DARLINGTON — One would have to be oblivious to see rising costs hitting everywhere, including in the costs of fuel.
Diesel and gas prices are up, as is unprocessed oil.
Lafayette County Board Chair sees the rising costs of anything petroleum-based, and is concerned of the overall costs of the plans to replace Lafayette Manor.
“This is not a great economy to move this forward,” Sauer shared at the Lafayette Manor Committee meeting Tuesday morning, after talking about the potential increases of costs of anything plastic in a new nursing home facility.
County board member Scott Pedley agreed, noting other conditions, like reassessments of communities, which push property values up, although have little impact on property taxes due to revenue limits enforced by the state.
“There are a lot of volatilities,” Pedley remarked.
During the monthly meeting of the Manor Committee, the group talked about setting public meetings getting out information about the project, hiring a firm to show where they could gain funding through low interest loans or grants, while also debating where the best place would be to locate the new facility.
“The best thing is for us to be pretty open,” Pedley said of the project during the talk about community presentations.
By the end of the night — at the County Board of Supervisors meeting — it was decided, if the manor referendum passes, it will be built at the former hospital site.
While it seemed that discussion at last month’s public forum on the manor proposal was to build at a new site, growing costs have some wanting to rethink the former Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County site.
County Board Supervisor Jed Gant noted that the constituents he has been speaking with have wanted the county board to rethink the old hospital site. Gant relayed the message — the county already owns the property, there are utilities already running to the site, and the neighborhood it’s in is already used to it as a medical facility.
“We are on the hook to clean it up,” Gant stated Tuesday morning at the manor committee meeting, noting that the county has already looked to raze the facility after exhausting options of it.
The cost of clearing the site is estimated to be at least $1 million.
“That is the site we have and we have to clean it up,” Gant repeated.
Sauer quipped it may take even more than $1-1.5 million to clear the old hospital.
Gant continued, noting that one aspect of a new location was more space — two acres at the former MHLC site versus buying an estimated 11-14 acres at a new location — so that the facility could be built on one level, as opposed to two levels, which would be more taxing on staff.
Given the estimated cost increases, Gant thought they may need to consider the tradeoff.
“We need to see if we can make a two-story work,” Gant said.
The costs of a new site continue to seem to grow.
Sauer contacted former Darlington Mayor Mike McDermott about the utility connections for both the White and Gile sites for a new manor, urged on by what Pedley stated at the August meeting of the board, that utility lines running to the southern properties would add millions to the cost of the project.
At the county board meeting Tuesday evening, McDermott presented his findings.“It is how long you have to run it,” McDermott told the board, going over the linear-foot cost of running water and sewer to either the White or Gile site, as well as the Wiegel property near Southwest Health Center’s clinic.
Sewer was going to be a big issue for the Gile and White sites due to the elevations of the properties, which would require lift stations in order to pump waste up the hill so it could then be sent to the municipal sewer plant.
McDermott told the board that the lift station alone would add anywhere from $200,000 to $1 million to the cost of developing the properties, and the overall costs for utility lines would likely be $3 million for either site.
The Wiegel property had high enough elevation that it didn’t need a lift station, and could connect to the lines for the clinic.
That property had previously been ruled out due to costs of the acquisition.
Sauer had hoped that the county could pivot to the Gile site, which is adjacent to the Lafayette Hospital and Clinic site, since the utility lines are already running to the new hospital, but McDermott informed them the topography issues would be the same, and just like the White property, a lift station would be needed.
McDermott also remarked that the county would likely deal with bedrock issues like they did with the hospital project, which pushed the price-tag up approximately $500,000.
“The information Mike has given us has been very valuable,” Pedley remarked at the county board meeting.
Sauer remarked to the full board that he had heard similar remarks from constituents as Gant had stated at the morning meeting.
“If you put it on the old hospital site, I’ll vote for it,” Sauer stated he had heard from people, adding that the costs of razing the old hospital are something the county will have to do whether they build the nursing home there or not.
“We got to get rid of the building anyway,” Sauer remarked, joking that no one is beating their door down to buy the old hospital from them.
“No one has approached me,” Lafayette Economic Development Director Allison Taylor responded when asked by Sauer if there had been any interest in the facility.
Later in the discussion, Taylor remarked that with many people unhappy with the former hospital slated to be torn down, that they should come up with ways to recognize people that had contributed to the facility, and figure out ways people can have a piece of the place as it is being disassembled.
Gant noted that they want to move forward with a future protecting Lafayette Manor, for the value it brings in caring for seniors, and the 110 people it employed in the county.
He noted the costs of going to a new site may be too much to keep the nursing home viable.
Larry Ludlum, chair of the manor committee, remarked that the county needed to present the public with the most palatable option for the referendum.
With a consensus falling over the group, the county board voted 12-0 in favor of selecting the former MHLC site as the location of a new Lafayette Manor, if the referendum passes in November.
Four members of the board were not at the meeting — Bob Boyle, Luke McGuire, Joe Schutte, and Gary Benson.
This move would clear the different buildings from the MHLC campus, including the clinic building, which is to be utilized by the free clinic.
Supervisor Emmett Reilly wanted to have at the next meeting plans to move forward with razing the site.
Also during the county board meeting, it was decided to host informational meetings about the manor question five times in October, utilizing each Thursday of the month.
These meetings will be held throughout the county, with the county supervisors giving input on which Thursday would be best for their communities.
At the start of the county board meeting, Sauer read to the group two letters he had received related to the manor discussion by residents.
One of the letters was from Jason Davis, who addressed one item he hoped could be included in any manor project.
“The community needs to address the aging population,” Sauer read to the audience.
Davis stated he thought reusing portions of the former Memorial Hospital would make good fiscal sense, but what he wanted to tell the board was a story about his own family, and the needs they found they had when dealing with the failing health of his 95-year-old father.
In June 2025, with a major health issue, Davis’ father had been transferred to a facility in Fond du Lac, and then was looking to come back home.
Finding a space to care for his father’s needs was tough, but they found that in Monroe was a hospice care with eight beds for those who needed support.
“This type of care is desperately needed,” Sauer relayed from Davis’ letter. “It is truly beyond words” what that facility gave to his family.
Noting the sentiment, Sauer said that when planning the new nursing home, they would look at hospice beds, seeing if a couple could be planned initially in the facility.
The discussion of that feature came on the heels of the discussion at the committee meeting earlier in the day where the staff went over the parameters they use to evaluate those admitted to the current manor.
Good news on manor revenues
Voters will be seeing two questions on the November ballot about the manor — one for the creation of a new manor for roughly $45 million, and one for adding a levy to the county for $500,000 annually for the next five years.
On the second item, the county board may not have to focus on that funding, given the updated numbers they received Tuesday.
For the first six months of 2026, Lafayette Manor saw its revenues rise to $3.919 million, above $621,545, which if it holds would be an increase of $283,826 from 2025.
While expenses are up as well — projections show an increase of $455,199 from the 2026 budget, but that is still $275,084 less than what the 2025 actual costs were — if the trends continue, the nursing home will run a surplus of $773,100.
The members of the manor committee were flabbergasted at the news.
“Not in my wildest dreams would I think we would see such a turnaround,” Sauer said, noting that the manor was taking money from the levy a few years ago.
“It’s unreal,” Manor Committee Chair Larry Ludlum remarked.
In other business, the manor committee continued to discuss different ways to attract and retain staff. Even with multiple positions open, the manor had not received one applicant for any of those positions.
Staff are studying different items used by governments and businesses to attract and retain employees, including incentives and bonuses, as well as tuition reimbursements for potential hires.
Pedley said he wanted to look at the information that was provided at the meeting, and move forward on something at the next meeting.
Costs of project
Another item the manor committee discussed and approved was working with Wiplfi to come up with cost
impact and potential funding sources for the manor building project.
It was stated that the county’s finance department did not feel comfortable coming up with numbers for the project, and the county had a contract offer from Wipfli for up to $50,000 for the project funding options.
Due to tight programs on the federal level, a manor project may not have as many possibilities as the Lafayette Hospital project did.
In 2021, the county had applied for funding through the USDA Community Facilities program for both the hospital project, as well as replacing the nursing home.
The county was very successful with the hospital project.
The project, which was $64 million, included a $46 million loan from USDA, as well as $9 million in grants,
$1 million of which was from the American Rescue Plan’s Emergency Rural Health Care Grant program. The county also received a $5 million loan from Compeer Bank guaranteed by USDA, leading to $61 million in support with grants and loans.
The Community Facilities Loan Program alone could allow the county to spread the costs of the project out, however it will not be until 2027 that the county could apply and qualify.
According to the USDA, their funding for this fiscal year is wrapping up.
“We don’t know what kind of funding we’ll get next fiscal year and it’ll likely be months before we find out,” a person from USDA shared.
Because of the median income of Darlington and Lafayette County, this project would fall under the ‘intermediate’ priority, according to the response the Republican Journal received, which would put the loan program at 4.625 percent.
However, one of the flexible items of the USDA program is the length of such a loan, as they can be set for as long as 40 years, or whatever the lifespan of the facility would be (whichever is shorter).
Currently, municipal bond rates are at 4.85 percent for an A rated government taking out a 20-year bond. At $45 million, that would put the annual cost of the bond at $3.55 million over the next 20 years.
With a USDA loan, the current intermediate rate is 4.625 percent. If Lafayette County went with a 20-year loan, it would be under $3.5 million annually.
However, if the county went out with a 40-year loan, it would be under $2.5 million annually for payments.
One of the reasons the county board moved forward with the referendum this fall was to have the project voted on by the residents, which then could be taken by federal officials to lobby for funds in the next federal budget, which will be worked on in spring 2027.