Rock County will become one of a handful of Wisconsin counties with a Crime Prevention Funding Board.
County supervisors voted 14-10 Thursday night to approve District Attorney Jason Sanders’ proposed creation of the board and a crime prevention fund.
After felony and misdemeanor convictions, defendants would pay a $20 surcharge into a crime prevention fund. The pool of money would be available to organizations for crime prevention efforts. That could include things like police task forces, community outreach events and more. The new board will be in charge of approving applications.
What happened for people who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay the surcharge came up multiple times during Thursday’s board meeting.
Sanders told supervisors judges would have the authority waive the surcharge in those cases.
The DA estimates the fund could collect between $15,000 and $20,000 annually. He added one advantage to the new fund, as opposed to other court costs that mostly get shipped to Madison, is that the money would be reinvested locally.
The new Crime Prevention Funding Board will consist of seven people dictated by state statute. They are the presiding judge of the circuit court, the district attorney, the sheriff, the county administrator, the chief elected official of the county’s largest municipality, a person chosen through a majority vote of the sheriff and chiefs of police departments in the county, and a person chosen by the public defender’s office.
Other counties with a crime prevention funding board include Brown, Chippewa, Dodge, Iowa and Oconto counties.
