DATE: November 10, 2005
The regular meeting of the Sauk County Law Enforcement Committee was held on Thursday, November 10, 2005, at 9:30 A.M., in the Community Room, D102A, 1300 Lange Court, Baraboo, Wisconsin.
The meeting was properly posted and all interested parties were notified.
Members Present: Carlson, Fordham, Tollaksen, Sinklair, Montgomery
Members Excused: --
Members Absent: --
Others Present: W. Schneider, Sauk County Humane Society; M. Hafemann; K. Fults; R. Meister; D. Weinke; D. Holl; S. Finnegan, B. Arendsee; D. Grant; M. Backeberg; B. Manning
Deputies Daniel Holl and Shawn Finnegan and Dispatcher Becky Arendsee were the co-recipients of the September Employee of the Month Award. Deputies Holl and Finnegan were involved in the pursuit of a vehicle after a hit and run accident in the Village of West Baraboo. The vehicle was eventually stopped and the driver, who was wanted on a felony warrant from the State of California, was taken into custody. Arendsee was included for her excellent job in staying abreast of events and keeping the units in the field updated on all the necessary information as the incident progressed. She thanked her fellow dispatchers for taking care of all the other calls for service while she was concentrating on the incident. Deputy Holl noted that he and Deputy Finnegan were assisted by the Reedsburg Police Department and the Wisconsin State Patrol. Captain Meister and Committee Chair Montgomery presented the three with their awards.
Sauk County Animal Shelter Director Wendy Schn eider reported there were 39 dogs taken in at the Shelter in October and 37 dogs adopted. There were 71 cats taken into the Shelter in October and 109 were adopted. The Humane Society handled 42 animals calls in the past month, of which five were bite cases.
Schneider reported that Sauk County Deputies Joel Vodak and Joe Sabol are now certified Humane Officers and Deputy Sabol had attended the meeting of the Board of Directors the previous evening. She also reported that she, Chief Deputy Joe Prantner and Corporation Counsel Todd Liebman and Assistant Corporation Counsel Chad Hendee had met to firm up the procedures for noncompliance with rabies vaccinations and licensing of animals involved in bite cases.
Schneider said that the number of animals taken into the shelter this year is ahead of last year but that adoptions have almost tripled over last year's figures . The Animal Shelter has received a donation of $4,000 for fencing at the Shelter and the installation of the fence has been approved by the county. The fenced area will give the dogs a place to run and play without being on a leash.
The shelter had an open house the previous weekend and made about $2,500 from the sale of calendars and other fund raising ideas.
Backeberg said that the Sauk County TRIAD program was started in May, 2001. This fall Car Care Clinics were held at six different locations in the county; Baraboo, Reedsburg, LaValle, Spring Green, Lake Delton, and Sauk Prairie. She explained the services provided at the Car Care Clinics, which includes educational materials so seniors can protect themselves against scams and crimes and also the promotional items that are given out. She said that TRIAD has no budget so she receives donations from a number of local businesses of either money or goods and that she shops through the year to buy things on sale. The committee was shown a survival kit in a coffee can which is one of the items given to the senior citizens who attend the Car Care Clinics.
Backeberg said she was recently asked to accept a nomination as president of the Wisc onsin TRIAD but said she has too much going on right now to take on the job. She credited Sheriff Stammen for allowing her to be part of the TRIAD for Sauk County and said she really enjoys working with the volunteers and the senior citizens of the county.
Dave Grant, Toni McCutchin and Wendy Carns.
Dave Grant addressed the committee since Carns and McCutchin were at a quarterly Vision users meeting in LaCrosse. He said that there will be a major upgrade to the Records Management System of Visions within the Sheriff's Department this fall and many of the issues this will involve were addressed while they were in Wilmington, North Carolina. The answers they were able to get will make the upgrade easier since many pr oblems will be eliminated ahead of time. The upgrade will involve 64 stations within the department.
While at the conference Grant said that Toni McCutchin had attended focus groups for the jail software and was able to bring the problems and issues experienced in the jail directly to the Vision technical support workers and demonstrate first hand what the problems were. This has lead to a resolution of some issues and other issues will be worked on by technical support on an ongoing basis to overcome shortcomings.
Grant said piror to the conference he had received an inquiry from Lt. Terry Spencer of the Sheriff's Department for Mobile Display Terminals (MDT's) in the patrol supervisors' offices. This would allow the supervisors to do office duties and still be able to directly keep in touch with their officers in the field. Initially, Visions had said that licenses for the additional terminals would cost $13,000, After meeting with officials of Visions they agreed to supply the licensing at no cost to Sauk County.
Sauk County will also receive from Visions a fourth back up dispatch station with a CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) program free. The cost of the station would be $10,000 if Sauk County were to purchase it.
Montgomery said he thought Grant should attend the Sauk County Board meeting in November so the supervisors could hear a short presentation on the benefits of the training, not only in terms of monetary savings but to show the increased efficiency that resulted from the training and one-on-one sessions with the company technical support people and the managers and administrators at Visions.
Sinklair asked if the Coroner's budget overall was still operating within the 2005 adopted amount. He asked that she be contacted and told that if the 2005 expenses were going to exceed the appropriated amount the Finance Committee should be informed of that immediately. Manning said she would contact Coroner Hinze when Hinze returned from vacation and pass that information along to her.
Motion by Carlson, seconded by Tollaksen, to approve payment of the Coroner's October bills in the amount of $8,078.21. Motion carried unanimously.
The Sheriff's bills were reviewed.
Motion by Tollaksen, seconded by Sinklair, to approve payment of the Sheriff's October, 2005, bills in the amount of $105,291.51. Motion carried unanimously.
Because of time constraints the resolution couldn't be completed in time for the November meeting of the County Board of Supervisors' meeting but could be done for the December meeting if the committee wanted to vote on it.
There was a motion by Tollaksen, seconded by Sinklair, to approve an increa se in the building escort fees to a flat $45 per hour, with no mileage fee; and to approve a resolution " Authorization to Increase Fees for Building Escort Services by the Sauk County Sheriff Effective January 1, 2006 , and to take the resolution to the December, 2005, meeting of the Sauk County Board of Supervisors. Motion passed unanimously.
The committee asked if any citations were issued because of the traffic crash. Captain Meister said one was issued to the trucking company because the log truck was over the weight limits. An accident review board had convened on Wednesday, November 9th, but no findings or recommendations had been received from the revie w board as of this date.
Motion by Fordham, seconded by Sinklair, to approve the resolution Authorization to Purchase 2006 Ford Crown Victoria Replacement Squad Car and to take the resolution to the Sauk County Board of Supervisors at the November, 2005, meeting. Motion carried unanimously.
Captain Hafemann reported that as of 9 AM this date there were 275 inmates in the Sauk County Jail and Huber Center. Thirteen are on electronic monitoring, 124 are in the Huber Center and there are 138 in the jail. Of that number 82 are Sauk County prisoners and the rest are out-of-county prisoners.
The housing and medical billing for October to Dane County was $47,679 for housing and $272 for medical expenses. Rock County was billed $57,720 for housing and $232.96 for medical expenses. The year-to-date billings for out-of-county housing and medical expenses is now at $987,536.92. The projected revenues for 2005 from housing inmates for other counties was $858,000.
There were 384 days for electronic monitoring in October.
$6,158.50 collected
$2,090,00 paid for lease of equipment
$4,068.50 balance
Hafemann said that two more inmates completed their GED requirements. The Inmate Programming expenses will be a separate budget account in the 2006 budget but this year they're included in other expense accounts. Huber inmates continue to work at clean up at the Sauk County Landfill site.
The annual jail inspection was done recently. It will take time for the written report to come back since the inspection is extensive and intensive. The inspection done by State Jail Inspector Bob Lee began at 8:15 AM and concluded at 3:15 PM,
Cheryl Fry was offered employment as a full-time Jail Health Nurse. She will begin her duties on December 5th, 2005. Fry has many years of experience as a nurse and recently worked as the W ellness Clinician for Grede Foundry.
Captain Meister said two days of oral board interviews were done with applicants for the telecommunicator eligibility list. Final interviews of the top 10 candidates will be done by the command staff on November 17th, beginning at 9 AM.
Clay Lins is completing his field training and will then begin working Patrol alone. On the 14th of November Bradley Stoddard will leave the jail as the electronic monitoring deputy and begin his field training in the Patrol Division. Patrick Burroughs will transfer from Patrol back to the jail as the electronic monitoring deputy.
Deputy Scott Dadam has completed his tour of duty in Iraq and will return to work on January 3, 2006.
A burglary ring, involving at least two persons who have been arrested and possibly two more suspects, has been discovered. The burglaries took place in Sauk County, Juneau County and Columbia County. The two initial suspects were arrested in Sauk County and a great deal of stolen property has been found. Detectives are continuing the investigation to match up the property with the owners and gathering evidence for charges of more individuals.
October overtime was 1,207.25 hours of paid overtime and 182 hours of compensatory time, for a total of 1,389.25 hours . For supervisory overtime, there were 76.75 hours total; 41 hours of which were team training or callouts, 13.25 hours of overtime paid in lieu of ordering in a union employee after all eligible union employees declined to work the overtime, and 22.5 hours for investigative supervisors.
A department pager had to be replaced after it was accidentally washed in a load of laundry.
Two ERT team members were injuring during ERT training. One employee suffered a hamstring injury and the other a knee injury. There was no loss of work time with the hamstring injury but the knee injury has rendered the employee fit for light duty assignment only.
Jailor Tyler Bongard has resigned from employment with the Sauk County Sheriff's De partment to accept employment as a patrol officer for the Sauk-Prairie Police Department.
Margaret Tourdot Danner, currently a jail reception clerk, formerly a dispatcher for many years with Sauk County, has announced her intention to retire, effective January 3, 2006, after 17 years of employment with the Sauk County Sheriff's Office.
Lt. Kevin Fults said he had received a letter of appreciation from Polk County for Detective Foster's investigation into an internal matter for them.
9. Adjournment To Date Specified: The next regular meeting will be held on Thursday, December 8th, 2005, at 9:30 AM.
Motion by Sinklair, seconded by Tollaksen, to adjourn the meeting.
Motion carried unanimously.
Respectfully Submitted: Joan Fordham, Secretary