From CARES to housing, Dane County Board signs off on $968M 2024 budget (2024)

The Dane County Board signed off on its changes to the 2024 budget, passing a $968 million package Monday night.

Core parts of the board’s changes to Dane County Executive Joe Parisi’s budget include even bigger investments in affordable housing and more board oversight as to how the county will use money won through settlements with the opioid industry.

The board added about $2 million to the $787 million operating budget proposed by Parisi. The capital budget approved by the board totaled about $179 million, a $29 million departure from what Parisi first proposed.

“We covered so much ground, from the arts to housing, to the environment and public health,” said Sup. Elizabeth Doyle, who represents Downtown Madison in the 1st District and chairs the board’s Personnel and Finance Committee.

For many county employees, the budget is a win, too. Non-unionized staff will get a 4.5% raise, which builds on other raises county employees received last year to curb the impacts of inflation.

In the capital budget, most of the new borrowing added by the board went to affordable housing in addition to $5.5 million for renovation of the county’s parking ramp near the Capitol Square.

On affordable housing, $1.35 million of county money will go to replacing St. John’s Lutheran Church with an affordable housing project. Ten million dollars will go into the county’s affordable housing fund and another $8 million will go toward a fund to develop safe housing for farmworkers in Dane County.

Ten supervisors supported a failed attempt Monday night to restore $500,000 to Second Harvest.

Sup. Jeff Weigand, 20th District, was the sole dissenting vote to the budget on Monday.

Here are other key takeaways from the budget:

Crisis response

A key component of the budget touted by the board and Parisi is investments in crisis response and seed funding to aid an expansion of Madison’s CARES programs to other communities.

As the county looks to help the expansion of CARES, which sends crisis workers in lieu of law enforcement to mental health emergencies, $200,000 will help set up an application and grant program for communities interested in getting crisis response services.

On top of those government services, the board amended the budget to spend $1 million to give crisis workers at Journey Mental Health a $7-an-hour raise.

Opioid settlement

In its changes to the budget, the County Board gave itself greater control over the way the county doles out money received through settlements with opioid distributors for their role in the opioid overdose epidemic.

A board subcommittee made up of county officials and community members with lived experience and addiction treatment expertise will decide how to spend $800,000 of settlement money.

Even as the county puts hard numbers on where the settlement money will go, how much the county will receive and when remains uncertain.

“It’s very hard to predict and plan,” Sup. Heidi Wegleitner, 2nd District, said at a committee meeting last month. “We don’t necessarily have a date on when they’re coming.”

In his budget proposal, Parisi sought a $500,000 media and education campaign, $250,000 for rental assistance and transportation vouchers for those in recovery and $50,000 for stipends from the Ending Deaths from Despair Coalition.

The board removed those initiatives from the settlement plan and will put them under the discretion of the subcommittee. By April 1, the subcommittee will make its suggestions about how to spend that money.

Some of Parisi’s initial proposals for the funding remain in the budget, including $100,000 for outreach on opioid addiction to the county’s Black community, $180,000 for addiction education in local schools and $70,000 for the distribution of fentanyl testing strips and naloxone.

Another $210,000 for buying naloxone will go to Public Health Madison and Dane County and county emergency services.

More taxes

The budget raises about $347 million in gross county taxes and spells a tax increase for the average Madison homeowner.

In 2024, the owner of a typical Madison home valued at $424,000 will pay about $1,158 in the county portion of their property tax bill. That’s up from $1,010 the same homeowner paid in 2023 when that home was worth $376,900.

Parisi has attributed that increase to one-time hikes in the county’s capital spending. That includes a 4.3% increase in county debt payments due to the consolidated jail project. Borrowing approved for the project hit $179 million in April.