New sustainable and environmentally-friendly projects are a focus for Dane County Executive Joe Parisi’s 2015 budget, while the future of a new jail facility remains uncertain.
A big theme of the budget is partnerships, particularly in climate change and environmental initiatives, Parisi’s communications director Melanie Conklin said. Parisi’s budget includes roughly $532 million for the operating budget, and $38.9 million for the capital budget.
Some of Parisi’s top projects for 2015 are meant to clean up Dane County, including eliminating phosphorus runoff to improve lake quality and using new techniques to collect carbon dioxide emissions from the Madison landfills, Conklin said.
Conklin said an innovative, patent-pending project involving the Dane County Rodefeld Landfill will involve using solar panel technology to cover the landfill.
“When a landfill fills up you have to cap it, which is a pretty expensive process,” Conklin said. “We’ve discovered the idea to cover our landfill with a solar membrane. Envision a bathing cap with solar panels on it.”
A new medical examiner’s building and the new highway transportation garage will be located across the street from the landfill, near Cottage Grove off Highway 12. Both of these buildings are heated and supplied with electricity from the landfill currently, but the implementation of the solar “bathing cap” would generate a lot more, Conklin said.
Conklin said not only will the solar panels create revenue and power, but they actually cost less.
A big project that is not receiving an expansion of funding in the 2015 budget is Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney’s jail proposal, which Conklin said would have been focused on improving the conditions for inmates with mental illnesses.
“In the current fiscal environment,” Conklin said, “it is simply too much for taxpayers.”
Conklin said that even though this project is not feasible for the 2015 budget, Parisi and Mahoney agree on two key issues. The first is the inadequacy of the jail cells above the city county building. The second, Conklin said, is how inmates with mental illnesses are taken care of in Dane County jails.
Mahoney said the project currently has $8 million to work with from the 2014 budget.
“That money will be used to further work with our consultants and architects to look at … the City County building jail, which has now been declared a safety risk to those who are housed there as well as those who work there,” Mahoney said.
Safety and solitary confinement are two of the main problems of the current jail, Mahoney said. He said lights are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and inmates are sleeping on the equivalent of a “concrete slab.”
The problem needs to be addressed, he said, before a catastrophic event or death occurs in the current facility.
“On any given day we have as many as 50 or more housed in solitary confinement because of their mental illness or their medical condition, and that’s a problem because it exacerbates their condition in many cases,” Mahoney said. “It’s not what solitary confinement is designed for.”
Mahoney said the remaining $8 million will focus on special needs housing for those who require specialized medical attention because of a medical condition or illness. The funding for the project’s current budget is appropriate, Mahoney said, and he will be putting the money to good use.
The county budget proposal will be sent to the County Board for consideration and amendments. The final budget will be approved in November and go into effect Jan. 1.
