The Pierce County Board voted 15-1 Feb. 27 to authorize the borrowing of funds not to exceed $30,475,000 and issuance of bonds for a new judicial facility adjacent to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office at 555 W. Overlook Drive in Ellsworth. The lone dissenter was Sheila Lorentz, District 16.

The board also voted 15-1 to authorize the use of funds for design costs for the proposed judicial facility.

Before the board voted, many citizens stepped to the mic to make their thoughts known. The consensus among some speakers was they wanted the board to vote no on the new facility, or at least table it. Others spoke in support of a project they say is long overdue.

Resident Dan Williamson said he believes remodeling the current courthouse would meet requirements.

“Now I don’t know about the farmers here, but I guess you guys got to share,” he said. “I understand that you guys must have got a huge raise in your belt prices or your cattle prices because somehow you’re able to afford this and on top of it, a lot of this county is middle or lower income folks. They are the hardest hit by inflation that we’ve seen in the last couple of years.”

Clerk of Court Kerry Feuerhelm spoke in favor of the proposed facility, which she said has been thoughtfully considered and studied many times in the past.

“One of my staff had a note placed on her door stating that we only had four jury trials last year so they couldn't understand why we need more courtrooms,” Feuerhelm said. “Well, it's true. We only had four jury trials in 2023. We currently have 45 scheduled for 2024. We never know when a trial is going to be continued or a case will resolve. It is also not only the number of trials, but the space required. During COVID we had to have two jury trials and we had to go to the Seyforth Building and use the fire hall. And if we have a high profile jury trial or the charges require a larger jury pool, we need to use two courtrooms to conduct the jury selection.

“We also have specific hearings where more space is needed. Civil cases can have multiple attorneys for multiple parties. Victims have the right to attend all hearings and statutorily all our hearings, except for confidential cases need to be open to the public.”

Feuerhelm said visiting judges also require their own courtrooms. If the facility is built, Pierce County may be able to obtain another judge to help with the burgeoning caseloads.

“Judge Rohl’s caseload is heavy and for parties to obtain a hearing date with her, it is normally two to three months out. Jury trials are currently being scheduled in late fall.”

Feuerhelm said Rohl has been confronted in the parking lot by a defendant upset by their sentencing. The new facility would prevent this since staff would have a secure parking area.

“When defendants are in jail we try to conduct hearings via video conferencing to minimize security and transportation concerns,” Feuerhelm said. “But the defendants have a right to be here in person for certain hearings. Transporting those individuals currently involves bringing them into a public elevator in the courthouse and leading them down public hallways.”

Barry Barringer, of Trenton township, said the county needs to go in a new direction. The county needs a “full-fledged county administrator with a degree in public administration” he said. He asked the board to consider tabling the issue for 12-18 months and holding a public referendum.

“Our school district which is involved in public education has to offer a referendum for any major construction project,” Barringer said. “I know a lot of people have a problem with that. I really don't. It makes everybody stand a little taller and get their resources together.”

Gordon Borner, of Ellsworth township, said he understands the need for secure courtrooms and judge’s chambers, but he’s worried about a heavy tax burden. He recommended keeping the current two courtrooms for small claims and low security risk trials and building a secure courtroom and judge’s chambers in the old jail in the annex.

When he spoke about the cost to taxpayers being $89 per $100,000 of property valuation, County Administrator Jason Matthys corrected him. The projected cost is $31 per $100,000 of valuation, which Borner found more palatable.

“But still it is a huge figure over the course of 20 years’ time,” Borner said. “And again, our tax burden is already heavy.”

District 14 resident Heather Hines said she’s upset her district doesn’t have a voice, thanks to the resignation of Melissa Petersen last fall. The position has not been filled, though it’s up for election in April.

Keith Christiansen, a resident of Trenton, presented a petition with about 200 signatures asking for the board to vote against the facility.

“This economy is unstable and our taxes are already high,” he said. “We are opposed to proceeding with this current plan … When you jump ahead of what your constituents want, you're doing them a disservice.”

UW-River Falls student Brady Penfield, a District 6 candidate speaking on the behalf of District 14 candidate Nick Maxwell and himself, asked the board to hold off on a decision until after the April election. He said he finds the project as unnecessary as the new Sci Tech Building on the UWRF campus.

“I view this as another, a very similar situation in my mind,” he said. “So I think building a courthouse is a very poor option. With other options that were presented earlier about remodeling this annex building, something along those lines that's you know, kind of maybe three $4 million, something on the lower end that is very reasonable.”

Dion Carpenter, of Oak Grove, said Sheriff Chad Koranda and Judge Elizabeth Rohl made a good case at the Jan. 23 meeting, but feels another option would be better, like paying off the current jail first.

“Do we want to follow as a county, the federal administration and operate at a deficit or keep putting ourselves in debt like the federal government likes to do? I don't think so,” he said.

Others spoke against the proposed facility, citing high taxes, rising food and fuel prices, inflation, and area school referenda, before the board began its discussion.

Supervisor Sheila Lorentz, District 16, said she has studied the issue for hours and talked to citizens all over the county and many of them didn’t know about the proposed facility, even though it’s been in the newspaper and on the county website. She also said the issue, in her opinion, hasn’t been studied as much as the new jail was studied before it was built.

Lorentz also accused Chair Jon Aubart and Supervisor Jim Ashbach, who were both on the Judicial Facility Ad Hoc Committee, of not answering her requests for information.

“I did not get answers to my questions. And that's concerning to me,” Lorentz said. “Why am I not getting answers to my questions? I wanted to know if other options were considered, just like was talked about in the years past when we talked about this. And I think that's a reasonable question. I think that's a responsible question to ask and yet I have been, honestly I've been bullied and ignored with my questions. And something about that is wrong. You know, we all signed oaths on this board to represent the community. And I've taken that very seriously.

“I just want to say that I have not heard anybody say that there are no security issues, we don't even want to look at this. You know, this is ridiculous. I've heard no one say that. I have heard very level-headed people saying we have concerns. We want to see more options about this. We're really heavily taxed right now. Can we utilize what we already have in some way? I mean, it's all been very reasonable and makes sense. What I'm hearing and what I don't understand is why we wouldn't want to do that.”

Lorentz also said she didn’t like that the Ad Hoc Committee contained only one county board member who was not already on the Finance & Personnel Committee. The Ad Hoc Committee included Ashbach, Aubart, Scott Bjork, Neil Gulbranson, Mike Kahlow, Rohl and retired Judge Joseph Boles.

“I cannot support this at this time, or all of these different reasons,” Lorentz said. “I would like to see the board table this as well. Or maybe that's not right, the right wording but not pass this at this time. I'd like to see a committee setup that would include members of the community, that would include stakeholders that could actually analyze the situation and come up with several options to be looked at.”

Supervisor Mel Pittman said he believes the ad hoc committees have done a good job finding solutions. He also toured the annex building and the courthouse. He spent about 45 minutes with the court security officer one Friday.

“I asked him what is his job (the officer)? What is his job when he's up there and he's on duty. And in a nutshell, he told me his job is to control the situation,” Pittman said. “And so when someone tells me that, that means that he's got a certain amount, quite a bit of leeway to deal with whatever he encounters or that person encounters up there. So one of my concerns is that I don't want to put someone like our security officer in a position where they have to use lethal force if we can prevent it from happening. Because what's happened over across the river over the last number of years to law enforcement officers is appalling in my mind, when they've tried to control the situation that they were encountering.”

He also spoke about the lack of security in the district attorney’s office.

“And when they told me that they're trapped in there, if something violent were to happen, they're trapped and the only way out is to try to break the glass out of the basement window and find a way to climb up out of there if they're able to is not a good situation,” he said.

Pittman pointed out there are multiple ways to access the courtrooms, which makes it tough for the one security officer to watch all entrances. He also said back in 2014, the estimated cost to remodel the 22,000 square-foot annex was $10-$12 million. That amount of space wouldn’t give the county enough room for the courtrooms and the office staff.

“So are we just buying a little bit of time spending a lot of money? My opinion, 10 to $12 million back in 2014 would probably be $20 million now or more. And when I compare that to what we're talking about in the new judicial facility, I think it's not good use of taxpayer dollars to do that and still be short sighted for five and 10 years down the road,” Pittman said. “The point being is if we think the workload is going to decrease and we're not going to need the space, I don't think we're thinking realistically.”

Supervisor Neil Gulbranson, a retired Pierce County chief deputy, said he would be voting yes.

“This is what the county planned when we built the jail in ‘17. It was built to add the courts onto it. It was designed that way,” he said. “The big reason for me, the building's security needs are alone enough to move this forward … the close mixing of court personnel, victims and their families and defendants and their friends and family is creating a crisis. It's bound to happen folks.”

Supervisor Angela Mathison said she’s had a pit in her stomach for about a month, considering she ran her campaign in April 2022 on fiscal responsibility.

“Very interesting how your eyes get open to the processes and all the jobs here and what everybody does and how much work goes into all that, ad hoc committees and the studies and just everyone here is really, really smart,” she said. “For my family, it's going to be about $10 to $12 a month extra and to me, for me, it is worth it for peace of mind for the people that work in this building, for our community, for the public that comes in to pay their taxes. Just everybody that works here.”

Aubart made clear the operating costs for the new facility will need to be absorbed into the county budget. Matthys agreed.

“So to Jon's point, there's going to have to be decisions made by this body if this moves forward of how are we going to adjust our operational costs to be able to accommodate for what these new costs are going to be. And it was the same type of situation that we had to overcome when we built the new jail and Sheriff's Office,” Matthys said.

Since the board approved the resolutions, Market & Johnson will commence with the schematic design, development, and construction documents. Once they get into construction documents, they will create bid packages that go out to the general public for bidding. The hope is the project will come in less than expected and the county will retain the extra money.

Sean Lentz of Ehlers said he estimated the $30 million bond issue with a 4.5% interest rate, but it will likely come in with a lower interest rate.

Department deficits

The board voted unanimously to authorize the transfer of funds from the general fund for 2023 department budget deficits for the maintenance, fair, Register of Deeds, and general county-worker’s compensation departments.

“It's important to note that there were a number of departments that closed 2023 with a slight surplus, ultimately more than offsetting the total amount of the deficit for 2023,” Matthys said.

The following departments experience deficits in 2023:

• Maintenance, by $97,005, primarily due to unexpected cost of utilities, professional services (repairs) and supplies
• Pierce County Fair, by $15,132, due to a shortfall in projected revenues (due to rain) and an unanticipated liability insurance deductible (from a Summer 2022 incident)
• Register of Deeds, by $52,704, primarily due to a shortfall in projected revenues. Higher interest rates have caused less home refinancing and purchasing, resulting in less real estate transfer fee revenues.
• Worker’s Compensation, by $119,969, due to claims not supported by individual departments

Lorentz expressed concern on where the money would come from. Matthys said one department closed out the year with more than a $300,000 surplus, while another had more than a $1 million surplus.

County officials’ salaries

The board unanimously approved salary adjustments for the elected positions of county clerk, treasurer and register of deeds for 2025-28. However, the amounts are higher than first proposed at the Jan. 23 board meeting.

“Since that time, there's been a major shift, I would call it across the landscape of the state and particularly in the Northwest region of the state of Wisconsin as it relates to making significant adjustments to the county clerk, treasurer and register of deeds positions for 2025 through 2028,” Matthys said.

The amounts proposed had been $69,712 annually beginning in 2025 and increasing by 1.5% percent each year through 2028. Since receiving updated salaries from surrounding counties, administration proposed beginning at $81,828 in 2025 and increasing by 1.5% per year to $85,566 in 2028. These amounts are averages of St. Croix, Dunn and Pepin counties’ salaries for the same positions. Matthys said this would allow Pierce County to remain competitive with its neighbors.

Pittman said he finds it understandable that Pierce County would fall mid-range between Pepin and St. Croix/Dunn counties. Lorentz said she didn’t understand the increase considering the register of deeds had a budget deficit in 2023.

Kahlow said the governor is having trouble filling the open register of deeds position currently. He proposed starting the salaries in 2025 at $77,088 and increasing them 1.5% each year after through 2028. He reasoned his amount is halfway between the original proposal and the new numbers provided by staff. The board agreed and passed the increase unanimously.

Matthys said he would notify the governor’s office of the salary change.

“What I will do tomorrow is I will contact the governor's office and I will let them know of the change in rates set by this body in hopes that that will help garner some positive attention for potential applicants,” Matthys said. “I know the application period has already been extended once and they perhaps may extend it yet again.”