
Connie Spears
Does the Madison Council Adopt Deficit Budgets?
Our campaign has stated that the City of Madison adopted deficit budgets in four of the past five years. Some on our council have stated that this is not the case, that at year-end, the balance in the city coffers grew, so how could there be a deficit? This is a fallacy in logic. Final financial number may have seen windfalls from increased sales tax or other sources.
According to Webster, a budget is “a statement of financial position of an administration for a definite period of time based on estimates of expenditures during the period and proposal for financing them” or basically the city’s financial plan. Based on city financial documents, the council adopted budgets that planned for deficits in four of the past five years, the exception being 2016. Dumb luck and a booming economy allowed us to not actually experience declining reserves.
Finding information on the city website is almost impossible (another thing I’ll work to cleanup when I’m elected) but the sources of this data are shown below the chart:

FY2020
Council Adopted Budget (https://www.madisonal.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3777)
Pages 18 and 19 of 117 pages
Total Revenues and Other Sources: 37,432,427
Total Expenditures and Other Uses: 41,556,206
Total – Revenues and Other Sources Over (Under) Total – Expenditures and Other Uses: (4,123,779)
FY2019
Council Adopted Budget (https://www.madisonal.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3493)
Pages 8, 9 and 10 of 106 pages
Total Revenues and Other Sources: 34,922,796
Total Expenditures and Other Uses: 39,122,435
Total – Revenues and Other Sources Over (Under) Total – Expenditures and Other Uses: (4,199,639)
FY2018
Council Adopted Budget (https://www.madisonal.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3200)
Pages 17 and 18 of 121 pages
Total Revenues and Other Sources: 33,384,878
Total Expenditures and Other Uses: 36,699,647
Total – Revenues and Other Sources Over (Under) Total – Expenditures and Other Uses: (3,314,769)
FY2017
Council Adopted Budget (https://www.madisonal.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/2928)
Pages 21 and 22 of 135 pages
Total Revenues and Other Sources: 31,623,591
Total Expenditures and Other Uses: 34,373,082
Total – Revenues and Other Sources Over (Under) Total – Expenditures and Other Uses: (2,749,491)
FY2016
Council Adopted Budget (https://www.madisonal.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/2613)
Pages 21 and 22 of 157 pages
Total Revenues and Other Sources: 30,572,799
Total Expenditures and Other Uses: 29,992,702
Total – Revenues and Other Sources Over (Under) Total – Expenditures and Other Uses: 580,097