Price Goes Up on Sheriff’s Office; Washington County Agrees to Pay More for Addition
By DON BEHM
West Bend — The Washington County Board on Tuesday agreed to add $771,000 to the cost of building a two-story addition for the Sheriff’s Department and remodeling the emergency dispatch center and other offices, boosting the total price to more than $4.9 million.
Work will begin next month to construct two floors atop the single-story entrance to the existing office building on Schmidt Road, which has not been renovated since it was built in 1980, Sheriff Dale Schmidt said.
The project will provide 14,000 square feet of space for training rooms, evidence storage lockers, interview rooms and additional offices to meet the needs of a growing department for the next 20 years, Schmidt said.
Part of the unexpected cost increase comes from locating a proposed elevator outside of the building, he told board supervisors. The existing structure could not accommodate an elevator shaft to serve the two new stories.
On a 26-3 vote, the board boosted the project budget to $4,971,000. Supervisors John Stern and Donald Berchem, both of the Town of West Bend, and Daniel Knodl of Germantown opposed the increase. Supervisor Paul Tuchscherer of West Bend was absent.
The extra cost of $636,000 will be paid with unbudgeted county sales tax revenue from last year and the remaining $135,000 will be paid with jail fees.
A financing plan will use county sales tax dollars to pay the original $4.2 million budget: $3.1 million in 2008 and $1.1 million in 2009.
Berchem recommended moving the dispatch center to the county’s Public Agency Center on E. Washington St. in an attempt to eliminate the need for the proposed addition.
“It just seems the more money we generate with the sales tax, the more we’re hell bent to spend that money,” Berchem said.
Other supervisors rejected the proposal, saying the Public Agency Center already was crowded.
The approved Sheriff’s Department remodeling project calls for moving detectives to the addition. Space vacated by detectives would be used to more than triple the size of the dispatch center.
Construction is to be completed in one year.
General construction contractor is Joseph Schmitt & Sons Construction Co. of Sheboygan. The board on Tuesday awarded Schmitt & Sons a $1,139,000 contract.
On Tuesday, the board also adopted a countywide comprehensive land use plan to guide growth through the year 2035. The vote of 19- 10 followed a debate on the merits of acting on the county’s state- mandated smart growth plan 20 months in advance of a Dec. 31, 2009 deadline.
Deb Sielski, county assistant administrator for planning, urged the board to adopt the plan this month to provide sufficient time for the county to revise its ordinances to be consistent with the document.
Sielski described the county’s comprehensive plan as “a living document” to be amended, if necessary, whenever municipalities complete new land use plans.
There is no need to delay county action while waiting for local governments to adopt their own plans, she said.
The county plan also can be amended when the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission finishes work on a water supply study or revises its natural areas protection strategy, Sielski said.
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