MADISON, Wis. — After making some progress in March with the Jail Consolidation Project, another budget deficit has members of the Dane County Board once again at odds about the path forward.
The county’s Personnel and Finance Committee is set to consider two competing proposals — one that would lay the foundation for a smaller jail and another that would reallocate funds from elsewhere in the county budget — to keep the design in line with a proposal previously approved by the board in the spring.
RELATED: Dane Co. board approves additional $16M for jail consolidation project
Richelle Andrae, the chair of the Public Protection and Judiciary Committee, supports the plan that would again reimagine the Jail Consolidation Project. The specifics, including the budget and bed count, haven’t yet been determined but the redesign would begin with two fewer floors than Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett’s original proposal.
“I think it’s recognizing a few realities that we’re faced with that were not the case in March at all” Andrae said. “We are also faced with a new county board that has some reinvigorated priorities around justice reform initiatives and that there are not sufficient votes on the county board to borrow any additional dollars on the project.”
It’s a plan District 3 Supervisor Analiese Eicher said could jeopardize plans to close the jail inside the outdated City-County Building, eliminate solitary confinement and set the project back.
“For many folks that’s a non-starter of an amendment and it would essentially kill the jail project,” she said. “We would be looking at having to go find more money for an even smaller project that is even more delayed.”
Eicher has her own proposal to manage the project budget deficit brought on by another round of surging construction costs and inflation-related budget shortfalls.
She wants to reshuffle $13.5 million dollars from the Jail Space Needs Study, Terminal Modernization Project and the Compressed Natural Gas Trailers project. She said the added funds would allow the county to stick to the compromise they made in March for a six-story building with 825 beds.
RELATED: Dane Co. Sheriff’s Office to close portion of jail, move residents to other counties
Eicher admits there’s no guarantee more money won’t be needed yet again in a few months, but she said her proposal does try to make some room for outside factors.
“They identified a budget gap of about $10 million,” she explained. “This is just over that, so hopefully that’s enough to get this over the finish line.”
Andrae, however, believes the five-story proposal is the safer choice. She said it’s true the redesign won’t necessarily lead to a cost savings, particularly with the volatile construction costs, but it would likely mean a quicker build and cheaper overhead.
Andrae also said there would be some trade-offs with the smaller jail but added that she personally wouldn’t support a project that didn’t have medical and mental health space or one that continued to rely on the use of solitary confinement.
She added the redesign takes into account investments the county has made to keep people out of the jail in the first place, initiatives like the CARES project, community court and Crisis Triage Center that she believes long term will reduce the demand for jail beds.
“I can’t guarantee how many people we are going to be diverting for how long–who are they, but I can confidently say that we are moving in the direction of keeping people out of the criminal justice system,” Andrae said.
The county’s Personnel and Finance Committee will consider those two proposals next week. Should they choose to move forward with one, the final budget decision would be left to the full county board.
If passed, the five-story proposal would put an end to the jail consolidation contract that was approved in August.
COPYRIGHT 2022 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
