Portage County staff told the Executive Operations Committee the county has begun a passport acceptance service after staff completed in-person training with the U.S. Department of State and additional online and administrative training.

The county reported it accepted two passport applications on the first day and that the office is in an audit period covering the first 50 applications; staff said two staff members review each application during the audit period to reduce errors. “So it’s been a lot of training in the last 2 weeks. But today, we wanna start a passport acceptance service. So we had 2 today and it went fairly smoothly,” the county clerk said.

Staff also reported attending the Wisconsin Counties Association annual conference in New Glarus, where national organizations provided information related to elections, and said they planned civic clerk training sessions on Aug. 25 and Sept. 9.

Separately, county staff demonstrated a new “county building projects” section of the Portage County website that is in a soft launch. The page consolidates information on the Portage County Courthouse, the jail, and the Law Enforcement Center (LEC), including project histories, guiding priorities, timelines and frequently asked questions. The page will be expanded to include permit and license links and a public submission form for constituent questions.

Why it matters: the passport service provides a direct public-facing service at the county level and the building-projects web pages centralize information about multi-year capital projects, a point of public interest for supervisors and residents.

Technical and administrative notes: staff said the county is moving off its current Microsoft-based video software (support ends after August) and is working with IT to transition to a replacement to continue recording and posting meetings. The county also worked with a consultant, FitNorth, and internal historians and long-serving staff to assemble project histories and supporting documents.

Ending: Staff asked supervisors to review the soft-launch pages and send feedback; no formal vote or policy action was taken at the meeting on any of these items.