So this means no loan for the country club, right?
The Madison City Commission Monday night approved a resolution authorizing Mayor Gene Hexom to submit an application asking for a $3.4 million loan to make much needed repairs to the municipal water system.
City Finance Office Jeff Heinemeyer cautioned commissioners, however, that the move further increases the level of the city's overall debt. State law prohibits any municipality from borrowing anything over five percent of that city's assessed valuation.
"Madison currently is $16 million in debt," Heinemeyer said. "By approving this resolution you increase the city debt to $18 million, thereby using up all financial reserves to apply towards other projects" [Gale Pifer, "City to Ask for $3.4M Loan for Water Repairs," Madison Daily Leader, 2011.12.20].
Madison apparently has "somewhat unique" levels of poison in its water. (Note: uniqueness is like pregnancy; you either are or you aren't.) Madison has to fix its water storage system, unless we want to change Madison's tagline to "Discover the Unexpected Tumors."
But check out this graph (from Monday's city commission agenda) of Madison's long-term debt:
At the beginning of the 1990s, Madison's debt was negligible. Since then our debt has spiked four times, in 1995, 1998, 2004, and 2008. One would think that if the Forward Madison economic development initiative had worked, Madison would have had more tax revenue at its disposal to avoid going into debt. But the city's debt went up in the first couple years of the program and remains higher than it was prior to the Lake Area Improvement Corporation's latest futile ministrations. If economic development initiatives put local governments on a more sound fiscal footing, we don't see evidence of that in Madison.
Even if you accept the absurd claim peddled by the country club crowd, that their clubhouse expansion is really civic-minded economic development, you should expect the city to respond to the 1%'s request for a city loan as I suggested last month: We're maxed out on our borrowing capacity... the city has its obligations... and constituents it has to address first.
Note: uniqueness is like pregnancy; you either are or you aren’t.
If I weren't already married, I would consider marrying this comment.
Come on Cory. Do your usual in depth reporting and explain what major projects the city has done during the same timeframe as the increase in debt. Not everything is the fault of the LAIC. (this last sentence in no way means I am endorsing or supporting the activities of the LAIC)
Good eye, Cory. Keep digging.
http://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=46000&progcode=dairy&yr=m2010
http://farm.ewg.org/top_recips.php?fips=46081&progcode=dairy
Jim, I'm not blaming the LAIC for our debt. I'm saying that whatever magic they worked during the last five years, they didn't keep us out of debt. Madison would be less in debt if it had gathered the $2.3 million in Forward Madison money (including $500K from the city) and used it to directly pay off our city debt... which would have meant the city would not need to use as many accounting tricks to keep its debt legal and would not have to max out its borrowing to make the necessary water improvements. The thesis above is not that the LAIC hurt; it's that the LAIC didn't help.
The thesis is also that we clearly have no money to give to the country club when we have to max out debt just to clean up Madison's water.
Would they need to spend this money if the Lewis and Clark system were still on track?
Good question, Lauri. Is that water pipeline supposed to bring fresh water on demand every day, or would it transport water into our existing storage units? If the latter, then we'd still have to spend this money to build new storage and keep from polluting that water as it comes in.
The new storage isn't an option. The current clear well will fail.. sometime. It's a buried, 50 plus year old concrete box. It does not contribute to any of the water quality issues. But the Purification plant can't function without it, as designed.
The additional plant upgrades, mostly the addition of the Ammoniation equipment should remedy the issues that have sent out the notices.
Lewis and Clark wouldn't change this issue. We are slated to get up to a million gallons of supplemental water from there, it was never meant to be our sole supplier. These are problems from aging equipment and buried mains. They just occur over time and require upgrades. No one on the Commission has taken the increased debt lightly, but clean water isn't the place to worry about it later. I hope this helps explain some of it.
Thank you, Commissioner Abraham! That's good information for us to have. At first glance, the idea of using ammonia to clean drinking water makes me nervous, but I'll trust the engineers on this one. Build it, build it right... and tell the golfers the city has bigger fish to fry!