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City Cast Madison

, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway described the future of Madison’s budgeting as 

To be clear, the city isn’t in trouble right now. In fact, the Madison area has shown major signs of economic growth this year — think rising housing prices, low unemployment, construction everywhere.

But the city is tightening its belt. The 2024 executive budget called for every city department to cut their budgets by 1%. In practice, this comes in the form of spending cuts and holding job vacancies open for longer periods of time, 

Madison Finance Director Dave Schmiedicke said on the City Cast Madison podcast

 through the State and Local Recovery Funds component of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

According to Schmiedicke, half of that money went directly to community recovery efforts, which included funds for the new men’s shelter in Madison, rental assistance for residents and businesses, and youth violence prevention programming.

The other half of the Covid-19 relief funds help maintain city government services, Schmiedicke said. The city knew building its revenue back to pre-pandemic levels would be a challenge. Using pandemic funding to plug holes in the 2024 budget has bought the city more time to come up with new revenue streams. But the last of that money will be used in the coming year. So expect to see more fees in the future.

When it comes to raising money, the city is trying to get creative with its options, because it knows it can’t rely on the state for more cash.

Despite the state government’s move to give municipalities more funding through “shared revenue,” 

Madison is also looking to its contemporaries for ideas — places like Lincoln, Nebraska, Columbus, Ohio, and Austin, Texas. Schmiedicke said the idea of a city sales tax, like 

, has been discussed but wants to ensure any additional costs to residents are imposed equitably.

When announcing the city’s 2024 Executive Operating Budget, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway described the future of Madison’s budgeting as “pretty bleak.”

Understanding Madison’s 2024 Budget

What Madisonians have been wondering. We break down why things in Madison are the way they are and how they work.

Madison, Explained

Nothing pairs better with a beer at a Madison bar than pull-tabs, the small cardboard game pieces ubiquitous across the state. We asked freelance author and journalist Tea Krulos to help us uncover the bizarre backstory of this unofficial — 

Feed a dollar into a machine and out comes a Wisconsin Souvenir Milkcap — that’s the full government name. Pull on the tabs to reveal a collection of slot-machine-like icons that could win you up to $250. Krulos says the most he’s won is $2.

“The story is really convoluted and strange, and kind of a rabbit hole,” says Krulos, who recently wrote about pull-tabs for Milwaukee Magazine and says he’s still unsure if he fully understands it.

The game was invented in 1955 by Walter Bohrer, who was in the business of providing bars with coin-operated machines like jukeboxes and pinball — it was his “retirement hobby business.”

The sale of gambling devices is illegal in Wisconsin, so how are pull-tabs allowed? 

, a gambling piece is legal if it is attached to an item of value in addition to a potential prize — like the fries you got with McDonald’s Monopoly game. Walter Bohrer remembered that when he was a child, delivered milk bottles had a tab underneath the cap that you could pull and potentially win a free dairy product. This gave him an idea.

Fellow 90s kids will remember Pogs, decorated 

circular cardboard pieces that you could collect

  — and collect, I did. Enter the Wisconsin Souvenir Milkcap, a collectible item that just so happens to come with the opportunity to win some money.

This might be my favorite instance of utilizing nostalgia to exploit a loophole.

You can click (not pull) the button below to hear more about pull-tabs.

money

Understanding Madison’s 2024 Budget

WTF are Pull-Tabs?

Latest articles

Understanding Madison’s 2024 Budget

WTF are Pull-Tabs?