Joel Gaughan (Waukesha County Board of Supervisors District 21, Wisconsin, candidate 2026)
Joel Gaughan ran for election to the Waukesha County Board of Supervisors District 21 in Wisconsin. Gaughan was on the ballot in the general election on April 7, 2026.
Gaughan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2026. Click here to read the survey answers.
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Click here to view Ballotpedia's local election coverage in Wisconsin by county in 2026.
Biography
Joel Gaughan provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on February 3, 2026:
- High school: Wauwatosa West High School
- Graduate: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1985
- Bachelor's: University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1983
- Profession: Retired
- Incumbent officeholder: Yes
- Campaign website
Elections
General election
General election for Waukesha County Board of Supervisors District 21
Joel Gaughan (Nonpartisan) and Joseph O'Brien (Nonpartisan) ran in the general election for Waukesha County Board of Supervisors District 21 on April 7, 2026.
Candidate | ||
Joel Gaughan (Nonpartisan)  | ||
| Joseph O'Brien (Nonpartisan) | ||
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| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Election results
Endorsements
Gaughan received the following endorsements.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Joel Gaughan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2026. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Gaughan's responses.
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In connection with my duties as Supervisor, I serve on numerous committees and boards which address issues facing the County. These include the Health and Human Services (HHS) Board, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Board, the Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) Advisory Board, the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) Steering Committee and Healthy Aging Action Team, and the Criminal Justice Collaborating Council (CJCC) Alternative Interventions Committee. I am an Elmbrook New Berlin Senior Taxi Board member and an active member St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish. I retired from We Energies at the end of 2019 after 30+ years in the Finance, Regulatory Affairs, Marketing, and Corporate Planning Departments. My primary responsibilities involved forecasting energy usage for financial, operational, and long term planning purposes.
I received my MS degree in Economics from the U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and my BS degree in Economics from UW-Madison.- Public safety Protecting the lives of the public is obviously the most important responsibility of any government. That said, I would define public safety broadly to include protecting public health (physical and mental), as well as supporting law enforcement. I was an early and consistent supporter of Waukesha County's innovative program of embedding mental health professionals in the Sheriff's department and emergency dispatch center. This gets the right people to the location of crises so that people get the help they need, frees up law enforcement personnel for other duties, and ultimately saves lives and money.
- Fiscal Responsibility We need to maintain the County's excellence in providing essential services (e.g. public safety and health) while practicing real fiscal responsibility. Otherwise, people will choose to live and work elsewhere and we'll be facing a downward spiral of poorer services and higher taxes. In each of the eight years that I have been on the Board, the County has decreased property tax rates to the second lowest in the state and maintained its coveted AAA bond rating. To build on this success, we must expand our tax base, continue to improve the efficiency of our operations, and explore all avenues to generate revenue, including working with the state for fairer revenue sharing to fund mandated services.
- Community Health and Wellness As a member of the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) Steering Committee, we developed a five year plan to identify and address the three highest priority aspects of public health in Waukesha County. The areas we identified are Mental Health, Substance Use, and Healthy Aging. Action teams were established to develop action plans for each of these areas. These plans are presently being implemented. I serve on the Healthy Aging Action Team and we are working to reduce falls and promote social connectedness for seniors
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign website
Gaughan's campaign website stated the following:
My Key Issues
Public safety
Protecting the lives of the public is obviously the most important responsibility of any government. That said, I would define public safety broadly to include protecting public health (physical and mental), as well as supporting law enforcement. I was an early and consistent supporter of Waukesha County's innovative program of embedding mental health professionals in the Sheriff's department and emergency dispatch center. This gets the right people to the location of crises so that people get the help they need, frees up law enforcement personnel for other duties, and ultimately saves lives and money.
Fiscal Responsibility
We need to maintain the County's excellence in providing essential services (e.g. public safety and health) while practicing real fiscal responsibility. Otherwise, people will choose to live and work elsewhere and we'll be facing a downward spiral of poorer services and higher taxes. In each of the eight years that I have been on the Board, the County has decreased property tax rates to the second lowest in the state and maintained its coveted AAA bond rating. To build on this success, we must expand our tax base, continue to improve the efficiency of our operations, and explore all avenues to generate revenue, including working with the state for fairer revenue sharing to fund mandated services.
Community Health and Wellness
As a member of the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) Steering Committee, we developed a five year plan to identify and address the three highest priority aspects of public health in Waukesha County. The areas we identified are Mental Health, Substance Use, and Healthy Aging. Action teams were established to develop action plans for each of these areas. These plans are presently being implemented. I serve on the Healthy Aging Action Team and we are working to reduce falls and promote social connectedness for seniors.
— Joel Gaughan's campaign website (March 25, 2026)
See also
2026 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ "Email with Wisconsin State Election Commission," March 16, 2026
