Where I stand
Standing With the Deputies Who Keep Us Safe
Public safety starts with a department that’s actually staffed, supported, and led. Right now, it isn’t.
The Dane County Sheriff’s Office has been running short for years, dozens of unfilled deputy positions, with the deputies who remain forced to carry the gap through mandatory overtime. Their own union has described working 12-hour days, four to six days a week, and “challenges we have not seen within the last 28 years.” That’s not sustainable, it’s not safe, and it’s how good deputies burn out and leave.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Much of this is self-inflicted:
- An outdated schedule, locked in place. The deputies’ contract keeps patrol on a 6-on/3-off, 8-hour schedule with no 12-hour option, even though the county’s own staffing study found that modern 12-hour and 4/10 schedules help departments recruit and keep officers. Other counties have moved; Dane County hasn’t.
- No investment in retention. The department offers no take-home vehicle program, a long-term investment many neighboring counties have made precisely because it improves retention, readiness, and community presence.
- A broken relationship with the County Board. Budget season has become a yearly battle of press releases instead of an honest, data-driven conversation about what the department genuinely needs, and deputies pay the price when politics crowds out planning.
- Misplaced priorities. Money has gone to surveillance networks and crowd-control equipment while the people doing the work go without the staffing and support they need.
As Sheriff, I will:
- Rebuild a working relationship with the County Board so the department is resourced based on data and real need, not brinkmanship.
- Make filling vacancies and ending mandatory overtime a top priority, because a rested, fully staffed force is a safer one, for deputies and the public alike.
- Sit down with the deputies’ union to modernize scheduling, including the 12-hour and 4/10 options officers in other counties prefer.
- Invest in retention, including pursuing a take-home vehicle program that pays for itself in readiness and lower turnover.
- Put our deputies ahead of surveillance tech and military-grade gear. People first.
I want a Sheriff’s Office our deputies are proud to serve in, and a county that invests in them the way they show up for us.