Vilas County moves to help Tri-County Council

Despite recently announced deep budget cuts, there may be a way forward for the non-profit Tri-County Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault to continue its outreach efforts in Vilas County.

Vilas, Forest and Oneida counties make up the Tri-County Council which “promotes non-violence as a life choice and provides a safe environment for persons in crisis,” according to its website. 

Its administrative office is in Rhinelander and the organization has been leasing space on the second floor of the Vilas County courthouse in Eagle River to do outreach service for clients. 

That lease was a topic of discussion during the Oct. 8 meeting of the Vilas County board’s public property committee. 

 “It is with deep heartbreak that we are writing to inform you of a drastic budget change,” Tri-County’s executive director, Angie Fanning, wrote in a letter to Vilas County dated Sept. 30. 

“By no fault of our own, our largest grant VOCA (Victim of Crime Act) has been reduced by 77%, effective October 1, 2024,” she wrote. “This has forced us to make immediate and significant changes to our operations, services, and structure.”

Among the changes Fanning highlighted:

• No funds awarded to staff a full-time advocate/program coordinator in Tri-County’s outreach offices.

• Six part-time shelter employees laid off. 

• No longer able to provide shelter to more than one individual or family at a time.

• Emergency victim assistance funds previously used to help clients overcome barriers to living a safe lifestyle no longer available.

• Community clients may have longer wait times to meet with an advocate.

“We are currently in a one year lease agreement for our office in Vilas County until November of 2024,” Fanning wrote. “According to the lease agreement, this lease agreement would be reviewed for continuation. We humbly ask you to end the lease effective October 31, 2024. This action would allow us to cancel the insurance policy and phone line for that office, enabling us to redirect those funds to support victims. Tri-County Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Inc. has been serving victims of Vilas County since 1987. We intend to keep providing services through mobile advocacy.”

The hope

Public property committee chairman Joe Muelbach began the discussion by explaining it was that committee that essentially set things up for Tri-County to use the second floor space in the courthouse. 

“They can no longer afford to have one person here on a regular schedule so they’ve asked to break the lease which we have had discussions on,” he said. “We were trying to come up with an option that would still make it available to them. Unfortunately, they can’t so they would like it (the lease) to end on Oct. 31.”

Muelbach said unless something changes, the room would be reconfigured and made available “for others to reserve.”

“My hope is that we can somehow keep them here on a regular basis so we won’t have to do that,” he said.

Because of the way the second floor space Tri-County currently leases is configured, it offers “the greatest amount of privacy,” Muelbach noted.

“It is somewhat soundproof,” he said. “So it was an ideal room we had set up for them.”

Vilas County clerk Kim Olkowski said it was possible Tri-County could still use the room. 

“That would be a room we would reserve for them,” she said. 

“It would revert to a conference room,” information technology director Mike Duening said. 

“Correct,” Olkowski said. 

“Unless we can come up with a solution which I know we have people trying to find out what that might be,” Muelbach said. 

“Joe, I’d like to do what we can to support this group,” committee member Carolyn Ritter said. “If we had a conference room for them to use and they wouldn’t have to worry about insurance or phone lines or rent or anything else. At lease it would be a place for them to meet either with clients or if they had to have a staff meeting of some kind.”

Muelbach said that has been something that Tri-County has been approached  about.

“Their problem is they’re struggling to find some way of affordability to have someone come here because they can’t reimburse for mileage anymore,” he said. “It kind of hurt when I saw their message. They talked about funding that received in Oneida (County) so they’re able to continue their operation in Oneida because Oneida supports them but then commented that Vilas had dropped its funding years ago or some time ago is how they phrased it.”

“Not on my watch,” Vilas County board chairman Jerry Burkett said. 

Duening said remote meetings between clients and Tri-County personnel could be set up “just about anyplace they wanted.”

“We could get a client hooked up,” he said. “Then they wouldn’t have to come here.”

Muelbach acknowledged that but also mentioned his daughter   works “in this very space” and that sort of approach can be “very impersonal.”

“This is at a time when you’re trying to counsel, you’re trying to support,” he said. “Nothing beats face-to-face.”

Muelbach then referred to what the county had done in the past budgeterily to support Tri-County and the current county budget proposal that encompasses the transition from social services to a county human services department. 

“There’s so much synergy and again, one of my roles in my past life was to find synergy,” he said. “There’s got to be synergy there that’s somehow, there’s a solution that we just haven’t touched on and probably because we need to assemble the correct players.”

Olkowski said she talked with her predecessor, Dave Alleman, the day before to get some history behind funding for Tri-County by Vilas County. 

“He believes that somehow funding was through social services all those years ago,” she said. “I don’t know why it ended.” 

Olkowski said she’d also contacted county social services director Kate Gardener but as of Tuesday morning, hadn’t heard from her. 

“How much do they need?” Burkett asked. 

“You know, I was just thinking to myself we are talking a very small dollar amount,” Muelbach said. “Maybe that’s the discussion we need to have with Kate is to say ‘What would it take financially to keep services we currently employ here?’”

Burkett said at one time, he participated in what he said were a series of “teddy bear dances” with a rock band he was in as a fundraiser for the Tri-County Council. 

“I’m a firm believer that there needs to be a place for somebody that is undergoing an abusive situation,” he said. “Wives, kids ... or husbands and kids. There’s more battered husbands than you realize.”

Burkett said he believes in the mission of the Tri-County Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. 

“If I would have known there was a problem before this, I would have addressed the problem,” he said. “I realize we just passed the (2025) budget and printed it. I also know that three times in a row, I amended the budget and dipped into the general fund much to the chagrin of the former county chair. Let’s find out what we need.”

Burkett said there “was nothing more end of the world, can’t take it anymore” than a person feels “in an abusive, physically, emotionally, alcoholic, drug-induced spot and you have children and you have no idea what to do.”

He looked across from him at Vilas County Sheriff Joe Fath and addressed him. 

“Am I wrong, sir?” Burkett asked.

“No, you’re right,” Fath responded. 

“Let’s find out how much, please,” Burkett said again. 

Ritter suggested taking it a step further with the possibility of Oneida, Forest and Vilas counties getting together “to see what we need to keep this organization going.”

Possibility is there

“It’s in the very preliminary stages,” Vilas County finance director Darcy Smith told The Lakeland Times after speaking to Burkett about what was discussed at the meeting. 

Although the county board’s 2025 budget has been published and the budget hearing set for Oct. 22, as Burkett said during the public property meeting, there’s still an opportunity for a resolution to withdraw money from the general fund to be presented at the Oct. 17 meeting of the county board’s finance and budget committee that could be passed and forwarded to the county board for consideration at the budget hearing. 

“There was some indication that it would be funding as we had many years ago and I don’t know what that amount was,” Smith said, adding that Olkowski was in the process of gathering that information.

“It could still happen,” she said. 

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].