Wis. Sheriff Warns Budget Amendment Creates 'Unacceptable Erosion of Essential Services'
What to know
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A proposed Dane County budget amendment would cut 28 vacant deputy positions, reducing the sheriff’s office budget by $3.76 million to help offset countywide deficits and restore Human Services funding.
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Sheriff Kalvin Barrett said the cuts would delay the 2027 jail opening, reduce rural coverage and response times and force the department to “do more with less.”
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Sponsors of the measure said no active deputies would be removed, and the savings from the amendment would support homeless services and mitigate Human Services reductions.
The Dane County Sheriff’s office would be required to do “more with less” under a proposed measure that would cut 28 open positions from the department, Sheriff Kalvin Barrett said Monday.
The budget amendment — proposed by Dane County Sups. Heidi Wegleitner, Yogesh Chawla and Keith Furman — would reduce the sheriff’s office budget by roughly $3.76 million by removing unfilled deputy positions.
The proposal is “an unacceptable erosion of essential services provided by the Dane County Sheriff’s Office,” Barrett told reporters at a news conference Monday.
Three civilian staff positions within the sheriff’s office were cut as part of Dane County Executive Melissa Agard's proposed 2026 budget, “but here we are again, with positions being taken.”
Earlier this month, Agard announced a hiring freeze and plans to reduce spending in nearly every department by 4% next year to close a projected $31 million deficit.
Dane County budget calls for hiring freeze, pay cuts and more vacation time to tackle $31M deficit
Ballooning health insurance costs, increased staffing and concern over federal and state funds are prompting a tight county budget.
But the budget submitted by the sheriff’s office did not include the same reductions as everyone else, Wegleitner told the Wisconsin State Journal.
Under the proposed budget amendments, funds saved by cutting vacant deputy positions would go to make up for cuts to the county’s Department of Human Services, which Wegleitner said complied with the request for 4% revenue reductions.
An additional $2.2 million was cut from Human Services as part of Agard’s proposed budget, she said. “So 16 of those positions would reverse that cut, mitigate some of the damage to an already kind of frayed and tattered safety net in our community.”
The sheriff’s office receives roughly $110 million a year for operations and is the second-largest department in Dane County after Human Services.
The more than $2.24 million the county would save by cutting the open deputy positions would be used to offset costs to other departments in next year’s budget, according to the proposal.
An additional $917,000 would be used to help fund operations at the new men’s homeless shelter at Bartillon Drive and $597,000 would go toward other homeless services within the county.
The budget the sheriff’s office submitted left no room for cuts, Barrett maintained. “We only asked for what we needed. We don’t ask for any more.”
The county’s expanded jail, meant to replace the decades-old City-County Building facility, is slated to open in 2027, but staffing cuts could put a hold on operations, he said.
New deputies typically start off at the Dane County Jail, Barrett said. “Taking these 28 positions will not allow us to open that facility,” he said.
What’s the latest progress on the Dane County Jail project?
The long-delayed Dane County Jail consolidation project is nearing an end, with an expected finish date in 2027.
Further cuts to the department would reduce coverage and response times by law enforcement in rural areas of the county, said Greg Hyer, chair of the town of Cross Plains.
Sheriff’s deputies primarily serve smaller towns and unincorporated sections of Dane County, either to supplement smaller municipal police departments or to fill in gaps for places without any dedicated officers.
Barrett said the measure is unfair to residents outside of major towns and cities, noting that the three sponsors live in areas covered by local police departments.
“We're talking about positions that are not filled,” Wegleitner said. “Nobody out there is going to be taken off the streets.”
The county’s Public Protection & Judiciary Committee is due to vote on proposed amendments to the budget at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. The meeting is a hybrid online/in-person meeting in Room 357 of the City-County Building.
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