Chief Brian Donaldson, Waushara County EMS, informed the Waushara County Board of Supervisors on Nov. 2 at their regular meeting that Waushara County has been awarded a $215,000 project grant. The grant is a three-year process and could start as early as 2022. Waushara is the only EMS agency to be awarded the grant and the only one in Wisconsin.
The grant was written by Chief Donaldson and Jessica Lease. Dr. Chad Voskuil wrote a letter in favor of the grant. “It was a big effort and the area physicians and health care providers are excited about the opportunity this grant provides,” said Chief Donaldson.
Waushara County Admin-istrator, Melissa Pingel, has been at her position for a week and reported it has been busy and she is meeting with department heads and getting aquainted with the area. She told the board that she is looking forward to meeting one on one with the supervisors. She encouraged the board to reach out with questions and concerns at any time through a phone call or email.
County Veterans Services Officer, Bill Rosenau, said with the 2020 pandemic face to face office visits were cut in half and the office had to quickly adapt to changes in addition to changes made by the Veterans Administration. He also added that because they did not go to training they were $19,010 under budget for the year.
Rosenau said there have been a record number of veteran deaths, therefore there are an increasing amount of survivor benefits. He said he is pushing for citizenship for all veterans through the Veterans Pro Bono Consortium.
The average benefit for a veteran in 2017 was $3807 and in 2020 the average benefit was $5303. He said adding Brian Dishong, Asst. CVSO, to the office made it much more efficient to handle more decisions. In 2017 there were 66 decisions and to date in 2021 there are 124 decisions.
Kim Stebbins, Child Support Specialist, gave the annual report for the Child Support Office. She said her staff has three child support specialists, plus the support of Ruth Zouski, Corporate Counsel. She spoke of the general purpose revenue and the 66% match. She said the birth cost recovery is dwindling.
Stebbins said the county has collected $2,482,401.28 in child support, making a 78.47% collection rate. The goal is 80% and Waushara County is above the state average. The current child support owed is $3,150,756.79. The paternity establishment is 107.07% and their goal is 90%. She added that 68% of children in poor families in Wisconsin live with a single parent. Stebbins added that today there is more and more shared parenting which works out much better for the children of split families.
Kurt Berner, Vice President of the Samuels Group, gave an update to the board on the building project. He said that the design meetings are continuing and it has been determined that ram piers for the foundation of the government center will be put in sometime in November. As for the EMS property in Poy Sippi, they are a couple weeks behind as they are awaiting some property decisions. The highway shop is in the design phase and will be bid out in the spring. He said he met with City of Wautoma leaders to talk about reuse of the present campus and they would like to see a committee formed.
In other business the Waushara County Board of Supervisors approved:
•Final resolution regarding unconditional county guaranty of its pro roate share, intergovernmental agreement and table revenue bond financing for Bug Tussel 1, LLC Project;
•Resolution approving the Waushara County Budget Appropriation; and
•Resolution approving adoption of final Waushara County Supervisory Redis-tricting Plan.
Anna Schenk, Wisconsin Rapids, the new DOT representative for the county and Wautoma Police Chief, Paul Mott, were appointed to the Traffic Safety Commission for a term ending in May of 2022.
The board went into closed session, returned, and voted to proceed with what was discussed in closed session on the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) property.
The next regular meeting of the Waushara County Board of Supervisors will be held at 7 p.m. on Dec. 21 in the county board room of the Waushara County Courthouse, Wautoma.
