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Marathon OC Budget Meeting Saves Fair, Extension

Wikimedia Commons Royal Broil

A marathon Oneida County board budget meeting started in the morning and ended in the evening, but they hammered out a budget.

WJFW TV reports the board adopted the budget and didn't address funding for the Oneida County Fair, which means their funding is in the budget.

But the Oneida County UW-Extension narrowly escaped elimination.

Supervisor Scott Holowinski said other expenses in the budget has risen and he moved to cut the county's funding of Extension...

"...The only way we can get that budget down is to eliminate some programs...so at this point I will make a motion to cut the UW-Extension budget...to zero." 

Supporters of the Extension were quick to reply, including Bob Mott...

"But this is necessary because we have people supporting it. We have people using it throughout the county. I would say we should not cut Extension..."

Three supervisors were absent from the meeting and others had left during the marathon discussion, leaving 15 of 21 supervisors to vote on eliminating funding. The motion to cut funding was defeated because it had 7 supervisors favoring the cut, 8 opposed.

The Extension is facing changes as the county is negotiating with Nicolet College to move the offices there, potentially saving half of the cost of renting from the Rhinelander-Oneida County Airport, also funded by the county, which now costs $40,000.

Much of the day was occupied with a discussion on borrowing 4 million dollars to fund a number of capital improvement projects, including new communications systems for the Sheriff's department.

In the morning, the board rejected borrowing the money. Later in the day, a move by County Board Chair Dave Hintz took 4 million from the county's general fund to fund key projects which passed.

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