I have no problem helping people in need. Especialy people that need short term help. What I am sick to death of is people that use the system as a way of life. Im sick of people that are not willing to help themselves and expect someone else to do and pay everything for them.

TomTiff465: The whole campaign had some major typos. Turns out they actually meant "Hope in Chains", not "Hope and Change". Weird!

But I thought President O'Bama was going to rescue everybody? What happened to "hope and change we can believe in"?

They have way too many people serviced by case workers. They should be watching the persons criminally charged, but they should not be serving the mentally-ill who are on meds and doing fine. The only person they need to see is their psychiatrist for their regular meds.

Looks like an opportunity to create somemore good paying jobs...that have insurance.

I see Tallman. Let's cut the working county emplyees income and benefits so that people that don't work can have more. Nevermind the fact that they work for a living and pay taxes. Nevermind the fact that the benefits such as health insurance have already been cut back. Not all the county employees even have health insurance! There have been lay offs at the county. And more to come. Why don't we go after people that are abusing the system? Did you know that you can collect SSDI for being a drug addict or alcoholic? So taxpayers pay for them to sit home and continue to drink and do drugs. The amount of foodstamp fraud is out of control as well. The Sheriff employees do not make enough money for what they do on a daily basis. Putting their life on the line everyday they go to work. Everyone screams that departments such as Crisis "don't do their job!" Well maybe people don't understand that departments such as Crisis and CPS have budgets that they have to follow. THERE ISNT ENOUGH MONEY TO DO EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE. Plain and simple. If you want to pay much higher taxes so that people can go to a psych hospital when ever they are having a bad day (yes there are people that need to go in patient, but not everyone that requests to go needs in patient) and alcoholics and herion adddicts that want to go to detox and treatment for the umpteenth time can go, keep complaining the County doesn't do their job. What about personal responsibility? Why is the tax payers problem that people chose to continue to drink and do drugs? Why are we paying their rent, heat, food, and daily expenses including their drugs, alcohol and cigarettes?

So you're picking on people that actually work hard and have jobs? Are you bitter because you didn't make the sherriff's department, or something, tallman?
Wow.
Those people go out and risk their lives every single day. I understand that there is record unemployment and people are hurting, but sorry, people at GM weren't risking their lives like the deputies out there are, and they made DOUBLE or TRIPLE what the officers make.
The government workers, too, are taxpayers.

Mr. Tallman - I'd like to point out the fact that the Sheriff's Dept is in a different union than the IM division. Just because one dept. saw an increase doesn't mean that all depts saw the same increase. Unfortunately, the IM union's recent raise didn't even cover the cost of living increase NOR the health insurance premium they are now being asked to pay. I think that shows a benefit CUT not increase.

If we're going to talk about what needs to be changed and about govt. waste, I'd point to the fact that we taxpayers subsidize WalMart, one of the wealthiest companies in the world. Many of their low-income employees are on our state healthcare plan.

Maybe the county board should wake up when it comes to making decisions regarding raises, retirement, health care and all the other benefits government workers receive. Just take the recent promotions handed out at the Sheriff's Dept. They moved all Lt's to Captains with a 18% pay increase. Remember it's not only the pay increases because we as tax payers also must pay a higher amount into their state retirement according to pay. Then we also furnish lifetime health care to these individuals. I know this is only one example of government workers that always get raises regardless of others losing jobs, homes, health care and 401k's disappearing. Besides all this our state legislators hand themselves a 5.3% pay raise which also raises the amount we as taxpayers must pay into their retirement system. Government workers have always enjoyed pay raises and increased benefits regardless of the economic atmosphere for others. Just take a look at what Janesville pays for a city manger and administrators. Government must start to cut their own and put that money back into the public that supports the entire governmental agencies workers. We cannot continue to favor only the few. It's no different than the GM crisis. One can't expect to make $75,000.00 plus benefits and believe that the rest of society making $10-15 an hour to purchase the vehicles. These numbers don't compute economically.

I dod not believe that Rock County is asking for special treatment. I think that they are simply trying to bring this issue to light. All counties are overloaded at the current time due to the current economic crisis. I also feel that is a bad idea to cut funding to the Income Maintenance programs when they are already so strapped and over worked. If money is taken away from the IM budget, programs that serve the population in need will suffer.

I have no doubt that Rock County will get what it is seeking, with Rep. Sheridan as Assembly Speaker. Yet Doyle's proposed budget puts a strain on EVERYBODY, so I'm left to wonder why Rock County should receive special treatment?