The Dane County Board passed its 2022 budget with a unanimous vote Monday. The budget focuses on COVID-19 relief, affordable housing and sustainability. The budget does not include a proposed $23 million amendment to construct a new county jail.

Each fall, the board approves a budget for the next calendar year, which includes two processes, according to the Dane County Board of Supervisors website. There is one budget for operations and one for capital projects.

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“County Executive [Joe] Parisi proposed a budget that included many of the Board’s priorities, particularly related to behavioral health,” County Board Chair Analiese Eicher said in a press release. “We were able to build on the proposed budget to make a good budget even better, including additional funds for criminal justice reform, supporting the most vulnerable, and protecting the environment.”

The approved budget after amendments was $7 million more than the original budget proposed by Parisi last month.

According to reporting from the Wisconsin State Journal, the budget includes $10 million dollars for a Crisis Triage Center, which will serve as an alternative to jail for people experiencing mental health crises.

An additional $3.2 million was approved to convert a hotel into affordable housing for people experiencing homelessness.

Protecting the environment was another priority of the budget. A total of $8.2 million will be allocated to purchase fuel trailers for the county’s natural-gas-powered vehicles and eight more natural-gas-powered snow plows, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

A total of about $11.62 million have been budgeted for the COVID-19 pandemic, including air-purification systems for county facilities and new positions created for the response to the pandemic, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

Some amendments to the approved budget include $200,000 for expanding prevention of gun violence, $75,000 to update a homeless plan and $500,000 for making parks more accessible, according to a press release.

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The budget will raise taxes for the average home by about $67.87, with the total budget coming out at $754.8 million.

The tax increase should not have much of an impact on University of Wisconsin students, according to District 5 Supervisor Elena Haasl.

“The owner of the building is liable to pay the tax and I don’t think many undergraduates are property owners,” Haasl said in an email statement to The Badger Herald.