Here's the October 2022 District 17 Digest!

Budget

Dane County Budget Season is in full swing! Every October and November, the Board of Supervisors reviews and makes amendments to the following year’s budget as proposed by the County Executive, Joe Parisi. Parisi released his proposed 2023 budget on Monday, October 3 and his budget memo is available on countyofdane.com (or, the memo is linked directly here). 

With the release of the budget, the County Board and the Standing Committees of the Board will begin review and action on the budget. The County Board's Public Budget Hearing will be held at 6 pm on October 19. You can attend in-person at the City-County Building or virtually. Details and agendas are available from board.countyofdane.com/budget. This also includes times, agendas, and details for Standing Committee meetings, where we dive into additional detail on the budgets for the departments that each Standing Committee oversees.

The process will continue into November. The budget should be finalized mid-to-late November. In the meantime, please continue to reach out to me about what you'd like to see in the budget.

A look back at the past month or so

Key actions the Board has taken over the past month include:

• Universal Changing Stations: We passed a resolution (2022-RES-130) stipulating that restrooms in County buildings and on County property should be equipped with electric, height-adjustable universal changing stations wherever feasible. This allows caretakers of older children and adults who need changing assistance the proper space and facilities for doing so. I was proud to co-sponsor and support this critical step to a more inclusive Dane County.
• Fentanyl Testing Strips: We passed a resolution (2021-RES-289) urging Public Health Madison and Dane County and Wisconsin's state Department of Human Services to develop a program by which fentanyl testing strips can be made available to those who need them in order to prevent synthetic opioid-related overdose and death. I was proud to co-sponsor and support this, in recognition of a growing incidence of hospitalizations and deaths due to overdoses associated with synthetic opioids, particularly with the addition of fentanyl and its analogs to illicit drugs being used in our community. 
• Further Action on Reproductive Justice: We passed an ordinance (2022-OA-029) imposing budget control policies that aim to prevent the County’s from contracting with--or expending funds on--authorities that would seek to prosecute individuals for violating Wisconsin's archaic and unjust 1849 abortion ban (Wis. Stat. §940.04). I co-sponsored and supported this--it works within the County Board's limited authority on this matter to further my (and many of my colleagues') goal of doing whatever possible to advance reproductive justice in Dane County.

Areas to watch

A lot of my day-to-day work on the Board is driven by the committees on which I serve. I am honored to serve on the following committees, and I've provided a brief summary of some of the exciting things we're doing:

• Public Works and Transportation: We are overseeing, for example, the completion of the new Emergency Management facility in Fitchburg. Presently, these operations occur out of limited space in a facility in downtown Madison. The new facility doubles available space, allowing us to expand our Emergency Operations Center and respond to emergencies much more quickly.
• Personnel and Finance: I was appointed to this committee on a temporary basis starting October 3 to help guide and oversee the completion of Dane County's 2023 budget.
• City-County Homelessness Issues Committee: We are working on specific recommendations for housing and homelessness services in the 2023 budget, including for example continued joint funding for the Dairy Drive urban campground.
• City-County Education Committee: This committee focuses on areas of shared concern between MMSD, the City, and the County. One issue I'm hoping we can tackle is the present lack of services around driver's education. A driver's license is the second-most-common requirement for employment in our County (behind a high school diploma), and I view this as an issue of equity as it hampers upward mobility for the people we jointly serve.
• South Central Library Board: I am honored to have been appointed to this collaborative Board overseeing library services across multiple counties in Southcentral Wisconsin. At present, we are contemplating a purchase of a new headquarters for the agency within the City of Madison. I abstained from the vote on this since I was added to this Board the day before the vote on it, but the Board did vote to recommend moving forward with purchase. It's exciting, and more to come on this over the next couple of months!

Something else to watch: Forthcoming public hearings related to the airport's noise study. These will be scheduled soon and I will provide updates as I can. At present, I am pushing for these to be made more accessible to the community--for example, I want to see them occur within impacted neighborhoods rather than at the airport itself, which is more difficult to get to. More to come.

Of course, this update would not be complete if I failed to mention the Jail Consolidation Project. The plan for this project was approved by the County Board before I joined; after I joined, we learned that the budget provided for the plan is insufficient. I did not support allocating additional funds to the plan--instead, I supported a plan (2022-RES-136) that would have brought it back under budget. Neither plan passed. This does not change my belief that the County Board needs to solve this problem, and rapidly. I am continuing to work on this and will provide updates as I can.

Keeping in touch

I provide a monthly digest on the main District 17 Blog (board.countyofdane.com/supervisors/detail/17) where you can sign up to have them delivered directly to your inbox! I also blog regularly at wrightfordanecounty.com/blog, where the updates are more frequent and--it must be said--more opinionated. My goal is to provide multiple avenues of engagement that keep you informed based on your preferences.

You can email me anytime at wright.jacob@countyofdane.com, and calls or texts are welcome to 608-338-3766. I hope to hear from you soon!