Budget, Environmental Priorities, Neighborhood Updates

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Dear Neighbors,
We are knee deep in the budget now and it is very busy time for the County Board. In this update, I will highlight initiatives I am supporting to increase flood resilience, be aggressive about Yahara watershed flow improvements, and fight racial disparities and make strides toward equity in our community. There is lots of other news to catch you up on as well.

Budget!

One of our biggest responsibilities on the County Board is the annual county budget. To help demystify the process, we have developed a few useful tools through the “Engage Dane” initiative that I serve on. The first is a short video that summarizes what services the county funds and provides an overview of the budget. There is a lot of info packed into it and it is worth a view.

The next tool that we are piloting is called A Balancing Act. It provides an online budget simulation tool so the public can fund different programs and ultimately come to a balanced budget by raising revenue or cutting expenses. More details are available in this news story I was interviewed for. This is provided in partnership with Polco:

https://polco.us/surveys/f8bafda1-039b-44b7-87cb-3ccc3d109dc2

My colleague in District 2, Supervisor Wegleitner, also provided an excellent road map of budget meetings, dates, and public hearings. Her blog is available here (scroll down to the entry 10/7/2019 - Dane County 2020 Budget Process):

https://board.countyofdane.com/Blog/Index/2

Budget Priorities focusing on Environmental initiatives

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I serve on the Environmental, Agriculture and Natural Resources (EANR) committee. During my tenure, I was a leader on the Lake Levels Task Force, and my two main priorities in the budget are flood prevention and resilience, along with phosphorous reduction in our watershed to clean up our lakes. I will provide an overview of the budget, along with initiatives that I intend to support through budget amendments. The Land and Water budget is strong. Many of the recommendations that were a part of the Lake Levels Task Force are funded. Highlights include:

  • 5 million for sediment removal (dredging) following a five-phased plan to focus on areas in the Yahara River that will yield the most flow improvement.

  • 2.5 million to continue the legacy sediment removal (suck the muck) to remove legacy phosphorous.

  • 500,000 to implement our new manure storage ordinance (chapter 49) to keep manure out of the watershed and to track all the manure across the county, and how and where it is spread.

  • 250,000 to continue improvements to the Capital City Trail, which is critical for our bike infrastructure.

  • 4 million for the conservation fund to make land purchases, and 3 million in a flood acquisition fund to purchase and restore flood prone lands into wetlands.

  • 1.5 million for a cover crop program to rent land from farmers paying a lump sum up front to prevent erosion in highly erodible land near rivers and streams and plant pasture, native grasses and cool season cover crops.

  • 100k for the Clean Beach partnership with the City of Madison. This helps fund the clean beach exclosure at BB Clarke Beach and will help bring these solutions to other beaches such as Tenney.

I am deep in my analysis of the budget, and feel we need to be more aggressive about flood resilience. I am carefully considering where the best place is to make those investments. I am currently looking at the sediment removal to see if it is fully funded, to see if doing this work in-house is the right approach, and see if we are being aggressive enough in 2020. I am also meeting with environmental groups, staff, farmers, and the community to see if we are being aggressive enough about root causes of flooding. Wetlands restoration and green infrastructure are key in taking a long-term approach to our climate emergency. You can expect me to release my budget amendments soon.

Budget Highlights

I also want to highlight important investments in the budget that I fully support:

  • $500,000 grant program for community centers for behavioral health initiatives for families. This work started right in our district at the Goodman Community Center.

  • Funding a Jail Population Manager. One of the biggest issues we have with the jail is Average Length of Stay (ALOS). Many people in jail are on probation/parole holds and will be in jail until they are released by their corrections supervisor. The Jail Population Manager will look at the jail census, and facilitate moving people along in the criminal justice process. This is a service that provides a substantial return on investment.

  • The budget creates a new Office of Immigration Assistance and adds a bi-lingual social worker and additional investments and services to help our immigrant communities who have been specifically targeted by the federal government. We stand in solidarity with our immigrant communities and the budget expresses this value.

There are lots of other highlights in the budget and I will continue to highlight them on my social media and district updates.

F-35s

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The public comment period on the F-35s has been extended to November 1st. I encourage everyone to submit their public comment here. To date, I came out against the F-35s in early August, worked with Alder Rummel and Rep Taylor to educate the public about what is happening and how they can get involved, and joined 14 colleagues on the County Board in opposition in a joint letter and facilitated a forum at Hawthorne school that included Lt. Roseanne Greco from Vermont. There are two events coming up that you should know about:

Neighborhood, Government and Community News

  • I will be on a panel titled “Preparing for Climate Change: Learning, Adaptation and our Climate Future.” Please join us on October 22nd at Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.

  • Dane Arts funded over $137,000 in arts projects in our latest grants cycle, including many in District 6. A full list of funded projects will be posted to social media soon. Arts investments directly impact our community by providing an economic multiplier effect.

  • Please consider running for the Marquette Neighborhood Association (MNA) board. MNA helps organize festivals, addresses traffic concerns, facilitates planning and development, and protects our neighborhoods trees and natural beauty. I am honored to be speaking at the MNA Annual Meeting on October 24th at the Wil-Mar center.

  • Congrats to the Wil-Mar center on the redesign that was funded in part by the Design for a Difference initiative. The Wil-Mar center is such an important part of our community, and the updated facilities are the result of years of effort by many of our neighbors.

  • I am writing this post on Indigenous Peoples' Day in Wisconsin. I thank Governor Evers and the many leaders in the Indigenous communities that worked hard to make this happen.

  • Although the City of Madison budget is out of my jurisdiction, I strongly support the Mayor’s proposed budget. I have been calling for a mental health focus for both those calling for and providing public safety services. I also have further been calling for independent auditing of the police department. The budget focuses on mental health and accountability, which are two big challenges we have in public safety.

  • I also support the City of Madison Vehicle Registration Fee. Funding to local governments is down over a billion dollars since the 90s, and the GOP-controlled state government has made it very difficult to raise revenue. We need to transition to a sensible and strong public transportation infrastructure, and I believe Bus Rapid Transit is the right path forward. We need to make investments now to fight climate change and connect people and neighborhoods to jobs and economic hubs.

That’s all for now. I look forward to seeing you all around the neighborhood, and once again thank you for the opportunity to represent you in County government.