Kewaunee Board amends budget to address jail roof issue

KEWAUNEE COUNTY – During its Nov. 4 meeting, the Kewaunee County Board of Supervisors approved the proposed 2025 budget and 2024 tax levy, with one amendment.

The amendment was approved 17-1 and will take $225,000 from the county’s General Fund and place it in the Jail Outlay Account.

That funding would address an urgent need at the county jail.

“We’ve all been aware that that roof has been an ongoing issue probably long before even I was sheriff,” Kewaunee County Sheriff Matt Joski explained.“We’ve been kind of kicking that can down the road.

“We were aware of some places where we experienced both the staining on the ceiling tiles from moisture coming through as well as having to put buckets on the floor.

“We had an unfortunate alignment of events where we had a good-sized rainfall along with a state jail inspection all in the same day, so there was in fact some water that was identified in J Block.

“And upon seeing this, the inspector immediately said, ‘That block is no longer habitable, so we have a two-cell cellblock that is now basically shut down until we remedy it.

“We are very fortunate that that didn’t rear its ugly head in Huber or even in the main hallways, which may have resulted in a total shutdown of the facility.

“We are very grateful that the water came through where it came through and it was a very minimal impact to our operations.

“That being said, it is an impact to our operations, so we do have to look at it.”
The sheriff said that the matter was turned over to Facilties to pursue a bid.
He said that a partial tearoff would cost around $80,000 and a total tearoff would cost $206,000, and that both roofs would be a “flat roof solution” and not a pitched roof.

Joski said that a partial tearoff would “go in and identify those areas that need addressing and then address those issues” and complete tearoff would be “side-to-side, front-to-back removal and replacement of the roof.”

“At this point, we probably (should) move forward with some RFPs to see what are some other options or other bids for similar services.

“But that is really what we have to decide is are we at a place where we can just do the partial or are they going to say that we have to do the full.

“A lot of it goes back to our concerns over the length of it. Do we want to invest in a $206,000 solution if that is a 40-year (lifespan) or is that $80,000 solution a 10-year or a 20-year. We have to look at what our goals and aspirations are in regard to that building.”

Joski said that with a flat roof, it might be hard to pinpoint exactly where the water is coming from before the roof is exposed.
“

We know where it has come through. The leak could be 20 feet from where it actually came through. That’s the dynamics of a flat roof,” Joski said.
“And I am not a roofing person, but it would seem to me that you are going to have to do the full [$206,000] if you want to have any assurance that you actually are going to address the problem — that you are going to have a level of confidence that it is indeed corrected,” Kewaunee County Board Chair Daniel Olson added.

The board then approved the amended budget and levy, 16-2.

The 2025 budget includes a tax levy of $13,407,391.

The tax rate per $1,000 of property value will be $4.59 — a $0.46 decrease.

“The tax rate per $1,000 of equalized value would decrease by just over 9%. The decrease of approximately $0.46 per thousand is primarily driven by an increase in the County’s equalized value of nearly $302 million or 11.52%. The tax rate of $4.59 per thousand is a countywide average based on the County’s equalized value as determined by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue,” County Administrator Jeremy Kral said in the September budget proposal.