From: James Kilgore // Subject: Report on County Board Finance Committee Meeting Tuesday, October 1// *Summary of County Board Finance Committee 10/1/13*// The house was packed. More than 50 people, lots of green shirts. Excellent public participation from about ten people stressing re-entry and mental health. We also presented the board with a binder containing all our petitions collected over the last 18 months. Board member Josh Hartke was the champion of re-entry and moved that $200,000 be set aside for social programs, including re-entry. He wanted the money taken from facilities which had over $600,000, though it had not been funded for years. Tere was a long debate with the Republicans, led by Stan James Facilities Chair, defending the facilities budget and a number of Dems speaking in favor of the $200,000. Chairman Kurtz had to tell the crowd not to applaud when board members spoke vigorously in favor of re-entry. They ultimately voted along party lines to allocate the $200,000 (a victory for us), then had a long debate about where to find the $200,000 with the Republicans opposing taking any money from facilities.In the end they took 68,000 from facilities and got the rest of the $200,000 from elsewhere in the budget. *What does this mean?* 1) There is $200,000 available for programs which can be used for re-entry (but may be used for any programs that the board approves). We still have to defend re-entry. 2) What has been passed here is only a recommendation to the board meeting. The actual budget can only be passed at a whole board meeting which will be October 24th. 3) Our presence and pressure has made a huge difference-both in the long term and the short-term (emails, letters, postcards, petitions). The change and impact are very noticeable. * 4) We need to have one more mobilization for the meeting of October 24that 7:00pm to make sure they don’t backtrack on the budget. * James Kilgore
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 07:13:08 +0000
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