Replies

Dave is an awesome guy, all around. He got phone cards issued to our soldiers overseas:

Dane County board OKs phone cards for prisoners, soldiers Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. - The Dane County Board has approved $25,000 in phone cards for jail inmates and another $25,000 for area troops serving overseas in a compromise deal. The board adopted the resolution by Supervisor Scott McDonell on Thursday.

Under the plan, inmates will get $25,000 in free phone cards annually for the next three years. Another $25,000 will be transferred from the county's general fund for use by Dane County soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The resolution calls for an advisory group of Veterans Services Commission members, soldiers' family members and county board supervisors to study troops' needs.

San Jose, Calif.-based Inmate Calling Solutions has a three-year, $3.6 million contract with the county to provide inmate phone services. It gives the county $100,000 in phone cards annually. Most of those cards are sold to inmates so they can save money on collect calls to family and friends. A provision in county Executive Kathleen Falk's budget called for giving $25,000 in phone cards to inmates for free.

But Supervisor Dave Wiganowsky objected and introduced a plan to give the phone cards to soldiers instead, saying inmates shouldn't be rewarded. That started another brouhaha with supervisors who said Wiganowsky's plan pitted the poor against soldiers.

"I think it's a positive thing," Wiganowsky said of the compromised plan. "We gained more than what we went after."