Final Vote on County Budget Monday

Well, they have meetings scheduled for Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, but I’ll eat my hat (and my scarf and gloves) if they aren’t done Monday.

BACKGROUND

It’s a ridiculous amount of information to wade through, dozens of meetings to go to stay on top of things and happens really quickly! To catch up – here’s a series of blogs on the County Budget

• What’s in Joe Parisi’s County Budget – Oct 1
• Dane County Board Budget Process – Oct 7
• County Board Budget Debate Heating Up! – Oct 15
• County Board Budget Amendments – Oct 21
• Last Chance for Public Input on County Budget Amdendments – Oct 28
• Three Nights of County Board Budget Meetings – Nov 1
• County Board “Uber” Amendment is out – Nov 4
• County Board Finance Committee – 43 Budget Amendments, 9 Fee Changes in 45 Minutes – Nov 6

AGENDA

7:00 PM County Board City-County Building, Room 201 – 2020 BUDGET DELIBERATIONS

PUBLIC INPUT

If you have comments or suggestions, it pretty much too late.  They do not allow public testimony at their board meeting, despite only giving 24 hours notice for public input on “Sub 1” which is a completely different budget package and was only presented last Monday at 5:30pm for a vote the following night at 5:30 pm.

This is from Dane County Ordinance 7.51 (page 12)

A FEW BUDGET PROCESS NOTES

I should have been paying attention in September.  A couple observations:

• • • I had no idea that they took $10,000,000 from the Human Services fund to decrease the levy.  I thought there were rules about stealing from the Human Services Fund to pay general expenses, usually sheriff department expenses.  The only place I saw this as on page 21 and of course since the budget is over 1000 pages, I only noticed once someone pointed it out to me.  I thought they had an agreement that they would stop taking the Human Services Fund to plug holes in the budget.  I searched around and couldn’t find any ordinance or resolution to that effect.  (A search in legistar for “human services fund” brought up nothing except 2 fund transfers in 2014).  Their ordinances aren’t searchable except if you do it chapter by chapter.)
    • The county board website is frustrating.  You can’t even get to the full budget from this county board page.

• • • I can’t figure out how they think you’re supposed to find the budget with the new design of the county website.  The home page of the county website will take you to this, but not the actual budget                                       
    • I went to departments -> administration -> “View the County Budget”  I got to this – but I have no idea why the “budget in brief” isn’t available yet?   
    • All the fancy tools and videos in the world won’t enhance the public process if they can’t make the meetings and information more accessible by providing information more than 24 hours in advance and actually allowing public input.

GIVE INPUT

Ok, enough of my frustrations.  If you have public input, you can still email them at county_board_recipients@countyofdane.com and it will go to all the county board supervisors OR you can contact your individual supervisor – contact information here.  You can find your supervisor here.