With his withdrawal from the race for Wisconsin governor, it will be good to have Josh Schoemann back full time at his job as Washington County executive. There is plenty of work to do here, not the least of which is shaping the fate of the former campus of the University of Wisconsin-Washington County.
There are lots of irons still in that fire, and there are many non-transparent elements in the makeup of the sale of the campus to the Ozaukee Christian School (OCS), newly renamed FaithRidge Christian School. The citizens/taxpayers of the county have a right to know what’s what.
Here are some of the open questions and issues surrounding the sale of the 80-acre campus:
- Did you know that the county has cut a deal with the City of West Bend to take over full ownership of the campus? The city’s ownership position has been 26%. What was the deal?
- Will the Washington County Charitable Foundation (WCCF) follow through on initiating a lawsuit to recover a $1.2 million donation from the Collins family in the 1960s to build a science wing of the former UW building? The gift was for public education only. The county owed the Foundation an answer to its “Notice of Injury and Claim” by last week. Did that response happen?
- Is the sale of 60-acres of vacant Kettle Moraine land to the Cedar Lakes Conservation Foundation (CLCF) still part of the deal?
- The county reportedly has accepted a bid from Steiner Electric for $1.7 million to upgrade the failing electrical systems in the building. Has reconstruction started?
- The county attorney said in a public meeting that a $2 million transition grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC ) for new uses had been put on hold. Is that freeze still in place?
County officials; foundation leaders; the foundation’s law firm, Husch Blackwell, all have declined to comment on whether the suit will be launched.
Why is there is a wall of silence around this deal? This is a highly public matter that involves millions of public dollars. Taxpayers have a right to know what’s been cooked up.
Let’s look at some of the dollar numbers that have been in play in the sale of the campus to the tiny evangelical Christian school. It lists its student body at 120 grade school students and has ambitions to start a high school.
That solution, which was engineered by Schoemann, an evangelical Christian, is a far cry from previous multiple public uses of the campus and from the “social capital” that he envisioned when he created a task force on the future of the campus in early 2025.
His task force recommended the creation of a Smart Start Academy to give high school students a head start on earning college credits and a city recreational center on the north end of the building that includes the gymnasium, fitness center, cafeteria and theater.
It’s doubtful that FaithRidge Christian School will be opening the campus to public uses beyond its small operation.
When will the county, city, WEDC and foundation come clean with their intentions and decision? Who knows?
Presumably, with Schoeman back at the helm fulltime, some answers will emerge. He dropped out of the governor’s race last week six months before the Republican primary after he failed to gain endorsement from President Donald Trump. Coming from a medium-size county, he was always a long shot. His only opponent on the Republican side was Rep. Tom Tiffany from the northern part of the state. Both Tiffany and Schoemann pledged allegiance to Trump, but Tiffany raised a lot more campaign money and got the Trump blessing.
Schoemann was very gracious to Tiffany on the way out the door. Known to be an ambitious politician, Schoemann, 44, is a strong possibility for running on the Republican ticket for lieutenant governor.
From Hazelhurst, Tiffany is only well known in the northern part of the state, while Schoemann has some name recognition in the reddest part of the state, the WOW counties, Washington, Ozaukee and Waukesha.
Schoemann, of course, doesn’t want a black mark for how he is mishandling the sale of the UW campus. He went around his own task force to come up with a minimalist solution.
The dollar numbers don’t work either. Let’s take a back-of-napkin look at what we know about those numbers:
Appraisals are notoriously off-the-mark, but the county’s contracted appraiser came up with a $5 million value for the whole campus. Schoemann cut a $3 million deal with OCS, but it’s unclear what was included in that number. The electrical project had been reported at $1.7 million, so that would be a deduction from the cash going to the county if the WEDC grant doesn’t come through.
Another deduction from the county’s share would be how much the county agreed to pay the city for its 26% share.
Further, if the foundation prevails in a lawsuit and recovers all or part of the $1.2 million Collins donation, there won’t be much left for the county. The 60-acre sale to CLCF will give the county a little cash.
All-in-all, it’s a very murky picture that needs to be made transparent to city and county taxpayers.
The only winners in this opaque deal are OCS and the CLCF’s acquisition of 60 acres so people can enjoy its land for outdoor activities.
It is now well-established that these private choice schools can be money machines. They get between $6,000 and $10,000 for tuition per student and another $10,000 to $12, 000 in voucher money from the state. The IRS reports show many with hefty profits. Always follow the money.
No wonder they are popping up all over the state, including another one pending in Saukville and a major new choice school on the old Cardinal Stritch property. OCS will have plenty of competition.
