number on the ballot.

“There is so much misinformation in the public right now that trying to circulate a larger amount of it will ultimately hurt us even more in terms of passing the referendum,” said Ald. Regina Vidaver, District 5. “I would love to support that in theory, but we have seen that a large portion of the population does not support a referendum at all because they just don’t understand why we are here. They blame us for the structural deficit that the legislature and former Governor Scott Walker created.”

Vidaver added: “I cannot vote for this because I think the PR problem is too big.”

Rummel’s plan was defeated by a vote of 2 to 17, with Rummel and Isadore Knox Jr. voting in favor.

Councilors Knox and Barbara Harrington-McKinney were the only ones to vote against putting the $22 million city referendum to the voters.

Allison Garfield joined Cap Times in 2021 to cover local government. She graduated from UW-Madison with a journalism degree and previously worked as a government monitoring reporter for the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin and was a state Capitol intern for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Support Allison’s work and local journalism by becoming a Cap Times member. Follow her on Twitter @aligarfield_.

To comment on this story, send a letter to the editor.