You, Your Neighborhood, and Your City
www.cityofmadison.com/budgetprocess

Each year during the budget process, we ask Madison residents for their thoughts as to how the city should spend its money.  This year, as you think about the upcoming city budget, please go deeper than individual lines items – consider what values are important for our city and how these values should be expressed in the services that the city provides for individuals, neighborhoods and the city as a whole. 

In these challenging times, citizen involvement is more important than ever.  That is why we are structuring our operating budget process differently this year. We are involving  you, the citizen, earlier in the process and we want your ideas.  There are two ways for you to participate, both in person and online.  I hope you have seen some of the many announcements regarding our Community Budget Conversations. There will be five separate Community Budget Conversations in five areas of the city focusing on various aspects of city services. Elected officials and city staff will attend, as you discuss with your neighbors your values and priorities for city services, keeping in mind how this budget will affect you, your neighborhood, and your city. 

If you can’t attend one of the community meetings, I invite you to participate in the budget survey on the website.  The ranking of city services in the meetings and on the web will help guide the development of the City budget.  Now more than ever it is important to hear from community members about budget priorities.  We also hope that participating in this process will help you understand more about where the city’s money comes from, how it has been spent in 2011, and the wide range of services our city employees provide.  I urge you to participate, join in the discussions and complete the budget survey.  Your involvement is vital as we move forward together.

Mayor  Paul R. Soglin
 

City of Madison Budget Process: You, Your Neighborhood, and Your City

• Educate yourself on the budget
• Attend  Community Budget Conversations – share your ideas
• Participate in the Budget Survey

On May 25, 2011 Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed a bill into law that will require voters to produce a photo identification
card at the polls when they vote. Poll workers are being required to ask voters to show a photo ID during recall elections this July, as a way for municipalities to practice the new requirement.  However, a photo ID will not be required of voters until the Presidential Primary in February 2012, so if a voter does not have an ID in 2011, they will still be allowed to vote.

Access to Independence will provide a fact sheet that summarizes the new Voter Identification Law as soon as the new law is thoroughly reviewed and understood. Access to Independence will share that fact sheet through our website, so please go to
www.accesstoind.org for the latest updates and news about the new law. For now, ATI encourages people to check out the
Government Accountability Board website, which has provided a basic summary of the new law and that can be accessed at
http://gab.wi.gov/publications/other/ab7-amendment2-analysis

Please contact Access to Independence if you have
questions about the new law.

The Joint Finance Committee has completed public hearings on the budget and will vote on the proposed budget over the next few weeks - then the budget will move to the Legislature.  Legislators must hear a strong message NOW about the potential impact of various cuts on access to mental health services.
Background

While there is very little in the budget that directly cuts mental health services, other funding cuts are likely to lead in reductions in mental health services.  Wisconsin’s public mental health system relies heavily on funding from counties - about one-third of all funds supporting services for adults with severe mental illnesses and youth with serious emotional disturbances come from county tax levy. Another 20% flows through counties as community aids and shared revenues. Additionally, counties rely on Medicaid to fund core community-based services for kids and adults.

 

The following proposed cuts to counties may threaten mental health services:

• $500 million unspecified GPR (over $1.2 billion all funds) savings to Medicaid
• $36.5 million reduction in shared revenue to counties.
• A 10% cut to youth aids.
• 10% cuts within the Department of Health Services will result in an additional reduction of almost $2.5million in funds that currently go to counties to support a wide variety of programs including mental health services.
• A freeze in Family Care. While people with only a mental illness are not eligible for Family Care, about half of Family Care enrollees have a mental health diagnosis. And these individuals are more likely to be in restrictive, congregate care facilities. More significantly many consumers who now reside in institutional facilities could be relocated to the community at less cost using Family Care but this will not be possible under a freeze. Additionally counties are responsible for individuals who may get identified through Crisis or Adult Protective Services and have dual disabilities or behavioral challenges. Without the ability to move these individuals to Family Care, as appropriate, the counties are at risk for costs of care.

 

Education: In addition, reduced funding for K-12 education cuts put special education funding at risk, and this puts kids with emotional disturbances at risk. School districts have already begun announcing cuts to pupil services staff as a result of these reductions.

Income Maintenance – Access to Benefits: The proposal to centralize and automate Income Maintenance may create barriers for people with mental illness by making it more difficult to obtain help with accessing benefits and maintaining eligibility.  With a possible loss of local expertise and major reductions to opportunities for local support, some consumers may not be able to access benefits or may lose eligibility - with a loss of access to health care and ultimately higher costs.

Sample Message to Legislators:  (personalize with your own story)

 

I am writing to express my concern about the threat to public mental health services due to the impact of budget cuts on counties and schools. Because of the significant role that counties play in administering mental health services cuts to shared revenues, youth aids, the Family Care freeze and income maintenance changes all threaten mental health services as counties seek to absorb such cuts. Unspecified changes to Medicaid to realize $500 million in savings could make the situation worse.  If counties are forced to cut community based mental health services, there will be significant human and fiscal cost as it will result in an even higher utilization of costly and traumatizing crisis and inpatient services - and the corrections system

Pupil services staff cuts in response to the budget could decrease the limited ability of schools to meet the needs of students with disabilities, including those with emotional disturbances. This group is one that is already vulnerable, being less likely to graduate from high school than any other disability group.

The Governor clearly intended that reductions in aids to counties and schools would be offset by savings from collective bargaining changes. But it is now clear that this will not be the case. We ask the Legislature, therefore, to consider how they can hold local entities harmless so as not to jeopardize services to people with disabilities

 

                Sign with your name and home address



Call or write your state senator and assembly representative

• If you do not know who your state legislators are, see “Who Are My Legislators?” at http://www.legis.wisconsin.gov/w3asp/waml/waml.aspx. 

 

Contact members of the Joint Finance Committee

• Email your comments to the committee at: budgetcomments@legis.wisconsin.gov  

or

• address comments to individual members:

 http://legis.wisconsin.gov/w3asp/CommPages/IndividualCommittee.aspx?committee=Finance&house=Joint

or

• Send by US mail to: Joe Malkasian, Room 305 East, State Capitol,Madison, WI 53703

Write a letter to the editor of your local paper about the importance of funding mental health services. 

• Check with the paper about acceptable length of letters.
• Include some of the facts above but tell your story; how might these cuts affect you or those you love.

Say No to Legalized Discrimination at Movie Theaters

You've seen the previews. Everyone's talking about it. All your friends and family want to watch the year's hottest movie on opening day. Here's our chance to make it happen!

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering updating its regulations regarding captioned movies at movie theaters. Importantly, the DOJ is asking for comments from the public – that’s you!

We need your help to ensure that all movies at all times in all movie theaters are fully accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing. The DOJ proposal, however, would require movie theaters to show closed captioning at 50% of movie showings within a 5-year time period.

Read more at:

http://www.nad.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=18167&qid=1188348