As you take up the 2009-2011 Biennial Budget very soon, we respectfully ask your consideration of several items in the budget that will affect county governments and therefore residents of every county in the state.

 

The first item we wish to mention is the proposed (former) 911 surcharge and grant program approved by the Joint Finance Committee.

·         After the expiration of the previous 911 grant program in late 2008, WCA and many others in the county family worked with the telecommunications industry to create a new, permanent 911 grant program for the purpose of funding county 911 centers’ technological needs through a surcharge on active devices capable of dialing 911.

·         After approving the proposed 911 grant program in April, the Finance Committee revisited the issue in late May and changed the program and the use of its funding considerably. The Finance Committee renamed the 911 surcharge as a “police and fire protection surcharge” and moved to place the proceeds from the surcharge in the general fund, where it appears that money will be used for shared revenues.

 

Counties appreciate the circumstances of this decision and the magnitude of the budget challenge facing the state. 

 

·         We ask that the “police and fire protection surcharge” be sunset on June 30, 2011 and that Joint Finance motion #85, as adopted by the Joint Finance Committee (and agreed to by counties and the telecommunications industry) take effect July 1, 2011.

·         We also ask for a removal of the maintenance-of-effort language that now accompanies the proposal to create a police and fire protection surcharge. This language would preclude counties from making any reductions in their spending on any “emergency services”, with a definition of those services to be made by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. We know of no counties eager to make any

reductions in emergency-service spending. However, given the levy limits and the reductions to County and Municipal Aids included in this budget, we ask that counties be allowed the leeway to budget as best they can.

 

When the 2009-2011 budget was introduced, WCA decided to focus our legislative efforts on key areas, most of which involved human services. On some of the human services programs we targeted, we saw improvement by the Finance Committee. We extend our thanks to the Joint Finance Committee and to its individual members, many of whom were as helpful as fiscal circumstances permitted in resisting the proposed cuts.

 

However, the 2009-2011 budget continues to hold many challenges for county government.

 

The mental health shift proposed by Governor Doyle remains in the Finance budget. Under the budget counties will be required to contribute the non-federal share of funding for children and elderly civil patients placed at a state mental health facility. This proposal will shift $13.7 million from the state to counties over the biennium. Counties are already required to pay this cost for most other patients sent to the Winnebago and Mendota Mental Health Institutes. Further, many communities do not have mental health providers specializing in treating adolescents or the elderly, so some counties have few or no options for providing care to these patients.

 

In the area of Community Aids, significant funding gaps remain.

·         Governor Doyle proposed decreasing the Health Services BCA by approximately 1 percent in CY 10 and CY 11 ($4.1 million over two years). This cut remains in place after action by Joint Finance.

·         The Governor decreased the Children and Families BCA by 1 percent. In addition, the Children and Families BCA was proposed for an additional reduction of $9.5 million, or 14 percent, in CY 10 and $11.1 million, or 16 percent, in CY 11. This reduction is due primarily to reductions in federal IV-E child welfare revenue. The Joint Committee on Finance restored approximately $5 million of the $20 million cut.

 

In these areas of mental health and community aids, counties ask the Senate for restorations of funding that the legislature and the Governor at one time had approved as necessary to carry out the functions being asked of us by the state.

 

It is important to remember that all these cuts (and others) are accompanied by a reduction in County and Municipal Aids (shared revenue) provided to counties, which will decline by 3.5% in the 2009-2011 biennium. This reduction comes on top of increasing costs to provide county services, growing demand for those services in a difficult economy, increasing costs to counties for staff and benefits, as well as a levy limit on county government.

 

On all these items, Wisconsin’s county governments ask consideration by the members of the Senate as the 2009-2011 budget goes forward. Thank you.