Budget 2023 Round up

I want to give a big thanks to all my colleagues on the County Board and Personnel and Finance Committee. I had the honor of presenting the Land and Water budget and UW Extension budgets to the P and F committee. I am grateful for the countless hours that all the board put in on an amended budget and I believe these amendments will make the budget stronger.

Here are some highlights from a recent press release:

• Two amendments included in the recommendation from Personnel and Finance provide an increase in wages for Point of Service agencies, including an additional 2.5% Point of Service COLA increase, bringing the total to 7.0%, as well as an increase of $1.065 million to Journey Mental Health to allow wage increases among staff involved in the crisis response system.

Several amendments focused on addressing affordable housing in Dane County. Some of those amendments include:

• $1.35 million designated for St. Johns affordable housing project;

• Two new Case Manager positions to assist shelter guests with achieving housing and economic stability

• One new Housing Program Specialist

• A $10 million increase to the Affordable Housing Development fund;

• A new capital housing fund of $8 million targeted for farmworker housing;

• A $217,500 increase for the Fair Chance Housing Fund that was created in 2023 to fund support services for persons with criminal record barriers in accessing housing;

• An increase of $68,000 in Public Health Madison Dane County to support amendments to contracts in 2024 of current Violence Prevention Unit 2023 grantees to support tenant capacity building. With these funds, community based organizations already serving vulnerable residential tenants experiencing a number of issues impacting their safety and stability (including unsafe housing conditions, housing discrimination, and other tenant and consumer protection violations) would have necessary resources to support tenant education and empowerment.

I also amended the Capital Budget to require that the Zoo fully raise $4 million dollar in their Capital Campaign prior to construction of the Heart of the Zoo” project, which would include a new, indoor-outdoor enclosure for the giraffes. I gave detailed accounting of why of WORT-FM. I encourage you all to give it a listen:

https://www.wortfm.org/dane-county-supervisor-to-propose-amendment-to-zoo-funding/

We will be taking a final vote on the budget on Monday November 6th. I am looking forward to completing this budget which makes important investments in all aspects of our community for a better Dane County for all of our neighbors.

D6 County Board Update and Community Discussion

Dear Neighbors,
Please join me on Wednesday April 19th for a virtual County Board update and community discussion. I will be covering the status of the Jail Project, ending housing of Federal Inmates at the Dane County Jail, PFAS pollution at the airport, Land purchases in the Yahara watershed and the Zoo director settlement.

Feel free to message me with any topics you want to discuss as well and I will do my best to cover them. Prior to the meeting, I will provide a zoom link.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1146616420072448

The plan is to do a brief presentation followed by a community discussion. If you don't live in District 6, feel free to attend as most of these updates will be applicable to all of Dane County.

Impacts of the recent prolonged rain event

Based on the flooding of 2018, there is always a lot of community concern when we have a prolonged rainfall event. Although all of the lakes will continue to gradually rise above summer maximums as the water works its way through the watershed, it will not rise to flood levels or anywhere near where we were in 2018.

The rainfall for the rest of the week will be minimal. Dams in the lower watershed will be open while water will be restricted out of the Tenney Dam and held back in Lake Mendota to not overwhelm the lower lakes.

We have our quarterly Lake Levels update on Thursday and we will get a detailed report from staff and I will post about it.

Here is a link to our Lake Levels page:
https://lwrd.countyofdane.com/lake-levels

Here is a link to operational dam changes that I had the department add to the web site in the last term:
https://lwrd.countyofdane.com/Dam/TabularData

Here is a detailed summary that was put out to the public from the Land and Water Department:

"From the recent rainfall, all lakes are above summer maximum. The past weekend rainfall totaled lower amounts of approximately 3" in the northern watershed (Mendota) compared to 5" in the southern (Kegonsa). Currently all the downstream dams (Babcock and Lafollette) are wide open. We are seeing aquatic plant growth in the river starting to die off for the season which reduces friction and increases flow. Near the end of the week, the lower lakes are expected to experience peak water levels from this weekend's rain.

We will continue to keep Babcock and Lafollette dams wide open with lower flows out of Tenney to reduce lake levels from Monona to Kegonsa (due to experiencing higher rainfall amounts). It is anticipated near the end of the week (after peak levels on the lower lakes) Tenney dam will be opened to reduce Lake Mendota levels. From today to near the end of the week, all lakes are expected to rise but not to flood levels.

The National Weather Service is predicting less than a quarter of an inch for the remainder of the week. We will continue to monitor rainfall predictions and runoff into the lakes and make adjustments as weather forecasts or flows change."

PFAS testing and Stormwater Permits

Dear Neighbors,

I hope you are enjoying your summer on the east side and all of the wonderful community events are giving you a reprieve from the continuous challenges we are seeing as a country and global community.

It has been a little while since I have done a District 6 update and I am going to be changing the format of my updates. I used to provide a long form style update that was quite dense and approximately quarterly. This format is not as suitable to a rapidly changing world that I sometimes find hard to keep up with as I am sure you do as well.

I will be using this space to provide more frequent shorter updates and then use my social media, neighborhood newsletters and community meetings to go more in depth on topics. I hope to see many of you at the Fete De Marquette this weekend!

PFAS testing and Stormwater Permits

Dane County challenged a Wisconsin DNR storm water permit that required PFAS testing. The claim was that this testing was duplicative of what was required in a remediation plan that is ongoing.

My main goal is to ensure that thorough PFAS testing is conducted, the results are publicly reported and that we are mindful of new EPA guidance that says any level of PFAS in our water is a a threat to public health.

I was recently elected chair of the Environment, Ag, and Natural Resources committee and we are holding a hearing on this tonight. It is the only item on our agenda and is a special meeting. Here are the question I intend to ask:

• What PFAS testing is the County doing under the remediation plan?

• How does this differ from what the DNR is asking for?

• Where is the County publishing its PFAS tests?

• Can EANR be CC'd on all PFAS tests that are conducted and submitted to the DNR?

• Does the testing the County is doing under the remediation plan meet or exceed what the DNR is requesting?

• The stormwater permit compels the County to perform PFAS testing. Does the remediation plan compel the County to stick to a PFAS testing plan? What enforcement mechanisms are there to ensure that the County is sticking to that plan? Can the remediation testing plan be provided to EANR and the County Board?

• What is the process for appealing the stormwater permit? Can the County Board have any involvement in that process or is there any oversight capabilities that the ordinances provide?

You can get a lengthier explanation of this issue in this excellent WORT-FM story:

https://www.wortfm.org/dane-county-sues-dnr-over-pfas-regulations-for-stormwater-permit/

Here is a link to our meeting tonight that you can attend in person or virtually:

https://dane.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=988099&GUID=2831AAD8-A616-4A54-9826-9844DA1531F6&Options=info|&Search=