This one took a little longer almost an hour.
CAPITAL BUDGET
Administration 558 – 569
No amendments.
Public Safety, Medical Examiner, Sheriff and Emergency Management, page 570
No amendments.
Health and Human Needs, Badger Prairie Health Care Center, Human Services, page 588 – 590
No amendments.
Conservation and Economic Development – Methane Gas page 592
No amendments.
Culture, Education and Recreation – Land and Water Resources, Dane County Conservation Fund, Land and Water Legacy Fund, Henry Vilas Zoo and Alliant Energy Center
deFelice moves to eliminate $40K for the weed barge repair.
Seconded by Downing.
They talk about these two barges for 20 minutes and basically ask a lot of questions that all come up with they need more barges to cut the weeds and get to other lakes and get their work done. I only heard one vote aye. It fails by a landslide on a voice vote.
Patrick Miles has an amendment that passed EANR and Lakes and Watershed but failed at Personal & Finance on a 4 – 4 vote. He didn’t have time to speak to all the issues at Personnel and Finance. He hands out information. It’s a one time expenditure so it is a capital expense, they are some shoreland demonstration projects. The are mitigation demonstrations for private property owners to show what types of practices they can do and see how they work. Concerns were about a public project on private property. He says there are many projects like this in the county funded by grants with public access easements. He says these would be shorter.
Hendrick seconds.
Willett questions if it is a problem they use public funds for private lands.
MacKenzie says that is a huge question, but that it is left up to the County Board.
Willett objects to it, says the project should last the time it is borrowed for. He says he needs a new garage, he could show it to people.
Hulsey gives examples of programs that do it and is in support.
Hendrick also in support and says that this is valuable because there are many questions out there and he says this benefits the lakes, that we all own. Says not illegal to protect the lakes. He says the demonstration may be over in 5 years, but the impact is permanent and a valid investment in our public lakes.
Richmond asks what the benefits are. Staff says that it can demonstrate to land owners how it works so they can comply, that it will impact the lakes and can show the general public what we are doing. Richmond asks about it being on private property, staff says that is where the permits will be issues. He also supports.
Gau makes an amendment, they talk about this for a while (10 minutes?), it gets withdrawn.
Gau attempts another amendment, to have property owners to contribute 25% – after McDonell helps him make his motion.
Stoebig supports, but is concerned about specific 25% requirement. Was also concerned about the capital budget nature of the amendment, but gives example of something in Ripps district for over $200K, so he’s ok with it.
Miles is fine with the amendment. They had thought there would be a private match. They will work with staff to develop the criteria.
McDonell says its friendly after consulting with the makers of the motion, amendment passes on voice vote as amended.
Gau makes another amendment, wants the $20K to come from the million dollar PARC line.
Hendrick says they should leave it up to staff, and speaks in opposition.
Roll Call:
AYE: Imhoff, Jensen, Martz, O’Loughlin, Ripp, Salov, Schlicht, Solberg, Wiggie, Willett, Bruskewitz, Claussius, deFelice, Ferrell, Gau
NO: Hesselbein, Hulsey, Levin, Matano, Miles, Richmond, Rusk, Sargeant, Schmidt, Stoebig, Stubbs, Vedder, Veldran, Bayrd, Corrigan, Downing, Duranczyk, Eicher, Erickson, Hampton, Hendrick, McDonell
15 ayes, 22 nos, that amendment fails.
Gau has another amendment. EANR 5 amendment, motion is to reverse Personnel and Finance committee action. Willett seconds. He says that constituents don’t want us purchasing land. We are purchasing land, this 1.4M isn’t in the pipeline yet. He says we shouldn’t borrow. And says we need to look at what we are purchasing and why. He says take the money out, not cuz don’t want to purchase land, but because these funds are not designated yet. (He was kind of confusing to follow, it took me a while to even figure out what he was talking about.)
Willett gives his speech on capital borrowing. He says it looks better this year, but $40M in carry over, that can be approved and will be added. You can question if it was spent in 2009, 2010 or 2011. We are fighting the debt service. He also says that we need to spend the money quick before the state cuts the money, that was what they discussed in committee. He says he is a member of the state and we should cut the money out. Quit spending this.
Richmond says this is the 10th anniversary of the new conservation fund and 20th anniversary of the fund in general. We committed to spending $1M and this is our 5th year of that promise. This is not a luxury. He has a list of pending purchases. He lists the parks that would be expanded and viewsheds for the parks. We have a responsibility to do this as our county grows. We have opportunities now and we should keep our commitment to the parks and open space plan. Email and testimony has been overwhelmingly supportive, a few against, in his district its extremely popular. Every project approved goes through 7 checks and balances before we get it. Parks and Open Space Plan, staff, parks commission committee, parks commission, EANR, county board and county exec. He urges support.
Solberg talks about how capital budget impacts the operating budget, its $105,000 for next 20 years which mean there will be cuts. There’s still 3.6M in the fund. This also costs to acquire the land, maintain the land, it takes it off the tax roll and then we have the debt service. Urges them to vote no.
Hendrick wants them to vote not too. Constituents told us to spend $30M and then we decided to spend $5M per year, then we cut it to $1M because county workers were having furloughs and human services were being cut. Then, we froze the $1M, we did listen, ran for re-election and here we are. All the people who supported the fund got reelected. We were able to avoid layoffs, there are no percentage cuts to the non-profit agencies, this is a different situation. We will be able to say we spent money when the stewardship fund was available and bought when it was low. The Fitch rating letter, the people who do the bond rating, there is nothing in there about borrowing. Farmland does not pay that much in taxes, but permanent green space raises the taxes on surrounding properties.
Ferrell notes that Imhoff did defeat someone who supported the conservation fund. He surveyed his constituents. He asks what are important to you, human services, public safety, road improvement, job creation and county land purchases. Land purchases come in dead last, some say not at all. He is listening to his constituents. Talks about what it means to be progressive, nothing progressive about a government that consistently spends more than it has. We need to stop borrowing so much. Health and Human Needs will be suffering more next year.
Barbara Vedder says she works in Health and Human Needs and this fits in well because people need this for their health. She goes on 5 camping trips a year to wheel chair accessible cabins, but there are none in Dane County and she’d like one built here. This is basic stuff that our environment can help and give beneficial positive things in our lives. This is important for our future generations to enjoy this legacy. Please vote against.
Brett Hulsey, Will Rogers said buy land, they’re not making it anymore. We see that in Dane County. We borrow money at one of the lowest levels, its low land prices. Top priorities are public safety and human services, that’s 75% of where we put our resources, this is about 3 – 3.2M per year, often paid for by state and federal matching money. Happy to support it. We did cut and freeze and makes sense to put it back in now.
Roll call:
AYE: Imhoff, Jensen, Martz, Ripp, Salov, Schlicht, Solberg, Wiggie, Willett, Bayrd, Bruskewitz, Claussius, Duranczyk, Ferrell, Gau, Hampton
NO: Hesselbein, Hulsey, Levin, Matano, Miles, O’Loughlin, Richmond, Rusk, Sargeant, Schmidt, Stoebig, Stubbs, Vedder, Veldran, Corrigan, deFelice, Downing, Eicher, Erickson, Hendrick, McDonell
15 ayes, 22 nos, amendment fails.
Public Works – Highway and Transportation or Airport
No Amendments.
Final Vote on Capital Budget
NO: Imhoff, Jensen, Martz, Schlicht, Solberg, Wiggie, Willett, Bruskewitz, Claussius, Duranczyk, Ferrell, Gaum Hampton
AYE: Hesselbein, Hulsey, Levin, Matano, Miles, O’Loughlin, Richmond, Ripp, Rusk, Salov, Sargeant, Schmidt, Stoebig, Stubbs, Vedder, Veldran, Bayrd, Corrigan, Downing, deFelice, Eicher, Erickson, Hendrick, McDonell
34 ayes, 13 nos, passes.
