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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