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5/1/2008
Referendum required - for new CITY buildings?
July 16, 2007. We’re all used to voting on school referendums – school districts can’t spend capital dollars unless approved by a plurality of the voters in the district it serves. But cities, towns, and villages have no such prohibitions and can spend at will - except in about 10 municipalities in southern Wisconsin.
Those ten municipalities have enacted Spending Caps- limits on the amount a municipality can spend for big-ticket buildings without first putting it to the community for a vote.
It’s a good time to think about this stuff, as most municipalities prepare 2008 budgets for deliberation by boards and councils later this year. In 2002, a citizens group in Mt. Horeb submitted a properly constituted petition for direct legislation that would have, if passed, required adoption of an ordinance mandating that the Village Board submit construction projects of $1M or more to a referendum for approval.
Mt Horeb’s village board fought the community’s petition for spending caps all the way to the State Supreme Court. (What??) The citizens won (yeah!), a petition was placed on a ballot – and passed – requiring voter approval for construction projects of $1M and more.
I’ve been there, fighting my own government for the citizen’s right to vote on spending control legislation. We ultimately won (more on that another day…), even had a court battle, but didn’t come close to having to fight in the Supreme Court.
So, thanks to the good and persistent citizen members of Mt. Horeb Community Alert, one more spending control mechanism is open to municipal residents.
According to an excellent review done by Barb Whitcomb, co-founder of Pewaukeeans for Better Government, no state agency or interest group keeps track of communities that have spending caps, in other words, communities requiring voter approval for large-ticket items. Whitcomb was able to list 11 communities in the State with spending caps – all instituted via direct legislation with the glaring exception of the City of Pewaukee.
(The City of Pewaukee Council took pre-emptive action, passing a $10M spending cap ordinance. For a city with about 12,000 residents, whose total operating budget for 2007 is $14M, chances are extremely rare one project will ever trigger the $10M cap, requiring a referendum. And direct legislation – a properly drawn and signed petition from citizens – cannot, by law, modify an existing ordinance. Pretty underhanded maneuver that shut out citizen action. Boooo.)
Most of the communities on the spending cap list have populations in the 5,000 to 10,000 range and by way of those spending caps, must go to voters when any one project will exceed, typically, $1M. Sounds great to me. If you’d like more of a voice in your community on big-ticket items, talk to the folks at Pewaukeeans for Better Government. They’re in there sluggin’ to help the cause of lower taxes everywhere. Thanks guys.
COMMENTS
Closer to home the Grand Chute Town Board will vote on a proposal to either accept or reject the vote of those attending the town's annual meeting to budget no more than $3.5 million for a new fire station.
Great point. Actually the motivation for the article.... even though towns can't do direct legislation.. JE
ron tank (Mon Jul 16 09:20:23 2007)
Like Schultz, "I know nah-tink" about this issue.
But the thought comes to mind that the ditto response to referendums for any public project would be negative. This comes from a generally non- or ill-informed public which has heard little or no debate and so could block progress of legitimate and worthwhile projects.
Also the visage of back room deals for new sprawlmarts comes to mind. What's good in the minds of the proponents for these sorts of referenda for public projects should be extended to those who want to see an end to pointless expansion and land use/abuse.
Lon Ponschock (Mon Jul 16 12:43:54 2007)
At what point does our structure of representative government become irrelevant? I think we elect people to city councils to act on our behalf. When we start to intercede we start down the slippery slope California has followed. There, referendum writing is a growth industry. The California legislature is so hobbled by "citizen initiative" interference, it is severly hamstrung in what it can and cannot legislate. Yes, there might be very limited instances when seeking citizen voting approval is appropriate, but let's not get carried away!
I appreciate your reasoning Tim. Of course, Wisconsin doesn't permit the statewide initiative, but that's not the point you were getting to. (I was active in the Proposition 13 effort in California - certainly still very controversial.) Do you object to a city being required to get approval from citizens for projects similar to school district referendum requirements? JE
Tim DuVall (Mon Jul 16 19:28:43 2007)
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