As the population of St. Croix County grows, so does the demand for public-safety services, officials say.

Residents of the county, one of the fastest-growing in Wisconsin, are being asked to vote “Yes” next month on a referendum to increase property taxes to cover costs for eight public-safety positions.

“There’s a need for additional personnel that current funding levels cannot support,” said County Administrator Ken Witt.

St. Croix County Administrator Ken Witt (Courtesy of St. Croix County)

The positions include two mental-health co-responders, two sheriff’s correctional deputies, one sheriff’s office investigator, one District Attorney investigator, one youth-justice early-intervention specialist and one deputy clerk of court.

The positions are “not overly glamorous,” Witt admits, “but they are really important in order to support the whole public-safety structure. You can’t just increase one area. You have to raise all boats at the same time in order to keep things level.”

The deputy clerk of court position, for example, is essential to managing the court system’s growing caseload, he said. In 2023, almost 9,600 cases were filed in the St. Croix County Clerk of Court’s Office, up from 8,900 cases in 2022, he said.

Local governments in Wisconsin are restricted in their ability to levy taxes, so the Wisconsin Legislature “created a process for communities in this exact situation to go out for referendums to cover costs,” Witt said. “It allows us to ask taxpayers to support the reason for the increase.”

The April 2 referendum, which requires a simple majority to pass, asks voters to approve an increase of $896,000 to the tax levy cap; the increase would go into effect in 2025.

The measure will add about $15 a year to the property tax bill of a $300,000 house in St. Croix County, the median value for homes in the county.

Officials in St. Croix County went to referendum for the first time last April, seeking an increase of $3.5 million for 24 additional public-safety positions. Although that referendum failed to pass, “the state of Wisconsin came through with some additional money for us,” Witt said. “We were able to add 13 new positions, but we still have a need.”

Mental health co-responders

The county, which has a population just under 100,000, is projected to be Wisconsin’s fastest-growing in percentage terms through 2040, increasing by 41 percent (from census data in 2010), according to county officials. It ranked as Wisconsin’s top-growing county from 1980 to 2010, officials said.

“That’s due to our location — our proximity to the Twin Cities, the job availability, and the cultural draw of living in this area,” Witt said. “It still has rural character, but I can be in downtown Minneapolis in 25 minutes outside of rush hour.”

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The county used $17.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to fund a number of different positions, including two mental-health co-responders, Witt said. “With the ARPA money, we tried a number of things that we had on our wish list — things that we could do while we had the resources,” Witt said.

The co-responders go out with law enforcement to mental-health crises, help prevent high-cost hospital detentions, reduce law-enforcement time responding to these cases and provide compassionate care to those in crisis.

Since they started in March of 2022 through January of 2024, they have responded to 280 crisis calls across the county. The ARPA funds, which cover their positions, expire at the end of this year, Witt said. “They’ve really proven to be the most effective thing that we have tried, and we would really like to continue those positions,” he said.

More crimes, more complexity

In 2019, there were 1,433 criminal referrals to the District Attorney’s Office by all agencies. In 2023, there were 2,372 cases, a 65 percent increase.

Many crimes committed in the county now include a digital element, which adds to the complexity of investigating cases, said Sheriff Scott Knudson.

St. Croix County Sheriff Scott Knudson. (Courtesy of St. Croix County)

“The complexity of our day-to-day jobs has changed with the advent of social media and digital media,” he said. “There is so much more to try and gather to put good cases together.”

If the referendum is not approved, St. Croix County investigators will have to prioritize the department’s most critical cases, Knudson said. “That will push down quality-of-life investigations, like vandalism and other property-related crimes,” he said. “They’ll take longer to complete when we can get to them.”

Additional staff also is needed at the St. Croix County Jail in Hudson to deal with the increase in mental-health and substance-abuse cases, Knudson said.

In 2020, nine new cells for inmates with special needs were added to the jail. Additional officers are needed to help in the special-needs unit, which houses inmates who have mental-health or substance-abuse issues, Knudson said.

“It’s for inmates who require special attention,” he said. “Jail is not necessarily the best placement for them, but if you add in a criminal charge and a lack of resources in our state mental-health resource area, that is where they end up.”

It can often take awhile for an inmate with a mental-health commitment to be placed at the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison or the Winnebago Mental Health Institute in Oshkosh, Knudson said. “Those are our extended-placement options, but until a spot opens up, they have to be held in the jail,” he said.

The population was 126 on Friday; the average length of stay is 13.4 days, but 75 percent of the inmates stay for only one to four days, Knudson said.

Another new hoped-for position is the Youth Justice Early Intervention Specialist, a person who would work with students, families, schools, and the county’s municipal courts to address the underlying causes of truancy, officials say.

“The idea is to address truancy before it becomes chronic or habitual,” said Adam Kastonek, the county’s public-information officer. “This position will help keep truancy cases out of the youth justice system and help to prevent further involvement in the justice system.”

St. Croix County levy referendum

The following question will be on the April 2, 2024, ballot:

“Under state law, the increase in the levy for St. Croix County for the tax to be imposed for the next fiscal year, 2025, is limited to 2%, based on St. Croix County’s best estimate, which results in a levy of $46,002,438. Shall St. Croix County be allowed to exceed this limit and increase the levy for the next fiscal year, 2025, for the purpose of hiring two Mental Health Co-Responders, one Youth Justice Early Intervention Specialist, two Sheriff Corrections Deputies, one Sheriff Investigator, one District Attorney Investigator, and one Deputy Clerk Of Court; to address the County’s most pressing public safety needs, by a total of 1.96%, which results in a levy of $46,898,438, and on an ongoing basis, include the increase of $896,000 each fiscal year going forward?

“A ‘Yes’ vote means that you support additional personnel being hired to address the increasing public safety needs within St. Croix County at a cost of $896,000 per year, added to the tax levy. The one-time increase creates a new authorized tax levy total amount going forward. The one-time increase is equivalent to $5 per $100,000 of property value.”

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MOBILE, Ala. — Kerry Joseph doesn’t have any thoughts yet on the Chicago Bears’ biggest offseason decision, the one that holds the key to the NFL draft.

The team’s new quarterbacks coach, hired Friday, doesn’t even know where his office is at Halas Hall. He has been on a whirlwind tour since the season ended, free to seek a new job after the Seattle Seahawks forced out coach Pete Carroll.

Joseph, the assistant quarterbacks coach for the Seahawks the last two seasons, spent one day in Lake Forest interviewing for the Bears job. In between, he was scrambling to get to Mobile, where he’s serving as quarterbacks coach of the American team in the Senior Bowl.

Somehow along the way, Joseph got hooked up with Bears gear and was wearing a team-issued navy hat, navy shorts and gray sweatshirt at practice Tuesday at Hancock Whitney Stadium on the South Alabama campus.

He doesn’t have preliminary thoughts on Justin Fields. Joseph was the assistant wide receivers coach in Seattle in 2021, when the Bears drafted Fields. He has yet to dig in on this year’s draft, in which the Bears hold the first and ninth picks and are in position to select a new quarterback.

“I was getting transitioned to coming out here,” the 50-year-old Joseph said.

It’s the first time he has been an NFL position coach — above the assistant position coach level. The connection is easy to make. He worked with new Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, who came from the Seahawks. The Bears also interviewed Seahawks quarterbacks coach Greg Olson for the offensive coordinator job.

The last first-time quarterbacks coach the Bears hired was Shane Day in 2010 based on his experience working with then-offensive coordinator Mike Martz in San Francisco. Since Day, the Bears have rolled through Jeremy Bates, Matt Cavanaugh, Dowell Loggains, Dave Ragone, John DeFilippo and most recently Andrew Janocko.

It would be overly dramatic to say this is the most important offseason for a Bears quarterbacks coach. There has been urgency to get the position right for the longest time. It just so happens they own the No. 1 draft pick as they prepare to thoroughly examine a talented group of passers, including USC’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye (who was a spectator at practice Tuesday), LSU’s Jayden Daniels and Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy.

Joseph, who was responsible for red-zone preparation with the Seahawks, had a hand in helping revive Geno Smith’s career in Seattle as Smith threw for 4,282 yards and 30 touchdowns in 2022. Joseph’s knowledge of Waldron’s system will be critical whether the Bears draft a quarterback or not.

“When you think about Shane and what we were able to do with the (Seahawks) offense, I think quarterback play is about having confidence,” Joseph said. “Quarterback play is just about being competitive. It’s about being smart, being dependable, having a good IQ of the game, being passionate.

“When you think about traits, when you talk about quarterback play and when you talk about Shane’s mentality, it’s just about being connected to the play caller, being connected to the offense. There are some things you’ve got to have and you’ve got to bring to it.”

Joseph was a quarterback at McNeese State and had a 42-11 record as a four-year starter, helping the Cowboys to two Southland Conference titles. He spent time with the Cincinnati Bengals in 1996 as an undrafted free agent before playing in NFL Europe. He tried to make the Washington Redskins as a slot back and then played safety for the Seahawks from 1998 to 2001, appearing in 56 games with 14 starts.

He returned to quarterback in the Canadian Football League in 2003, winning a Grey Cup with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2007, when he was named the league’s most outstanding player. After retiring following the 2014 season, he got into coaching at the college level with stops at his alma mater and Southeastern Louisiana before joining the Seahawks as an offensive assistant in 2020.

The diverse background — having played defense in the NFL — gives him a different perspective to teach offensive football.

“It helps me tremendously,” Joseph said, “because playing the safety position, playing that dime (position), playing down in the box helped me understand how defenses attack the offense, how guys fit. So now that I’ve gone back to quarterback, I see it from a defensive mentality.

“Being able to help guys to understand the game, not just from the offensive side but from the defensive side, kind of helped (with) where to put their eyes. That’s what it did for me as a player, and I try to teach it that way with a defensive mentality.”

Joseph will learn where his office is soon, and then he can hit the ground running as the Bears prepare for the draft and install a new offense — quite possibly with a new quarterback. As far as his philosophy on developing a young quarterback, he leaned into some basic tenets.

“I use three things: accountability, responsibility, communication,” Joseph said. “It’s about trust, believing and having confidence in each other. A quarterbacks coach and a quarterback, you’ve got to have those three things.

“Then, hey, it’s about the fundamentals. It’s about developing the fundamentals, developing the mentality to be a good leader. To be a winner. Just willing to compete. There are so many things that I have in my philosophy as a person that I take into the coaching world and into the quarterback room to help develop a group of guys.”

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Chicago Bears wide receiver DJ Moore could reunite with his former college coach.

The Bears are working to hire Chris Beatty to be their wide receivers coach, though it was not yet official Tuesday morning, a source confirmed. Beatty was Moore’s position coach for two of his three seasons at Maryland, including 2017, when Moore was the Big Ten wide receiver of the year.

Beatty would join the Bears after three seasons as the Los Angeles Chargers wide receivers coach, his first NFL stint after 15 years coaching in college.

He would replace Tyke Tolbert, whom the Bears fired along with offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and three other offensive staffers earlier this month. ESPN first reported the news of the expected hire.

Along with his time at Maryland, where he was promoted to associate head coach and co-offensive coordinator, Beatty was a position coach at Pittsburgh, Virginia, Wisconsin, Illinois, Vanderbilt, West Virginia, Northern Illinois and Hampton. He was the co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under Tim Beckman during his lone season with the Illini in 2012.

A former wide receiver at East Tennessee State and in the Canadian Football League, Beatty started his coaching career at the high school level.

He would be tasked with coaching a wide receivers group that Bears general manager Ryan Poles might look to bolster after it lacked production beyond Moore in 2023.

In his first season with the Bears and quarterback Justin Fields, Moore had a career-high 96 catches for 1,364 yards and eight touchdowns.

But Darnell Mooney had his worst season with 31 catches on 61 targets for 414 yards and a touchdown. And rookie Tyler Scott had a bumpy first season, finishing with 17 catches on 32 targets for 168 yards.

Beatty would be the fifth Bears coaching hire this offseason. They previously hired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph and defensive coordinator Eric Washington and are hiring

The Chicago Bears and local schools are $100 million apart on the property tax valuations of the former Arlington International Racecourse, where the team wants to build an enclosed stadium.

The huge gap means that the two sides are likely to have difficulty reaching a compromise on the value and further complicates the team’s plan to move to Arlington Heights.

The ongoing issue came up Tuesday during a meeting of the Cook County Board of (Tax) Review.

The Bears presented two appraisals of the 326-acre property, for $60 million and $71 million, board of review officials said. The key to the Bears’ appraisal was categorizing the property as vacant residential land, which gets taxed at 10% of market value.

The local school districts have had the land valued at $160 million.

The Palatine Community Consolidated School District 15 appraisal classified the land for commercial use, which puts it into a 25% tax bracket.

In a tri-yearly assessment in 2023, Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi raised the appraised value from $33 million to almost equal to the $197 million the Bears paid for the land last year.

District 15, Arlington Heights-based Township High School District 214, and Palatine-based Township High School District 211, reached an agreement last year with the former owner, Churchill Downs Inc., to value the site at $8 million.

But Churchill Downs, which closed the racetrack to concentrate more on casinos, was eager to be rid of the property, and had to negotiate just one year’s valuation. The Bears are looking at a process that could set a baseline for the tax value for the property for years to come.

To lower the value of the site, the Bears demolished the racetrack last year to turn it into vacant land. But Kaegi then significantly increased the value of the land, which typically stays fairly stable.

“There’s no documentation or justification for such a substantial increase,” Cook County Board of (Tax) Review Chairwoman Samantha Steele said. “My concern is not that it’s the Bears or Arlington Park, it’s that each taxpayer needs to be treated fairly and make a prediction of what the tax bill will look like.

“They both have compelling arguments,” Steele said. “It’s in both parties best interests to come together. It’s like two children arguing, you want to figure it out before you go to Mom and she takes (the decision) away.”

Board Commissioner Larry Rogers, Jr. also was critical of the assessor’s valuation, forming a potential vote in the Bears’ favor.