(Juneau) The Dodge County Board approved a space needs study at a recent meeting. The purpose of the study is to see if there is enough space at the county’s other Juneau buildings to house staff from the Henry Dodge building.
The Dodge County Human Services and Health Department is currently housed at Henry Dodge. Supervisor Jody Steger, who sits on the Building Committee, says the structure is old and costs too much to upkeep.
“Henry Dodge building [was] built in 1969 and since 2012 we’ve put $7.7-million-dollars into that building,” says Steger. “This year alone, we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix two of the elevators in there and to abandon the other existing elevators that were in there.”
Steger notes that if a space study is not done soon, the county will have to pay another $12-million-dollars to install HVAC at Henry Dodge. There were discussions about including the Mayville Highway Shop as part of the study, which Steger was against.
“The intent of this space study is to get everything under a few roofs in one location,” says Steger. “I don’t have a problem utilizing that space over at the Mayville Highway Department but when people come here for service and the service isn’t here and you have to tell that person, ‘oh, well, you have to go over to Mayville…the person is over there to get the information that you need.’ I don’t feel that’s right.”
Supervisor David Guckenberger says services would not be impacted if employees were to work out of Mayville.
“It’s my understanding that a fair amount of the employees of the county now work at their homes and somehow or another they’re still able to provide services to the county employees,” says Guckenberger. “It wouldn’t take me long to figure a few departments that reside here in this administration building that could equally work just as well at the Mayville offices.”
An amendment to add the Mayville Highway Shop to the study failed. The board ultimately signed off on paying $52,800 to Angus-Young to look into available space at the Administration Building in Juneau, the legal services building, the county courthouse, law enforcement Center and Detention Facility, as well as Clearview. ARPA dollars will be used to fund the study.
