Wisconsin Policy Forum Review of Proposed 2024 City Budget

Background

Each year the Wisconsin Policy Forum reviews and analyzes the Mayor`s proposed Executive budget for alders and the public. The Forum`s full report on the proposed 2024 Executive Operating and Capital Budgets is published to their website, here  and I highly encourage you to check it out if you`re interested in teh full set of details and graphs. I thought it would be useful to share this independent, third-party review of the proposed budget to give residents more context on the proposal and the City`s future budget challenges. My goal is to help folks provide informed input before the Common Council takes up the budget in a couple of weeks. For more detailed information check out the resources on the City`s budget webpage.

In this post I include a few highlights and screenshots of graphs from the report showing what I consider to be the most important summary information about the proposed 2024 City budget and future budget challenges based on current conditions. Sections of text in quotes ("") are direct quotes from the report. All of the 2024 figures are proposed; numbers from 2023 and prior are what was already approved; numbers from 2025 and later are projections based on the 2024 proposal and adopted budget-related policy. Note that this information was created before last Monday`s Finance Committee meeting where Finance Committee alders did pass a few amendments to the proposed Executive Operating Budget. My sincere thanks to the folks at the Wisconsin Policy Forum for sharing this work wit
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