Editorial
Front Page - Friday, August 13, 2010
City official balances more than the local budget
Erica Tuggle
Raised on a farm in the tiny Alabama town of Uniontown, Administrator and City Finance Officer, Daisy Madison, says she enjoys simple things and likes to spend her free time in activities that involve the company of her family and friends. Madison says she enjoys being able to advise in situations that impact both her community and her as a citizen and taxpayer.
- Erica Tuggle
As the city financial officer for Chattanooga’s government, Daisy Madison unwillingly, acknowledges herself as a public figure. She says she’d rather keep to her office, and focus on the many tasks of her day that keep the wheels of progress turning in the city.
In the tiny town of Uniontown, Ala, near Selma, Madison’s parents owned a farm where she grew up. In this small community of about 5,000, Madison worked with her family to grow and sell cotton, vegetables and fruits, and dairy products. Madison says her father would praise her and the 10 other family members when they excelled at work on the farm or in school, and from this, she carried over a desire to do her best into college.
Madison began college at Alabama State University in Montgomery with a major in business education, because she was impressed and fascinated by professionals of the business world. She says she soon learned that her major was not going to be financially rewarding, and found accounting fascinated her as well for the types of things someone could do with this key element of business. She made the switch and became a certified public accountant.
Madison was offered a job in the U.S. General Accounting Office in Cincinnati, Ohio, and she joined up with them for her first job as a government auditor. From there, she went into public accounting with Arthur Anderson and Company, where she got her first real exposure to the government world, she says.
During her time there, Hamilton County was one of the accounts her company audited. There was a job opening in the local government for a deputy finance officer, and Madison wanted to make a job change where travel would be less so that she could fulfill her family obligations. Madison was hired as deputy finance officer for the City of Chattanooga in June 1992. She later assumed the responsibilities of city treasurer, and then in 2005,?the mayor appointed her as administrator of the Department of Finance & Administration and the city finance officer.
Now she says, “My job is to advise and assist the mayor and the council of the financial implications of their decisions and ways to promote their government objective through sound financial judgments. Some ideas are great, but if they can’t be financed, or are not feasible, or the negatives from a financial implication override them you have to balance all that out.”
In the city’s budget for the year, Madison says, she employs timing, long-term strategic planning and sound fiscal practices to make sure the budget, set in reflection for the cities priorities and the areas of government that monies are going to be targeted, is not only a direct reflection of what the citizens want, but that all objectives have reasonable financial loads.
“We have to be careful not to overtax, but at the same time not afraid to put the mechanisms in place to generate the sufficient amount of income for the community to thrive on and has what it needs to promote that economic engine,” she says.
One of the most difficult and challenging parts of her job is also the part she likes the most, Madison says. It is not an exact science, and is somewhat of an art in dealing with people in the form of taxpayers, business communities, elected officials and employees, she says.
“Dealing with people in a way that promotes harmony, compromise and decision making that is best for all is what I like to do. You can bring together all the talents of everyone to make something that is economically, financially sound and good for the citizens,” she says.
Madison calls this type of work the “back room part” that no one sees. Dedicated employees that take their job as a responsibility to promote their city, and put in whatever time is necessary to get a job done are part of the backroom work that an average citizen doesn’t recognize, Madison says.
For the future of her position at city hall, one thing is sure: she is not planning on being an elected official, she says with a laugh. Although, she didn’t start out her career with intentions to be a city’s financial officer, she likes where she is.
“I basically take whatever position I find myself in and do the best I can at it and it evolves,” she says. “At the local government level, it is like I am working for myself because I am also a taxpayer and I live in the community that benefits directly from the decisions I participate in.”
Madison says she is a simple person and doesn’t need expensive or extravagant activities to relax. Although she has loved to play tennis in the past, as she is getting older, she likes to take early morning walks where she can enjoy nature
“Working as much as I do, if you are not careful, you forget the wonders of God and of nature that gives it all meaning,” she says. “Most would say [they like to] travel but I’ve done a fair amount, and mostly if I travel, it is the time spent with who I travel with that I find most precious.”
A few of these precious people that she likes to spend time with are her husband Sam Madison, whom she has been married to for over 34 years; her four children, Reginald, Sonya, Krystal and Hollie; and her two grandchildren, Makayla and Malachi.
Madison says, “I really get the greatest pleasure and satisfaction out of the sense of accomplishment for the role I have played, and hopefully will continue to play, in the economic growth and fiscal stability of this community. I’m proud of where the city has come and the progress it has made, and continues to make, not only for myself, but for my children and grandchildren and those to come.”
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