Holman Column: On the horizon of county government

It’s early 2019, and the holiday season has passed. As with most things, though, life goes on and that is certainly true at the county.

I thought it might be good to write a summary on a few things that you can expect to see being talked about and worked on around Portage County as we get back into our grooves, try to follow our New Year’s resolutions, and hope for a little more snow (and not all of it in April). So, I’ll start this piece off by talking about county buildings, county roads, and county priorities.

Portage Co. has been talking about what to do with many of its buildings for the better part of the
last 25 years. The City-County Building is 60 years old, the Ruth Gilfry Center is 40 years old, the Annex is 20 years old, and the Law Enforcement Center and the jail are both about 30 years old.

The county’s courtrooms have been identified as outdated and unsafe for over a decade, and the jail didn’t really meet the county’s needs from day one, either. There have been two public workshops held so far to look at potential building projects that would answer some of our long-term needs in the county. As
with roads and other infrastructure, buildings deteriorate over time and eventually need to be repaired
or replaced.

To give you an idea of where we are at with one piece of the puzzle, we had an outside firm conduct an
assessment of the current Law Enforcement Center and County Jail. We wanted to know how much time
it would take and how much it would cost to renovate it for the short-term and bring it up to code. The
answer: $26.5 million and several years of moving around a construction site, shipping more inmates
than usual, and being more inefficient than we are now given our space restrictions.

If building new would cost twice that amount but set you up for stability and greater efficiency over the next 40-50 years, does it make sense to invest in long-term answers to our infrastructure questions?

Portage Co. is not the only county finding itself with this question, either. Just last year, Adams
Co. was faced with the state telling them to update their jail or maybe having to shut it down. An
initial proposal to add a couple of additions to their current facility had a cost of approximately $15
million. Also last year, Dane Co. had to change their plans for building a $75.2 million jail on top of
their public safety building because of structural concerns. Elsewhere in the state, Oconto Co.
transitioned into a new jail in 2017 at a cost of around $30 million.

These are large dollar figures, no doubt, and with referendums passing around the state, people are
feeling like taxes are going up. However, according to the Wisconsin Policy Bureau’s report in December
of 2018, “Wisconsin’s tax burden—defined as state and local taxes as a share of income—fell in 2018 to
its lowest level in nearly 50 years. Taxes accounted for 10.5% of income, down slightly from 10.6% in
2017, marking the seventh consecutive annual decrease.”

How can the tax burden be at a record low while people are seeing their local tax bills go up? Part of the answer is that the funding that would normally come from the state through other channels has been
frozen, reduced, and/or eliminated. So, we at the local level have been put into the position of asking
ourselves if we are going to better fund things like schools and roads or let them continue to lag behind and let their infrastructure further deteriorate.

In the last election, the residents of Portage Co. passed referendums by a large margin that led to property tax increases that, in effect, replace the lack of some funding through those other channels. Many folks have expressed frustration with the referendums, but local governments and school districts wouldn’t go to referendum if sustainable funding was part of the state’s long-term plan.

Unfortunately, shifting costs to the local level like this is increasingly common. The next area we might feel a funding pinch is with bridge and culvert aids from the state. Bridges built for the loads we know they’ll carry—versus what the state may be willing to fund—aren’t cheap. Local leaders and taxpayers may be asked, again, to make up for a lack of agreement and/or sustainable funding and planning at the state level.

To be fair, government at every level can benefit from better approaches to long-term planning. It
would be dishonest to ignore how we’ve played a hand in getting ourselves to where we are today.
Though, when past opinions of the Attorney General state that, “Counties are creatures of the
Legislature and their powers must be exercised within the scope of authority ceded to them by the
state,” you get an idea of where you stand (77 Op. Att’y Gen. 87, 87 (1988)).

The Wheel Tax (aka Vehicle Registration Fee) passed late last year, too. Why? Well, in addition to our
capped budgets, there has been—on average—a 52% increase in the price of asphalt, a 98% increase in
the cost of salt, and a 55% increase in the price of oil since 2007. In that same time frame, the county’s budget has been allowed to increase by 0% or the percentage of net new construction in the county, which for 2018 came in at 1.81%. That’s not sustainable, nor is borrowing for the $3 million dollar deficit that the highway dept. has been running in order to maintain the current levels of programs and services.

That kind of borrowing strategy can work, but if you rely upon it for too many programs and for too long
it puts you onto a debt treadmill of sorts where, before you know it, you’re only making payments on
the interest.

Unfortunately, many other counties are on that treadmill or are about to get on it, and the
Wheel Tax keeps our budget on more solid ground. It also keeps the funding in Portage Co., and
state statutes designate that funding for transportation purposes only.

The Wheel Tax is not, as some have speculated, being used to update and expand the 33-year old
highway facility. I’ve heard several other exciting and incredibly creative claims about where the funding
is going and none of those are true, either. I know that people have a healthy skepticism about
government officials whenever they open their mouths, but I learned a long time ago that it’s easier if
you just stick to who you are and telling the truth. If you don’t, you’ll lose track of both.

But I digress. If the state had kept up with sound funding strategies for our roads, we wouldn’t see
wheel taxes being adopted by counties and municipalities all over Wisconsin. Make no mistake, we
would still see the costs elsewhere, though (e.g. a gas tax). There’s no free lunch, and as I’ve pointed out
above, it’s not getting any cheaper to maintain or build roads and bridges.

That’s why it’s important to build what you can operate and maintain with known and expected
revenues whenever you are able to do so. Governments across the country haven’t always done that,
which is presenting dilemmas that would be solvable with more prudent planning.

For instance, if you build a bridge that you know needs to be replaced in 50 years, it’s probably a good idea to save money over that time frame so that when it comes time to replace it, all or most of the funding is there. That’s a long-term look at financial sustainability and it isn’t always easy to take that look, but short-term thinking creates long-term problems.

There’s another truth that should concern all of us as well, and it’s just as true whether we’re talking
about our personal vehicles, our homes, farm equipment, septic systems and water treatment facilities,
or anything else that plays a crucial and often underappreciated part in our day-to-day lives.

We do not have the luxury of taking our time or not taking action because the longer we put off fixing the
problems, the costlier the solutions will be. We can do our best to maintain what we have for as long as
we can, but even that approach will eventually pass the point of diminishing returns and put you into a
precarious position where everything fails at once. Not good.

All of these things I’ve mentioned are precisely why I am beginning a budget prioritization process this
year. It will take some time to perfect, but prioritizing our discretionary (i.e. non-mandatory) spending—
which is only 30% of our budget—puts the county board, county staff, and the public into a better
position for understanding what we’re funding and why we’re funding it.

Similarly, if we need to cut a program or reduce levels of service or personnel, we know where to start. Our priorities will change over time and with different county boards, department heads and county executives, but having a process in place that puts us all in a better position to have difficult conversations is something that will be very helpful. For one, we’re already having those conversations, and secondly, it doesn’t look like they’ll get easier any time soon.

So we’ll see what 2019 brings. The only thing I am certain of is that every year brings changes—expected
and unexpected. I am hopeful that we can continue on those paths that lead us toward solutions for the
challenges we know of today, and if we cannot tie up our loose ends all at once, that we can put in place
a solid and sustainable plan for tomorrow.

Our future depends on it. Happy New Year!

Chris Holman
Portage County Executive