richelle andrae
Thank you for the opportunity to serve District 11, which includes most of Hill Farms, Shorewood Village, and the neighborhoods immediately east of Midvale Blvd. I’ve lived in Madison since 2013, and reside just west of Hilldale. I’ve experienced our community through the eyes of a student, a young professional working in non-profit, an academic, and a volunteer. During the day, I am an advocate for safety net clinics in Wisconsin, working with state policymakers and partners to ensure that all residents have access to quality health care, regardless of income or insurance status. I’ve previously worked on local public health evaluation projects, rural workforce development, and Medicaid policy. After serving an AmeriCorps service term in California, I returned to Wisconsin and worked directly with underserved teens in Madison high schools, helping them find and keep their first jobs.
On the County Board, I Chair the Public Protection & Judiciary Committee, which has oversight for the Dane County Sheriff's Office, District Attorney's Office, Emergency Management, 911 Call Center, Courts, Pre-Trial Services, Medical Examiner, and more. A few of my "success stories" on the Board include navigating the complex jail consolidation project, improving constituent outreach by encouraging implementation of a blog system for Supervisors, and budget amendments to embed crisis expertise in emergency response and improve the pay structure for staff attorneys to support the timely service of justice. I also serve on the Dane County Food Policy Council and Greater Madison MPO, which administers transportation-related funding and programs across the region.
When I’m not at work or engaged in Board activities, you can find me at the Odana dog park with my rescue pup, Roux. I studied Spanish at UW-Madison during my undergrad, and earned a Masters in Public Affairs from the La Follette School, focusing on health policy and administration. Please reach out at any time and I look forward to working with you.
Neighbors,
Thank you to district 11 residents that joined for last week’s Meet & Greet, and to Susan and Gary that hosted our chat. I appreciated the opportunity to share info about work happening throughout the county from housing affordability to farm land preservation, and listen to your concerns and ideas. In a world where so much is digital, I really value the opportunity to talk face to face and build a little more understanding together.
Here are resources and follow-ups you may find helpful:
Jail Communications Contract: See the op ed from Sheriff Barrett here and an article from Tone Madison on this complicated issue. The County Board will need to make a decision on a contract that deals with communication services for people housed in the county jail, such as emails, phone calls, and physical mail. The Dane County Sheriff’s Office is advocating strongly to switch to a digital mail scanning service which many advocates have concerns about. DCSO advocates for this tool in order to reduce drugs entering the jail. My vote on this contract in committee was driven more by the communication rates charged to people in the jail than the mail scanning component. The rates proposed by the new vendor are lower than our current vendor, and choosing a new vendor would result in estimated savings of approximately $1 million – not to the county but to people in the jail, which is very significant. It’s very fair that the vendor with the more preferred rates is problematic, and that’s a criticism we’ve heard often, too, but only 2 vendors responded to the county’s RFP which leaves us with few positive options.
In an ideal world, we would not have to contract with a for-profit vendor for these services and no jail residents would be charged for communication, but that does not seem like a viable option. In light of the options before us, I have issues with mail scanning but I believe that the potential cost savings to residents and their families is very important. The attached memo from DCSO outlines some of the important data at issue in the jail communications contract debate.
Landfill Visit and Composting Resource: Last week, the County Board held our annual in-person meeting at the Dane County landfill and highway facility next door (a few photos attached). Every time I visit the landfill I honestly get butterflies because it really is an amazing resource – both in terms of the asset for our community plus the really progressive environmental science happening there. Did you know about Clean Sweep, where you can drop off chemicals, and pick up home and hardening resources? We also have a new compost program that’s free and very cool: https://landfill.danecounty.gov/compost. I just signed up for it over the weekend and will now be bringing my vegetable scraps and coffee grounds to the Henry Vilas Zoo drop-off location to reduce waste in the landfill! Registering is easy, it takes 2 minutes then you’ll get a code for 24/7 publicly accessible drop-off sites.
Learn more about the absolutely amazing work happening at the landfill: https://landfill.danecounty.gov/services/landfill. We’re recycling shingles to make ashalt for parking lots and processing residential demolition materials, we’re creating renewable natural gas and selling it back to Kwik Trip, we’re powering snow plows with it, and it’s all very cool. You can take a tour yourself and if you’re lucky spot a bald eagle onsite like I did! Tour details (highly, highly recommended!): https://landfill.danecounty.gov/about/tours.
County Budget: The county will face a significant structural deficit for the next year, estimated at $31 million. For reference, the 2025 budget authorizes total expenditures of $813.7 million for operations, which are financed by $415.6 million of program and outside revenues, $87.2 million of county sales taxes, $260.5 million of county property tax levy funds, and $50.4 million in fund balance. The separate Capital Budget includes $112.5 million for capital spending in 2025; you can see all the details from the current budget here. Over one-third of the county budget depends on intergovernmental revenue (such as Medicaid $ from the feds to the state) and those are largely not flexible dollars – just passthrough. The operational shortfall is primarily driven by the combination of increasing health insurance costs for the 2000+ county employees, slowing sales tax growth, inflation, and state-set levy limits. As Chair of the Committee with the second-largest share of county expenditures after human services, I take this extremely seriously and know we need to be thoughtful and creative as we assess pros and cons for 2026.
One of the frequent issues that comes up is why is the county doing so much building (like the jail project or purchasing conservation land) when we have an operational deficit. Fair question! In short, those dollars between capital and operating are separate and can’t be comingled. We have a cap on our operating dollars but not on the capital. Even borrowing expenses on the capital is separate from our operations levy limit, so reducing our capital expenses won’t help resolve the deficit. I’ve attached a slide deck that shares the data we’re working with relative to costs, expenses, and budgeting. Please let me know if you have questions. Note the year-over-year health insurance expense increase of over $10M which is a significant challenge and will be ongoing. We need to strike the balance of maintaining services, finding efficiencies, and retaining staff.
There are public hearings on the budget Sept. 9-11 and I encourage you to join and share your input. Then the next big step is for County Exec. Agard to release her proposed budget, which is due Oct. 1.
Interested in learning more about the intersection of housing and aging adults in our community? Check out this upcoming event:
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This summer and fall, as you hold community gatherings, meetings, and events, please let me know as I would be happy to join you and share information about the county budget and what’s going on, or just highlight county resources. At last week’s county board meeting, we also celebrated Transgender History Month, featuring a powerful local youth speaker. They shared the following resource which I think is so important and very educational about the history of trans people in Wisconsin: https://www.wislgbthistory.com/.
In service,
Richelle Andrae
Dane County Board Supervisor District 11
