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Hospital project can give insight into Lafayette Co. manor projections
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Times photo: Brian Gray Lafayette County voters will decide in November if they want to allow county government to exceed the tax levy rate by $500,000 a year for the next three years to help cover costs for Lafayette Manor. The owner of a home valued at $150,000 would pay about $54 a year for the levy increase.

DARLINGTON — One item that will likely pop up during the community informational meetings planned in October for the Lafayette Manor project is “How much will cost?” as in, how much will be placed on the property tax levy for the years to come?

While that question is impossible to get accurately at this moment, as there is no information on how much funding will be covered by state or federal grants, or how much Lafayette County is estimating will be covered by fundraising, some rough numbers can be ascertained by looking at the county’s last big building project — Lafayette Hospital + Clinics Darlington project.

That project is to be completely covered by revenue of the hospital, however, it does give some insights into potential bonding rates, and how financing may be handled if the nursing home project moves forward.

The original estimate of the Lafayette Hospital project was $64 million, of which the county received $9 million in grants from the Federal Government. The US Department of Agriculture also provided the county with up to $46 million in loans through it Community Facilities Loan program, and guaranteed a $5 million loan through Compeer Bank.

The county started paying interest on the USDA loans, which were bonds, in July 2025, with payments on the principal starting in January 2026, paying twice a year — January and July.

The county also started paying interest on the Compeer loans in January 2024, with principal payments started in January 2026. Those are also paid in installments twice a year — January and July.

The Compeer Bank loans are straight-forward — two 30-year loans at $1 million and $4 million. This year, those two loan payments totaled $421,266.98.

The USDA bonds are a bit more complex — there are six total bond notes, four of them are for 40 years, while two others are for 20 years. All of the bonds are at 2.125 percent.

The four 40-year bonds cover a total of $28.766 million (the county did not borrow another $2.1 million that was eligible). These loans had payments of $1,136,390.47 in 2026.

For the two 20-year bonds, a total of $15 million was borrowed. Payments this year totaled $943,625.44.

In total, the $48,765107.12 in Compeer and USDA loans and bonds led to payments of 2,501,282.89 in 2026.

By comparison, the total county portion of the tax levy for this year is $10,444,988, none of which went to pay the hospital loans/bonds.

In July, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue released their updated changes in equalized value, projecting Lafayette County property would rise two percent in value, to $2.156 billion.