Neighbors –

Oh no… Is it winter? (A Poem by Richelle)

First flurries falling

Crispy air and rustling leaves

Must be budget time!

There you go… a fall haiku by yours truly!

County Budget

On October 2, the County Executive released his budget proposal. Throughout October, Board members proposed amendments which were considered by relevant County Committees. The Personnel & Finance Committee has the challenge of looking at the entire budget comprehensively and making adjustments to stay within our levy limit.

Each of the budget amendments I worked on have advanced and are successfully moving through the budget process. The big ones include:

1. Staffing and a third party contract to address outstanding debts owed through Birth Cost Recovery (learn more here). This amendment will help the county fast track a process to expunge these old birth cost orders and provide outreach and education to individuals involved in the expungement process.
2. Provisions for the Sheriff’s Office regarding the implementation of a proposed body-worn camera pilot in the West precinct (Town of Middleton). The Sheriff’s proposal provides for 30 body-worn cameras, which I see as a tool that could increase accountability and transparency with the proper policies and procedures in place, applied and enforced consistently. I have requested that the Sheriff hold public meetings on the issue in the West precinct, provide quarterly reporting to PP&J, publish interim procedures online related to activation and records requests, and call for a third-party evaluation of the pilot.
3. Create a local food system action plan, the next step from the Pandemic Food System study. We have applied for a USDA grant to do the work, and this amendment would ensure that the food system action plan moves forward regardless of award of the USDA funds.

There are some other excellent budget amendments and initiatives:

• The County Executive proposed expanding the popular Madison-based CARES program to add response options for behavioral health crises in new areas of the county. Check out the 2022 program report for CARES. The Exec proposed adding $200K to help local municipalities tap into the existing program which sends trained crisis workers out with fire department staff in lieu of law enforcement officers. The CARES program is a unique partnership between the City, County, and our service provider, Journey. Journey employs the crisis staff that respond to calls, and they currently have too many vacancies for immediate expansion. Our budget proposal will provide new funds so that Journey can provide more competitive wages for existing positions, and potentially add more workers eventually to expand CARES team response. I have been in touch with both Journey leaders and Mayor Rhodes-Conway to get our expansion off the ground, and hopefully one day soon we will have a system that appropriately addresses mental health crises with a mental health response across the entire county. We are also embedding a small team of crisis workers within the 911 department itself, an expansion of a position I added into the budget in 2023. These workers will be able to take time with callers, potentially avoiding the need for any in-person response at all, and then triage to appropriate partners like 988 or the Emergency Crisis line, or dispatch the appropriate response.   
• The Exec proposed providing over $6 million in leftover federal rescue plan funds to Second Harvest for emergency food supply in 2024. There is some pushback from communities due to several budget amendments (my own included) that reallocate a portion of these funds. Note that even with amendments, Second Harvest is expected to still see over $4 million in support next year, which was not previously budgeted for that purpose. I’m comfortable with making the changes because 1) The county will run out of federal rescue plan dollars next year and will not be able to continue providing emergency food supply (we aren’t allowed to use tax levy funds for food pantries); and 2) The County has allocated over $30 million to Second Harvest since 2020. This has been essential, but is not sustainable. We ultimately need to look at systems solutions to address food insecurity long-term and the root causes of food insecurity, including poverty and housing insecurity.
• The county will provide significant capital support for the Heart of the Zoo, including a large-scale updated giraffe enclosure that will also rely on private contributions to get across the finish line.
• Public Health’s Nursing Home Visiting Program will see a funding boost. One constituent shared: “The nurse and family partnership program is a crucial program for the families of Dane County. It has helped many first time families navigate pregnancy, birth and early childhood development through home visits, connection to resources and provision of resources. I have personally been impacted by the program. The visits of my nurse to my home, saved me from Post partum depression,post partum anxiety by providing a mother, aunt figure and a professional who could identify the signs and act quickly and point me in the right direction to get help. She has become a part of the family and has advocated with medical professionals on my behalf to save my breastfeeding journey and assist with birth weight for my son. I could go on and on. The program has been invaluable to my family.”

We will consider the full budget on Nov. 6, which will be effective 1/1/2024.

Other County Work

I serve on the MPO, a transportation-related policy board. This week, we reviewed fatality and crash data as part of a safety action plan. You may be interested to review the crash profiles (starting on page 46 of this packet). Notably, there are several streets on the near west side including Mineral Point, Whitney Way, and Segoe Rd where speeds are often noted over 15mph above the posted limit, which will need further attention.

One issue that continues to cause consternation is 3 department head vacancies (Transportation, the inaugural leader for the new Office of Justice Reform, and the head of our largest department, Human Services). There were processes in place for 2 of these but they stalled in spring/summer of this year. The county has contracted a national search firm to help us, but I learned this week that they will only be working on one recruitment at a time, so we anticipate vacancies for a while. This is causing some turmoil, and will be especially problematic as the Executive has announced his resignation for May 2024, which will be here before we know it. I will work with colleagues and staff to see what can be done to expedite simultaneous recruiting for these essential leadership positions. I hope that the Executive will advocate for moving each of these ahead as expeditiously as possible.

I appreciated Alder Tishler’s blog about Madison Yards – check it out (this is on my block and I pass it each day!).

Some helpful info from the Clean Lakes Alliance: Raking leaves is a great way to help our lakes from your home. Leaves contain phosphorus, and when they break down, leaves can create one of the largest sources of urban phosphorus pollution. When left in the street, stormwater passes through leaves like a teabag. This creates a phosphorus-rich tea that washes down storm drains and into our lakes. Raking (or sweeping) leaves from the street edge (three feet from the curb) and onto lawns will help fertilize the grass and reduce cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) blooms in our lakes. Leaves can also be composted or used as mulch around your yard, or properly bagged/piled on the grass street terrace for municipal collection. View the list of municipal leaf collection guidelines. A study conducted by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) concluded that in the fall, timely removal of street leaf litter can reduce the amount of phosphorus in urban stormwater by 80% compared to no leaf removal.

Please take a moment to review local non-profit Kids Forward’s updated Race to Equity: 10 Year Report. Kids Forward released a publication 10 years ago that drew much-needed attention to Madison’s horrendous racial disparities. Kids Forward has revisited the report and provided an update that is definitely worth a read, and underscores the challenges we have yet to overcome.

Upcoming Events

Join us on Wednesday, November 8th from 8 – 9 a.m. for Clean Lakes 101, "Overcoming Barriers to Local Water Quality Progress." Hear from Eric Booth of University of Wisconsin-Madison Departments of Plant & Agroecosystem Sciences and Civil & Environmental Engineering about progress being made to improve water quality in the Yahara Watershed.

2023 MPO-RPC Webinar Series: Housing Costs and the Transportation-Land Use Connection

Thursday, November 16, 2023 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. via Zoom – Register Here. Join us for our next lunch-and-learn webinar hosted by the Greater Madison MPO on Thursday, November 16, to learn about the relationship between housing costs, transportation, and land use. Staff will discuss key connections between transportation and land use, and share best practices and helpful tips to assist local communities in addressing housing costs by coordinating land use and transportation planning and policies. The webinar will be kicked off with a brief introduction from Olivia Parry, Senior Planner with the Dane County Housing Initiative, and will be led by Ben Lyman, Transportation Planner with the Greater Madison MPO, who has over a decade of experience working on the Transportation/Land Use Connection. I serve on the MPO – they do great work!!

See you around the neighborhood,

Richelle Andrae

Dane County Board Supervisor District 11

Andrae.richelle@countyofdane.com