By Matthew DeFour
The Wisconsin State Journal
DANE COUNTY, Wisc. — In his first budget request, Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney has proposed quadrupling the county’s electronic monitoring program and doubling its traffic enforcement staff in 2008.
The electronic monitoring expansion would allow more low-risk offenders to serve time at home, preventing inmates from being shipped to other county jails at a cost of $3 million a year.
The savings would be used to fund other initiatives, such as expanding the number of traffic safety deputies from three to six. The new deputies would focus on drunken driving, speeding and seat belt violations on major county roads, Mahoney said.
Lamenting two car crashes that killed five people early Monday morning, Mahoney noted that Dane County ranks among the top counties in the state for traffic deaths with between 40 and 55 deaths each year since 2004. Monday’s crashes brought the 2007 total to 41.
“With the addition of three more deputies we will be able to more consistently patrol Dane County’s Beltline and other major traffic arteries, making the county’s roadways safer for everyone who drives them,” Mahoney said.
The sheriff’s budget proposal includes $100,000 for a youth job program intended to prevent gang activity. It also asks for $700,000 worth of equipment, including a dozen vehicles, mobile data terminals, laser speed units, radios and portable Breathalyzer kits.
The proposed budget calls for adding 12.5 staffers, including a minority recruitment deputy and 5.5 positions to expand the electronic monitoring program from about 50 inmates a day to 200 inmates a day.
The county houses more than 140 inmates a day in other county jails at a cost to Dane County taxpayers of more than $2 million a year. An additional $1 million is spent on transportation and personnel costs to move inmates between other counties and court appearances.
Expansion of the electronic monitoring program was one of several recommendations put forth in a recent audit of the county’s criminal justice system.
Putting more inmates out on electronic monitoring was made possible earlier this year when the Sheriff’s Office reclassified its inmates so that more are considered a “minimum” threat to society. In 2005, about a quarter of inmates were classified that way, compared with 63 percent under the revamped system.
Other audit recommendations in the sheriff’s budget include:
--Limiting the number of state inmates the county holds from between 25 and 30 to 15.
--Creating a revolving fund of $5,000 to help indigent offenders post bail amounts in the $200 range.
--Seeking judicial approval to authorize the sheriff to release certain offenders on their signature without a court hearing when appropriate.
--Establishing a policy with local municipalities to not sentence to county jail offenders of local ordinances such as noise violations. The jail holds between 25 and 45 such inmates a day.
Mahoney and Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk also announced plans to create a work program for inmates who remain in county lockup.
“It doesn’t make any sense for inmates to just sit around and watch TV,” Falk said.
Falk said she would support the sheriff’s proposals in her operating budget, which she plans to present to the County Board on Monday.
Last year’s budget proposal focused more on building a new county jail to replace the Ferris Huber Center work-release jail on Rimrock Road. Planning for the new jail, which would have focused on mental health and alcohol and other drug addiction treatment, hit a snag last year after a proposed site for the facility was rejected by Madison residents and officials.
Plans for a new facility will remain on hold as the county experiments with expanded electronic monitoring, Falk said.
County Board member Paul Rusk, of Madison, who is chairman of the Public Protection and Judiciary Committee, said the county still needs to address the “revolving door” problem of repeat alcohol and drug offenders.
“In the back of my mind, we still are not adequately servicing the needs of people with mental health and drug and alcohol problems,” Rusk said. “So if we can move forward with electronic monitoring and save money in the shipping line, we’re going to come back, I hope, to mental health in particular.”
Copyright 2007 The Wisconsin State Journal