Dane County Executive Melissa Agard has signed the Wisconsin county’s 2027 budget, completing a spending plan that includes more than $29 million for housing and shelter in its capital programme.
The signing on Thursday 12 November follows the Dane County Board of Supervisors’ approval of the budget on 4 November. The plan, called “Turning the Corner”, was developed against the backdrop of a continuing gap between the county’s ongoing revenue and spending pressures.
Supervisors set the county property tax levy at $283.2 million, the same amount Agard had proposed. That comparison is with the executive’s proposal, not a statement that the levy is unchanged from the previous year.
Housing and shelter
Housing and shelter account for the largest area of capital investment in the board-approved plan. The board put the total at $29.35 million, of which $7.25 million came from its amendments to the executive’s initial proposal.
Of that total, the board’s breakdown included $26.5 million for affordable housing development. It assigned $20 million to the county’s Affordable Housing Development Fund, $4 million to replenish the Fair Chance Housing Fund, and $2.5 million to projects outside the federal low-income housing tax credit programme.
The Fair Chance Fund helps provide housing for people with criminal records and histories of homelessness. The different allocations are budget commitments; they do not by themselves establish how many homes will be completed or when particular projects will open.
The board also included $2.1 million for a Salvation Army facility intended to provide family shelter, and $750,000 for land improvements at a permanent site where people can legally sleep and camp. Agard’s original proposal described the shelter investment as support for a new facility for women and families experiencing homelessness.
The board’s operating-budget amendments restored approximately $422,000 for human services, with most of that sum directed towards housing case management and overflow shelter capacity. Supervisors also redirected $70,000 within an existing contract to protect mental health crisis services. The board said increases were offset by savings or reductions elsewhere.
Those measures sit alongside longer-term housing spending rather than replacing it. Shelter and case management support people facing immediate housing instability, while development funding is aimed at the supply and preservation of affordable homes.
Finances and other services
The budget approved by the board contained $861,125,920 in operating expenditure and $94,132,450 in capital spending. Operating expenditure covers the running of county services, while the capital programme funds longer-term investments.
When Agard introduced her proposal on 1 October, her office said the county had faced a projected structural deficit of $31.8 million when she took office in 2024. It said the projected gap had fallen to about $15 million going into the 2027 budget process. The reduction did not eliminate the longer-term challenge.
The executive’s office said earlier budgets had needed some one-off resources, including additional surplus, to balance them. It also said measures taken over the preceding two years had reduced continuing costs or increased continuing revenue.
The board’s plan directed $1.1 million towards moving the county Veterans Services Office from leased premises to a county-owned facility. Supervisors expect that move to reduce operating costs in future budgets.
The county is also moving ahead with a body-worn camera programme for sheriff’s deputies. In the plan it approved, the board revised language concerning the roughly $3 million programme and asked the sheriff’s office to publish a draft policy for at least 30 days of public comment.
The board said the advisory resolution addressed matters including how footage is retained and stored, limits on facial recognition and biometric tools, and sharing data with third parties. It noted that the sheriff’s existing draft policy already addressed many of the board’s priorities. The board also sought an annual public report and access provisions for complainants and defence counsel.
The board-approved capital programme included $10 million through the Dane County Conservation Fund, as well as funding for highways, bridges, parks and the Henry Vilas Zoo. The county said the conservation funding would draw on borrowing and outside revenue rather than the property tax levy.
The county operates on a calendar-year budget. The executive’s signature brings the 2027 plan beyond the earlier board vote, but the allocations remain spending decisions rather than evidence that the funded facilities or projects have already been completed.
