County Executive Signs Budget, Vetoes What?

November 19, 2019 6:07 pm

On November 15th the County Executive sent out a press release saying he signed the 2020 Budget. However, the County Board Agenda is being amended to include a veto over-ride. Say what?So, I heard rumblings about a veto, but saw nothing to indicate anything was vetoed. At least nothing available to the public. I did finally get the veto message sent to Supervisors.

PARTIAL VETO

The veto message is here.

VETO OVERRIDE AND INDEPENDENT LEGAL ADVICE

Apparently the board agenda on Thursday will include a veto override and a request to get outside legal advice. Here’s what was sent to supervisors:

November 19, 2019

Dear Supervisors,

I am writing to let you know that I have asked that the County Board agenda be amended to include consideration of an override of the County Executive’s budget veto and consideration of a late referral permitting the County Board to seek outside counsel.

The issue we face deals with the fundamental budget authority of the County Board. Letting this veto stand severely and mistakenly reduces the authority of the County Board. After sharing this opinion with two attorneys whose practice includes this expertise, I received feedback that leads me to believe that the County Executive overreached in his effort to diminish the Board’s budget authority and that the Board should vote to override the County Executive’s veto. Because the County Executive rationalized his veto based on a legal opinion from Corporation Counsel, we should seek outside counsel to help clarify the Board’s authority.

Background. On Friday, you received a veto message from the County Executive stating that the County Board does not have the authority to include a process and timeline in the budget for the distribution of grant funds. In our recently approved 2020 budget, the Board included parameters for the creation of two new grant programs in order to ensure that the $2 million in public dollars were distributed in a fair, transparent manner based on community need and merit.

Corporation counsel opinion. The corporation counsel opinion that the County Executive relied on for his action addresses the authority of the Board to provide criteria for distribution of appropriated funds. Dane County has a long-established practice of distributing funds via a transparent, community engaged processes that allows committees to establish criteria and approve recipients. Additionally, it is unclear that the corporation counsel is correct regarding the specifics of the RFP process. The County Board often establishes criteria for projects and distribution of funds and creates committees for establishing criteria.

All grant funds and sole source appropriations jeopardized. Yesterday, I met with Deputy Corporation Counsel Carlos Pabellon who indicated that a grant program is just another name for a contract and that the restrictions applied to RFPs could be construed to apply to all grants. Therefore, letting this amendatory veto stand jeopardizes not only public input and transparency for any mental health grants, but also the ability of the County Board to continue to establish policy objectives in the distribution of grants from the Environmental Council, Dane Arts, the Parks Commission, the Land Conservation Committee, sustainability grants from the SMART fund, and the Office of Equity and Inclusion’s Partners In Equity grants. Additionally, Mr. Pabellon tells me that this opinion could also spell the end of any sole source appropriations in the Dane County budget (if the Board does not have the authority to specify a process, it may also not be able to specify the recipient of county dollars) Just in this year’s budget, decision items included sole sourcing for the Rape Crisis Center, Planned Parenthood, and Families to the Table in addition to many, many others that are in the base budget.

Next steps. Funding for outside counsel will allow the Board to obtain an independent legal analysis of the Board’s ability to allow for transparent distribution of grant funds to improve our community. Additionally, the question of the Board’s ability to establish criteria for an RFP process needs to be examined.

No impact on recently announced mental health call center. Overriding the County Executive’s veto of the budget has no impact on the recently announced mental health center. The County Executive indicates that “Implementing this change will require a budget amendment to create the new position authority” and that he has asked the Department of Human Services to draft that change. Supervisor Stubbs indicates that she plans to introduce this resolution to enable the mental health call center to move forward. I look forward to hearing more details about the call center as we work together and make progress toward improving mental health services in the community.

Please let me know if you have questions.

Sharon Corrigan, Chair
Dane County Board of Supervisors