By Heather Graves
Correspondent
ALLOUEZ – The Allouez village board has renewed its contract with the Brown County Sheriff’s Department for police coverage of the village, even though trustees have some concerns with cost increases.
Discussions on the new contract started more than a year ago.
The new contract includes the addition of one investigator per year over the next three years and an increase in the percentage charged for administrative costs.
The 2019 contract is $921,183, it will increase to $961,716 in 2020 and to $1,003,608 in 2021.
In his report, Sheriff Todd Delain said there are a variety of reasons for the percentage increase for administrative services, including costs associated with technology, a computer forensic analyst, a crime analyst, an evidence technician and records management.
Delain said the investigation increase is based on the previous three years.
Village Administrator Brad Lange said staff has tirelessly tried to negotiate with the sheriff’s department for some decrease in the costs, but to no avail.
“The reason things have taken longer has been our basic disagreement in the investigation costs to the village – once that was looked into further, it was determined that those investigation costs were occurring because of the number of incidences (at) Green Bay Correctional Institution,” Lange said.
Forty percent of all calls in Allouez are related to GBCI.
Allouez is the only municipality which contracts for police services that has a state-owned correctional institutions – and is paying for those costs.
In an effort to help offset some of these costs, village staff reached out to State Sen. Robert Cowles, who included an amendment into the governor’s budget to award the Village of Allouez with up to $60,000 per year to help with the increased costs due to GBCI.
“As of today, the Joint Finance Committee has accepted the motion to include the amendment,” Lange said. “If it stays in the budget, it would be a direct payment of the village.”
The motion is now attached to the governor’s budget.
“The budget still has to be approved and it has to survive the entire process,” said Board President Jim Rafter.
If Cowles’ amendment doesn’t make the final budget the village is working with the sheriff’s department on a memorandum of understanding – meaning the county would explore the option of additional funding.
“The county was amenable to a memorandum of understanding (or MOU),” said Randall Gast, village legal counsel.
The board will readdress a possible MOU if Cowles’ amendment is not included in the approved budget.
The village has contracted with the sheriff’s department since the 1970s.
While there has been discussions in the past about the village forming its own police department or contracting with another community to provide the service, a decision was made in 2011 to remain with Brown County.
Board approves more than $5 million in borrowing
The village board passed a resolution allowing the issuance of $5,595,000 in general obligation corporate purpose bonds at its May 21 meeting.
The general obligation corporate purpose bonds will allow the village to pay street improvement projects, parks and public grounds projects, sewerage projects – storm and sanitary, water system projects and project cost on the village’s TID No. 1.
The village received six bids for the bonds sale.
The board was informed about the winning bids by Greg Johnson, senior municipal advisor from Ehlers & Associates.
“I was pleased with the number of bids that came in,” Johnson said.
Johnson said because bids came in lower than originally planned, the bonds’ amount was reduced by $70,000.
The winning bid for the bonds was FTN Financial Capital Markets out of Memphis, Tennessee, with a true interest rate of 2.5816 percent.
The bonds sale is scheduled to close on June 13.