Health Care Center plans reversed

By Tim Damos / News Republic

After years of discussion and debate, the Sauk County Board voted Tuesday night to award a contract of $12.56 million to build a new county-run nursing home in Reedsburg.

The board threw out the bid of a Madison firm to construct the nursing home, making a local firm the only one in the running for the contract.

The move followed a letter that attorneys from Kraemer Brothers, LLC, of Plain, wrote to Sauk County legal counsel arguing the county couldn't legally accept a Madison firm's bid because a portion of it was submitted late.

Sauk County's Assistant Corporation Counsel David Lasker told County Board members they had the right to accept the late bid from McGann Construction of Madison, despite the arguments made by Kraemer Brothers' attorneys.

"I think it's my responsibility to tell you an equally good argument can be made as to why the irregularity should be waived," Lasker said. "And then the McGann bid would be the lowest."

A committee last week approved allowing the late bid and awarding the Madison firm the contract to build the 82-bed nursing home to replace the aging Sauk County Health Care Center.

But during a joint committee meeting before the County Board meeting Tuesday night, Virgil Hartje of La Valle decided he wanted to change his vote, and called for a reconsideration of allowing the late bid.

"I realized I made a mistake," Hartje said Tuesday night.

Hartje's vote effectively reversed the Health Care Center Building Committee's recommendation from last week.

During the full board meeting that followed, supervisors voted unanimously — with one absent — to accept the committee's new recommendation to throw out the McGann bid.

"A bid is a bid," said supervisor Robert Sinklair of Prairie du Sac, who admitted he is a former employee of Kraemer Brothers. "If it's late, it's late."

Kraemer Brothers President Tom Kraemer told board members they had an ethical duty to throw out the late bid and warned they were "opening up a can of worms" if they didn't.

"The county certainly does have some discretion in how it handles the bid process," Kraemer said. "But waiving the deadline and accepting a bid late ... is really crossing the line."

He said the extra time the Madison firm took to submit a portion of their bid gave them an unfair advantage.

But the County Board's decision to throw out the Madison firm's bid may not have mattered in the end. The board voted 17-13 to build with the more modern insulated concrete, rather than the less expensive wood walling the building committee recommended. That made Kraemer Brothers the lowest bidder — even if McGann was considered.

The county's architect, Jeri Zuber of Horty Elving, said the potential energy savings offered by paying an extra $262,000 for insulated concrete might not be as significant as industry officials made them sound.

Zuber said more energy would be lost through poor windows. And a state code that determines how much air must be circulated through a facility would make projected energy savings from insulated concrete minimal, he said.

But Peter Marggraf of Cellox, LLC., the Reedsburg firm that manufactures the product, said contractors could find alternate air circulation methods to help save more energy.

Zuber said insulated concrete offers other benefits, such as increased resistance to wind in case of a tornado. The building committee previously chose to build the facility without a basement to bring the project in line with the county's budget after bids earlier this summer came in too high.