County Budget: Hour 4

As the meeting winds down, there have not been very many more surprises. There has, however, been a sense of deja vus to some of the debates that have taken place.

A bloq of half a dozen supervisors have put forward about as many amendments looking to cut out proposed borrowing for environmental initiatives. This includes funding for geothermal heating systems, $2.3 million for a communal manure digester and right now, millions to be put toward county land purchases.

"I expect the vote on this to be similar to the last one," chairman Scott McDonell said, "if not identical."

Supervisor Kyle Richmond accused that bloq of supervisors of going after environmental projects specifically. Supervisor Eileen Bruskewitz defended their actions, saying they weren't "targeting any one group of programs, we're targeting borrowing."

The last vote on an amendment to the Dane County Conservation Fund, the one targeting $4 million in land acquisition funding, failed on an 8-27 vote.

County Budget: Hour 3

Following the conclusion of the two crowd-pleasers, the county board chambers have emptied out considerably. Two people remain seated in the galleries.

County executive Kathleen Falk's spokesman Josh Wescott commented offhand to me earlier that, ironically, the heavy firefighter presence in the room earlier may have violated the building's fire code.

The county board completed and approved its operating budget without much contentious debate, and is now rolling through county government, department by department, and amending the 2009 capital budget. The issue of whether or not to hire more communicators for the Dane County 911 Center was not broached during this time, as it was addressed in a prior committee meeting. The county opted to get in line with a consultant's report and hire nine additional communicators, instead of the originally-proposed six.

Supervisor Bob Salov also just proposed the creation of an ad hoc committee to study the need for interoperable radios in the county.

County Budget: Hour 2

Choosing to tackle both big issue votes in one fell swoop, the county board has now diverted from the operating budget to the capital budget for the sake of addressing the concerns of the firefighters and EMS personnel in attendance.

Supervisor Bob Salov introduced the motion, which would allocate $680,000 to purchase interoperable radios for fire and EMS departments throughout the county. This is on top of $12 million the county is looking to borrow in order to upgrade radio towers and other infrastructure to become interoperability-compliant.

The amendment would purchase aproximately 15 upgraded radios for every department in the county -- not enough to fully equip any of them. The county comptroller estimated the measure would increase the capital budget by 1.6 percent.

Departments nationwide are facing the same dilemma before those in Dane County following an FCC mandate issued several years ago that all emergency responders utilize interoperable radios by 2013, which are more technologically advanced and utilize a universal set of frequencies that allow different departments to work together and talk to each other in emergencies.

Small emergency departments are having trouble ponying up the cash for the upgrades however. On top of the millions it will cost the county to upgrade its infrastructure to become compliant, some county supervisors would like the county to contribute hundreds of thousands more to buy the radios in bulk and create a pool for city, village and town emergency responders to share.

"Let's let the county take that first step and then... let's get together and let's talk some more," Supervisor Ronn Ferrell said. "Here's some money, it's not all of it, but it's a portion of it. We're willing to go this far, now you have to come back to us and we have to work this out. That's the message we need to send."

Other supervisors argued beginning work on infrastructure upgrades should be the county's focus for the coming year. With the deadline to upgrade still several years off, they say there's time yet to look for other options.

"We don't need these radios at this time," Board Chair Scott McDonell said. "We need them before this shift to the new frequencies happens."

The amendment failed on a 14-22 vote.

County Budget: Hour 1

This may be one of those most well-attended local government meetings I have ever covered. The galleries on both sides of the chambers are packed full, and attendees are standing in the wings and at the back of the meeting room.

All totalled, there are at least 150 people in attendance.

"What a beautiful display of democracy we have here tonight," noted Supervisor John Hendrick, who will be chairing the operating budget deliberations.

The county supervisors, for their part, appear to be a little taken aback by the overwhelming attendance at a meeting without a public hearing for attendees to sound off. The throngs of observers are primarily fire and EMS workers lobbying for the county to fund radio upgrades mandated by the federal government, and activists in support of an amendement that would re-route funding from the Sheriff's Department to a program to support immigrants.

The firefighters' presence was no surprise to me. In fact, as I was packing up to leave the office, I heard multiple pages go out over the scanner on various jurisdictions' frequencies to encourage attendance at the meeting.

But the activists' presence was more unexpected, as it was predicated on a previously unannounced amendment to the operating budget. Supervisor Al Matano introduced it as the board's first order of business, and called it a means to "express our concern to the sheriff in a way he would hear...Nothing speaks like dollars."

Matano and several other supervisors have previously expressed displeasure with Sheriff Dave Mahoney for cooperating with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement division in turning over the identifications of illegal immigrants sheriff's deputies encounter.

The motion failed on a 6-30 vote. There was then five minutes of commotion as the activists in support left the room. Several of them joined in a chant on their way out the door, prompting Hendrick to call on the Sergeant at Arms to "enforcement some order, hopefully without calling the police and certainly not the Sheriff's department."