Dane County subsidizes CARES Sun Prairie pilot after 28 responses; public dashboard planned

Dane County officials told the Health & Human Needs and Public Protection & Judiciary joint committees on June 30 that the county-subsidized CARES mobile crisis pilot in Sun Prairie has responded 28 times through June 24, with most calls resolved on scene and only a handful resulting in transport.

The update came as Todd Campbell, Dane County Behavioral Health Division administrator, and Carrie Simon, county urgent care manager, summarized how CARES fits into the county’s broader crisis continuum and the data being used to refine operations. Paul Simon of MOSES delivered a public comment urging continued investment in front-end crisis response reforms, saying it is “as or more important to implement reforms that will keep people out of the criminal legal system and out of the jail.”

County staff said CARES began responding in Sun Prairie in early February. Of the 28 recorded Sun Prairie responses through June 24, 20 were to private homes and four resulted in transport to another facility, staff said. County data reporting for CARES shows 353 total missed-call instances across the program since February (about 2.5 per day on average); staff reported that 88 of those missed-call instances were in Sun Prairie.

The county is temporarily subsidizing the Sun Prairie pilot under a memorandum of understanding. Under that arrangement Sun Prairie can seek reimbursement from Dane County for about 70% of what the city bills for CARES calls; the reimbursement agreement runs for one year from the pilot start date, county staff said. Staff gave a rough per-call cost estimate described in the meeting as “about $500 and some dollars per call” (meeting transcript estimate; county staff described the figure as approximate during the briefing).

Paul Simon and other speakers emphasized the value of phone-based diversion: the meeting record attributes a MOSES comment that “about 20 percent of behavioral health calls can be handled over the phone without sending a mobile crisis unit.” County staff said one intended benefit of the new 911 behavioral health call diversion capability is to reserve mobile units for calls that cannot be resolved by phone.

Staff described work with Harvard’s Government Performance Lab and city partners to define performance metrics and to build an internal CARES dashboard. Carrie Simon said a public-facing dashboard is planned and will show call volume, outcomes, transport rates, and the percentage of calls resolved on scene. City of Madison staff are finalizing design and data-sharing permissions; county staff did not provide a firm public release date.

Sarah Henriksen of Journey Mental Health Center, who oversees law-enforcement-embedded crisis workers, said preliminary public dashboard mockups include key metrics such as transport and custody outcomes. Henriksen noted that “only 2 percent of CARES calls end with the patient in police custody,” and that most custody outcomes reflected protective custody for emergency detention rather than arrests.

County speakers cautioned that fiscal constraints could affect future expansion. Carrie Simon said the county is currently covering a large share of the Sun Prairie pilot costs and that any further expansion would depend on both local decisions by cities and the county’s fiscal outlook.

Staff also reported operational data used for scheduling and coverage decisions: CARES planners have used heat maps of call timing and locations to place teams when possible, and daytime hours — not overnight — showed the highest call volumes in Dane County and in Sun Prairie to date.

The committees asked several procedural questions about scheduling, missed calls and how heat-map data is used to place teams; county staff said schedule changes have been data-driven and that 24/7 CARES availability had not yet been seriously discussed. Staff emphasized that the CARES pilot and related dispatch protocols are part of a larger county strategy that includes 988, 911, Journey’s crisis hotline and other mobile and facility-based crisis services.

Looking ahead, staff said an independent evaluation by the Government Performance Lab was under way for the city-contracted portion of the work and that the county expects to continue refining measures and public reporting. The public dashboard will be hosted by the City of Madison website once permissions and design are finalized, county staff said.