Request for Public Input

This morning for the Executive Board meeting, one agenda item struck me as one that I would like to get some public opinion on.  There is a proposed ordinance change that would adjust the time for morning meetings from 9:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.  The times for afternoon and evening meetings would not change, and nothing in this ordinance addresses which meetings would be done during the morning, afternoon, or evening.

I need to check and see if that ordinance passed and whether or not it was amended.

So I want the thoughts of the people I serve.  Please e-mail me at either my county e-mail address or my personal e-mail address and tell me if you see this as:

• A good change
• A bad change
• A meaningless change
• A weird change

Thank you in advance.

Today's Human Services Committee Meeting

Prior to today's Human Services Board meeting, I spent almost an hour and a half meeting with Eric Diamond, the Human Services Administrator.  Eric gave me a lot of great and useful information about the department, and it was a very productive meeting.  He also gave me a tour of the department's facilities.

Vice Chair.
Today we elected the Vice-Chair, and chose a citizen member of the Human Services Committee and a past County Board Supervisor who was the chair of the Human Services Committee at one point in his tenure.  Leslie "Les" Borman is our Vice-Chair.  In talking with him, he seems like a very experienced and knowledgeable resources, so I am glad we have him on the committee.

High Risk Client.
We approved an extra 2% profit for an organization that is assisting us in transitioning a high risk client out of the Winnebago Mental Health Institute ("WMHI") to a residential facility.  The extra profit works out to about $550 per month, and will cover some of the provider's costs in making upgrades to this facility.

For some additional background, WMHI charges $1,289 per day, and this client has been there for 14 months.  So far the county's costs since March of last year for this one case exceeds $500,000.  As well, WMHI is at full capacity when they have 189 patients, and they currently have 210 patients.  With the new arrangement, the daily charge will vary, however a good working estimate is $700 per day.  In discussing this case with Eric prior to the meeting, he gave me every assurance that this new arrangement will very likely improve her recovery prognosis, and that everyone involved in the case agrees that this is a positive step for her.

The net outcome is that we improve the client's prognosis for a recovery and save the county roughly $600 per day.  That works out to $18,000 per month, or $126,000 for this year if the client moves in on June 1st.  This is a win for both the client and us taxpayers.

Thank you to Eric and Jackie, and everyone else on their team, for their hard work in helping this client!

Closed Session
We did go into close session related to a contract negotiation.  I cannot speak to the specifics that were discussed. 

When we came back into open session, I did report that I previously had an employment relationship related to the vendor roughly 2 decades ago for a period of approximately 6 months.  Since I have no current financial arrangement with the vendor, the County Attorney saw no reason for me to abstain from voting on the issue.  Our County Attorney is very ethical on these matters, so I am confident that if there was a conflict, she would have advised me to abstain from voting on the issue. 

Human Services Committee---First Meeting

This Thursday will be my first meeting on the Human Services Board.  For me, I plan to ask a lot of questions so that I can get up to speed as quickly as possible.

There will be 2 key items on the agenda:

1.  Election of a Vice-Chair.  From a realistic perspective, I would be surprised if I received consideration for this position.  That said, I would not turn down the Vice-Chair if neither Dawn or Joe wanted it.

2.  Residential Services for High Risk, High Need Client.  Essentially, right now the county is paying $1,289 per day for this client to be treated at Winnebago Mental Health Institute.  He is being allowed to transition into a community-based arrangement that may help his recovery while providing some cost savings to the county.  Coming into this situation mid-treatment, I want to make sure that we have fully reviewed this arrangement to make sure that it presents more positives than negatives in relation to the treatment, and make sure that any risks have been minimized.  I also want to look at the additional profit the vendor is requesting, and see if that is appropriate.

Mileage

I have worked a lot of jobs, and I have never received mileage for driving to work.  once I am at work, if I have to drive between locations, I'll claim mileage for that driving, since it is part of the job and only benefits my employer.

As a County Board Supervisor, there is an allowance for me to claim mileage for driving to and from County Board Meetings.  I live 3 miles from the County building, and drive a Prius.  I don't feel right claiming mileage to get to work under those circumstances, so I have decided not to claim mileage in those instances.  It just doesn't seem to make sense to me to get paid mileage to go to work.

I don't want this to in any way be a negative reflection of the other supervisors, all of whom were told during their new supervisor orientation that they were entitled to mileage.  Many of those supervisors drive longer distances to get to work.  I just don't see it as appropriate for me to claim mileage in my circumstance.

Human Services Committee Meeting, May 19

The first meeting of the Human Services committee is scheduled for May 19th at 9:00.  I don't have an agenda yet but expect that it will be a pretty light agenda.  I know that a vice-chair will be elected.

County E-Mail Access

I have access to my county e-mail address now.  If you e-mail me using my county e-mail, remember that I cannot reply to any e-mails that include any campaign-related inquiries.

May 10, Meeting Wrap-up

The May 10th meeting had some interesting information.  A few quick highlights:

The Workforce Development Board presented on its work.  The board itself is a regional board, overseeing 3 counties (Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee).  As well, they partner a lot with Milwaukee County to petition for Federal funding grants and workforce training, in a great example of what positive regional cooperation can look like.

The more important presentation was on Priority-Based Budgeting. 

Interestingly, we are one of the first public entities in Wisconsin to go through this process.  The presentation was given by 2 county supervisors from another state, on their experiences with this type of budgeting.  During the presentation, I became very comfortable with the direction the Board is heading.  This budgeting mechanism looks to provide a system that will allow us to:

• Establish a sustainable budget system.
• Establish and maintain adequate reserves.
• Prepare for and prevent a budget deficit that we will face in 3-5 years if we don't begin making adjustments now.
• Evaluate one-time and long-term expenses and revenue sources.
• Identify programs that are not vital to the core public services so that adjustments can be made including shifting those services to private entities and reducing the scope of those programs.
• Identifying areas where fees increases are appropriate.
• Identifying programs that are self-funded, and as such don't need attention.

In looking at the numbers, Human Services (the committee I am on) accounts for 26% of the county budget.  51% of the funding for the overall budget, if I am understanding it correctly as it was presented, comes from Federal and State funding sources.

One positive sign is that of the 1,166 programs offered by the county, only 11% are programs that get categorized as "governance."  Governance programs are those that support government infrastructure and employees.  The averages given by the presenters were 16%-17%, and the range was between 8% and 23%.  Being so far below average in this category is a testament to the past and continuing board members and their efforts towards good stewardship.

One interesting thing that was noted was that 65% of the programs we provide are limited in the scope of county residents they benefit.  Each of these programs benefit less than 10% of the county population, although it is not necessarily the same 10% for each program.  I know that is confusing, so the quick explanation I would give is that Foodshare might reach 9% of county's population, while 4H might reach 4% of the County's population, and only 1% of the county's population benefit from both Foodshare and 4H (the numbers given here are purely for example purposes, and NOT actual usage statistics).  With 945 community programs, this would mean that roughly 600 of the county's programs are geared towards a specific population that is less than 10% of the total population, with varying degrees of overlap in the population served between those programs.

I am probably going to watch the presentation again once the video is posted to the county website, because I know I missed some things as my mind was processing other things.

Bob Ganon Nomination Papers

Since this is a personal website and a campaign-related website, I decided to share the following request I received from our State Representative, Bob Ganon, for those who might be interested in helping with this request:

As your State Representative, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to serve you in the Wisconsin Legislature. During our last session, we made common sense reforms that encourage business growth and personal responsibility. Without a doubt, we were successful in moving Wisconsin forward.

Now I'm asking for your help so my name appears on the ballot in November.

As a member of Wisconsin's 58th Assembly District, will you please help circulate my nomination papers?

Please click here to print my nomination papers.

Click here to view a map of the 58th Assembly District.

The guidelines for circulating nomination papers are simple:

• Electors who sign my nomination papers must be residents of our district. Please ensure all signers use their full name and residential address. (No business addresses or PO Boxes). A map of the district is linked above.
• The individual that circulated the nomination papers must sign them before returning. 

Please mail them back by May 23rd to:
3018 W Washington St.
West Bend, WI 53095

Sincerely,
Representative Bob Gannon

Committee Assignment

I just received notice of my Committee Assignment for the next 2 years, and I will be on the Human Services committee.  That committee is chaired by Kristine Deiss of West Bend, and also has Joe Gonnering and Dawn Eyre, as well as 3 citizen members.

Human Services was my second choice, and at one point was my first choice (there is a part of me that had grown sick of H.R. issues after 18 years of being immersed in them).  Human Services is an important committee, since it controls roughly 25% of the County budget.  Some of the matters that come before the committee are only approved by the committee without going to the full board for approval.  As well, in the next 2 years there may be significant funding cuts for Human Services, and managing that process to ensure that all of the critical resources remain intact will be very important. 

The previous Human Services Director, Jim Strachota, is in my district so he is a resources I might occasionally tap into.  If I remember correctly, Ralph Hensel was on the Human Services Committee and will also be a resources for me (my apologies if my memory is wrong).

The committee assignments will become final after being voted on in the May 10th meeting.  The first meeting of the Human Services committee will be on May 19th at 9:00.

County E-mail

It looks like my county e-mail has been set up.  I don't yet have access to it, but should within the next day or two, or by Tuesday's board meeting at the latest.  I will be adding this e-mail address to the sidebar of this blogsite.  My County e-mail address will be:


christopher.bossert@co.washington.wi.us


Of course, any campaign related inquiries should be sent to my personal e-mail address.

May 10th County Board Meeting

I just received, via e-mail, the information for the May 10th meeting.  It looks like there are 3 key things on the agenda:

Committee Assignments-The board will confirm the committee assignments for the upcoming 2 years.  I anticipate knowing in advance what my committee assignment will be.

Ordinance Revision to Chapter 1-Chapter 1 of the county ordinances with see some very minor revisions.  Looking at my copy, it looks like there is a reference to an Administrative Coordinator that is being changed to County Administrator.  There is a reference to Wisconsin Statutes as published in 1995-1996 that is being updated to 2013-2014.  There is also a change in the decimal numbering system for ordinances that I presume will be carried forward into other chapters as they are revised this coming year.

There will also be a report by the Workforce Development Board, a board which can be a tool for spurring economic growth.  I will be reading through their report extensively.  As well, there will be a presentation on priority-based budgeting.