2022 County Budget Includes Key Progressive Wins
Statement on 2022 County Budget
After weeks of public hearings and committee deliberations, the County Board adopted its 2022 Operating and Capital Budget resolutions in a special budget meeting last night. Progressive Dane applauds the hard work of the party’s endorsed electeds, Supervisors Heidi Wegleitner (district 2), Elena Haasl (5), and Yogesh Chawla (6) to ensure historic investments in housing for people experiencing homelessness, new behavioral health initiatives, and the continuation of many critical COVID-response initiatives launched during the pandemic. The budget also includes a more equitable approach to increasing county worker wages, targeting funds towards the lowest-paid employees. Progressive Dane supports county efforts to reduce income inequality and eliminate disparities based on race and gender and values the collective voice of workers.
Progressive Dane’s County Platform has included the creation of one or more behavioral health crisis and resource centers for several years and, in consultation with community advocates, ProDane Supervisors have introduced amendments in prior years to fund the project. The party is thrilled to see the Crisis Triage Center finally move forward in 2022 with $10M in capital funding and $1.5M for initial staff to begin planning work for the Center.
The 2022 Capital Budget includes funds to support the conservation of land at Voit Farm on the East side of Madison, thanks to the hard work of Supervisor Yogesh Chawla: “The Voit Farm project is an ambitious sustainable community based development that will serve as a model to fight climate change and advance equity”. Chawla also supported a strong Land and Water Budget which fully funded flooding resiliency and land conservation purchases to keep water where it falls. Recently he was also the lead sponsor on a resolution that discloses all PFAS testing done at the airport, emphasizes providing public information and gets a legal opinion on County Board regulatory powers. Chawla said “we need to know what power the County Board has to keep our drinking water safe for our community,”
The budget includes $15.75M for affordable housing, including $6M for the Affordable Housing Development Fund, $3M to improve Dane County Housing Authority properties, $5.25M for the purchase of a hotel to convert to permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness, $1.5M for another tiny house village, and $300,000 for outreach services. “With last week’s adoption of Res. 223, which requires a staff report on camping and car-camping, the most important pieces of Res. 156 to provide temporary and permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness, are moving forward.” She introduced Res. 156 in August to use American Rescue Plan funds to expand outreach services, support permanent housing initiatives, and establish lawful car-camping and camping locations.
Supv. Elena Haasl, who serves on the City-County Homeless Issues Committee (CCHIC), successfully advocated for a $75,000 county contribution to support the Community Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. Haasl worked with CCHIC colleague and ProDane Alder Yannette Figueroa-Cole, lead sponsor of the City contribution, to advance the amendment. Haasl adds “I'm grateful to my colleagues on the City Council and on the County Board for recognizing the importance of investing into an equitable and community oriented plan to prevent and end homelessness. So much has changed in the past five years, and the COVID-19 pandemic continues to expose and exacerbate homelessness and obstacles to housing. Providing City and County funding to update the Community Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness brings us one step closer to providing our unhoused community members with the safety and stability they deserve.”
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