June 5, 2026
By Tim Hundt
Vernon County’s General Government Committee spent much of its June 3 meeting hearing sobering findings from Schneider Electric’s early work on an investment‑grade energy audit, with consultants warning that key heating and cooling equipment at county facilities is past its expected life and could fail if not addressed in the next few years.
Schneider’s representative and the county’s new buildings and grounds director urged supervisors to prioritize boiler and chiller replacements at the sheriff’s office and courthouse and to begin a phased plan that could ultimately total between $5 million and $10 million in building upgrades countywide.
The committee stopped short of committing to a specific package of projects but agreed to work with Schneider and the finance department on a priority list and to hold a joint meeting with the Finance Committee later this month to review preliminary cost estimates.
Origins of the energy audit
County officials have been talking informally about the condition of Vernon County’s heating and cooling systems for months, as maintenance staff confronted failing controls, aging boilers and long waits for parts. Buildings and Grounds Director Ryan Marx, who took over the department about six weeks before the June 3 meeting, told supervisors he walked into a situation where basic equipment was already at or near a breaking point.
“In my book, we kind of are in an emergency bubble in a way,” Marx said. “I only have one boiler here and I got two boilers there and I need a boiler and a half to actually operate, so if I lose another one when the chillers got problems over there and here, I’d say I don’t know where to take it to next.”
Those day‑to‑day struggles with failing boards, unresponsive valves and outdated controls at the courthouse and sheriff’s office pushed county leaders to look for a more systematic approach instead of waiting for the next breakdown.
“Last couple weeks, I’ve had to work on about three or four times in order to get things to communicate, to get the heating and cooling to actually operate in the rooms,” Marx said. “They’ll either get stuck wide open without burning a bunch of energy. The chiller is running harder or the boiler is running harder, so I’ve had to work to get them to start talking to each other again.”
Supervisors also heard repeatedly that major mechanical components are now custom‑sized and subject to long supply chain delays, which means the county cannot count on quick emergency replacements if something fails.
“One example you gave was a job where they waited six months for a plain chiller,” Supervisor Bruce Kilmer said. “So if you wait for it to fail, you are waiting and you are behind the game.”
Kilmer said that kind of risk underscored why the county had moved away from piecemeal fixes and toward a broader audit and long‑term plan.
“We really cannot make our best decisions if we are in an emergency mode,” Kilmer said. “If we are sitting there and the chiller is down or the boiler is down, we are kind of like on our heels and we are going to spend $30,000 to get that fixed, and then we are throwing good money after a bad piece of equipment.”
How Schneider Electric entered the picture
Those concerns led the County Board earlier this spring to select Schneider Electric to conduct what Trepton called an “investment‑grade audit” of county facilities. Trepton told the General Government Committee that Schneider was formally chosen in April and that his engineers began detailed work with a mechanical and building‑automation walkthrough on May 19 after earlier preliminary visits in January and February.
“We were selected by the County Board of Supervisors back in April to perform this investment grade audit,” Trepton said. “We’ve walked through the facility with our engineers. We’ve looked at the mechanical systems from a high‑level perspective. We’ve looked at your building automation systems from a high‑level perspective while we’re still in this assessing needs stage of the partnership.”
Key decision points to date
Trepton and Marx both framed the June 3 meeting as one in a series of decisions that began with acknowledging the scale of the problem and choosing a long‑term partner.
First, supervisors agreed this spring to bring in an outside firm rather than continue building‑by‑building fixes. That choice set up Schneider’s April selection and the May 19 engineering walkthrough.
Second, the committee on June 3 informally endorsed a strategy built on two principles. The first is that boilers and chillers at the sheriff’s office and courthouse are “critical infrastructure” that must be addressed early. The second is that any first phase should also include projects that immediately reduce utility bills.
Schneider outlines aging systems and price range
Schneider Electric project developer Conner Trepton told supervisors his team was selected by the County Board in April to perform an “investment‑grade audit” and conducted its initial mechanical and controls walkthrough on May 19. The early conclusion, he said, is that many of the county’s core systems are at or beyond their normal life expectancy.
Trepton said the county could easily identify $5 million to $10 million worth of eligible work if it tried to tackle all of the issues at once.
“That’s the reality of what we are seeing,” Trepton told the committee. “To perform all of the upgrades that I kind of just rifled through very quickly at all these facilities, the county would be looking at spending somewhere likely between $5 million and $10 million to develop that work.”
He emphasized that Schneider is not recommending the county attempt a single massive project. Instead, he said the firm needs clear direction on which issues to design first so engineering costs are not wasted on work the county is not ready to fund.
“What we don’t want to do is spend our time designing solutions for $10 million worth of scope if that’s not what the county wants us to do and if that’s not what’s in your budget,” Trepton said. “Ultimately, we’re not telling you to do any of these things. We’re here to help provide some guidance and bring you a project that you find is worthwhile.”
Sheriff’s office labeled ‘critical infrastructure’
Trepton and Buildings and Grounds Director Ryan Marx both pointed to the Vernon County Sheriff’s Office and jail complex, built around 2004, as a top concern because of aging boilers and rooftop chillers that serve inmates and staff.
The sheriff’s building uses three natural gas Fulton boilers, one of which is currently down. The remaining units are more than 20 years old, beyond typical life expectancy, and older non‑condensing models that operate less efficiently than newer equipment.
Trepton said earlier conversations had suggested the boilers were dramatically oversized, but Schneider’s engineers now believe the building effectively needs the capacity of a little more than one boiler, which means two operating units are required with the third serving as redundancy.
“With one of them being down, that would be kind of like a critical infrastructure piece that you have down right now,” Trepton said. “If you were to lose one more, you wouldn’t have the capacity that would be required to heat that building.”
On the roof, two air‑cooled chillers installed at the same time as the jail are also past a typical 20‑year service life. Trepton said Schneider would look at a planned replacement of those units rather than waiting for failure.
“For frame of reference, the things that we’re talking about simply at sheriffs up in the mezzanine there, to replace the boilers and those air‑cooled chillers, you’re looking in the ballpark of $2 million just at that facility,” Trepton said.
Marx, who took over the buildings and grounds department about six weeks ago, backed up that assessment and warned that the county is already in a fragile position.
“In my book, we kind of are in an emergency bubble in a way,” Marx said. “I only have one boiler here and I got two boilers there and I need a boiler and a half to actually operate, so if I lose another one when the chillers got problems over there and here, I’d say I don’t know where to take it to next.”
Courthouse boilers and obsolete controls
The courthouse and annex complex, with original sections dating to the 1880s and later additions, also drew concern. Trepton said two condensing boilers provide hot water heat and one is currently non‑operational.
“We would propose to either replace the one that has failed or both with more efficient systems,” Trepton said. “We would also, as with any of these facilities, do an outside air analysis to determine whether or not more outside air would need to be supplied to the facility.”
The courthouse uses an older Trane building automation system that Schneider described as antiquated and difficult to service. Not all of the building’s equipment is even connected to the system.
Trepton said Schneider would likely recommend a full replacement of the Trane controls and a move toward a single countywide automation platform that eventually links all major county buildings.
“From what I’ve been told by the engineering team, the system that’s in the facility is antiquated to the point where it’s difficult to get parts when things break,” Trepton said. “We would propose moving to one kind of uniform solution throughout your facilities to make it a lot easier on your maintenance staff.”
Marx said he is already fighting with the existing controls to keep offices comfortable and to avoid wasting energy.
“Last couple weeks, I’ve had to work on about three or four times in order to get things to communicate, to get the heating and cooling to actually operate in the rooms,” Marx said. “They’ll either get stuck wide open without burning a bunch of energy. The chiller is running harder or the boiler is running harder, so I’ve had to work to get them to start talking to each other again.”
He said similar communication problems exist at the sheriff’s office, driving up costs and staff time.
“It’s kind of the same problem I have at the sheriff’s department. Some things aren’t quite right in there and things aren’t talking together,” Marx said. “Controls can save us money in the end because we can address the efficiencies.”
Erlandson and Banta buildings pose tougher choices
Schneider’s walkthrough also included the Erlandson building and the Banta building, both of which rely heavily on residential‑style furnaces and have no central building automation systems.
At Erlandson, Trepton said most of the ducted furnaces do not bring in outside air, and there is no other major mechanical source of fresh air. Under current codes, adding or replacing those systems would likely require bringing in significant amounts of outside air, which would raise utility costs even as it improves indoor air quality.
“Erlandson is currently conditioned using residential style ducted furnaces,” Trepton said. “The vast majority of these do not supply any outside air to the building, and there’s really no other major mechanical sources of outside air. If we were to touch any of that, we’d have to bring the facility up to code, and that would actually result in you spending more on your utilities.”
He suggested the county would have to weigh whether the code and comfort benefits at Erlandson are worth a likely increase in operating costs.
At Banta, Trepton said the building is also served by residential furnaces and some mini‑splits in the IT area. A full conversion to a boiler and air‑handler system would probably be more expensive than the county would want to take on in such a small facility.
“My guess is that that would be more expensive than would be worth the county’s dollar there to do like a full rip‑out and replace of essentially the mechanical systems there,” Trepton said. “The solution there would be to look into integrating some sort of building automation system.”
For both Erlandon and Banta, Schneider said even relatively simple controls packages that schedule temperature setbacks and reduce runtimes when spaces are unoccupied could improve comfort and save energy, since both buildings largely operate as if they are in use 24 hours a day.
Marx said any decisions on whether to invest heavily in Erlandson also raise a broader policy question about whether the county should keep putting money into a building that may be nearing the end of its useful life.
“You get to a tipping point,” Marx said. “We could end up spending a million dollars just to fix it, and maybe we should be talking about whether we build something new instead.”
Supervisors weigh risk of failure versus planning ahead
Committee members repeatedly returned to the risk of waiting for equipment to fail before replacing it, especially with long lead times for specialized mechanical components since the COVID‑19 pandemic.
Supervisor Bruce Kilmer said he was struck by comments about custom‑sized equipment and shipping delays.
“Some of that equipment you just do not call up and they go back in the warehouse and bring it,” Kilmer said. “One example you gave was a job where they waited six months for a plain chiller. So if you wait for it to fail, you are waiting and you are behind the game.”
Kilmer said the county cannot make its best financial decisions in crisis mode.
“We really cannot make our best decisions if we are in an emergency mode,” Kilmer said. “If we are sitting there and the chiller is down or the boiler is down, we are kind of like on our heels and we are going to spend $30,000 to get that fixed, and then we are throwing good money after a bad piece of equipment.”
Committee Chair Dave Eggen agreed that the sheriff’s office and courthouse systems have to be near the top of any priority list.
“If we pick and choose, boilers and chillers would be on the top of the list,” Eggen said. “Things like the jail cannot wait. We have inmates out there and staff here in the courthouse. We cannot have buildings we cannot heat or cool.”
Finance Director sees multi‑year capital plan
County Finance Director Anne Lockyer said she expects any Schneider project to be broken into multiple phases over several years and folded into the county’s formal capital improvement plan.
“I think the phasing is going to be helpful,” Lockyer said. “Maybe we can afford all of this over 10 years, and maybe we can. We need to talk about what is most important, what is viable to fail most quickly, so that we can get ahead of it.”
She said staff and Schneider can work together on a list of “Phase One” projects for the next couple of years, followed by additional phases that build toward eventually addressing all identified needs.
“We can think about it as a phase one of these projects and then many years out of phases,” Lockyer said. “That way we can kind of conceptualize eventually everything getting done, and I can think about, okay, I need $1 million this year, $2 million this year, $1 million, $3 million, and we can get to those numbers if we include these in our capital improvement plan.”
Lockyer said she hopes to have a draft capital plan ready for finance committee review later this summer, which means Schneider will need to provide reasonably firm, plus‑or‑minus‑20‑percent cost estimates by early fall so projects can be slotted into the 2025 budget.
“I would say to this committee by October,” Lockyer said. “The General Government Committee in early October would be the home committee for all of the Schneider stuff, then we can approve it in November when the board adopts the budget.”
Energy savings and ‘dark sky’ lighting also in play
Supervisors also discussed how energy savings might help offset some of the cost of upgrades.
Supervisor Lorn Goede said he wants the first phase to include items that can immediately reduce utility bills.
“I think boilers and chillers and then also work into the first phase anything that is designed to actually save money,” Goede said. “If it is going to start saving us money right off the bat, why not start doing it right together.”
Supervisor Scott Champion, who is not a member of the committee but attended the meeting, asked whether Schneider’s work would include looking at exterior lighting on county buildings and possible participation in “dark sky” efforts to reduce light pollution and power use.
“My constituents are very active in what they call the dark sky initiative, and they believe there is opportunity for substantial energy savings that would offset the cost of switching to dark sky, down‑point lighting,” Champion said. “If that could be part of the building envelope study, other people in my district would appreciate that.”
Trepton said Schneider regularly does exterior lighting projects and could fold that analysis into its planned building envelope and water walkthroughs if the county identifies it as a priority.
“We do exterior lighting projects all the time,” Trepton said. “If it’s a priority for the county, it’s certainly something that we can look at.”
Where things stand now and what comes next
Coming out of the June 3 meeting, Trepton said Schneider will spend the next six to eight weeks refining rough cost ranges for a first round of work. He told supervisors that simply replacing the sheriff’s office boilers and rooftop chillers is likely a $2 million project by itself, even before adding courthouse boilers or new automation systems.
“For frame of reference, the things that we’re talking about simply at sheriffs up in the mezzanine there, to replace the boilers and those air‑cooled chillers, you’re looking in the ballpark of $2 million just at that facility,” Trepton said.
Schneider is expected to bring more detailed preliminary estimates to a joint General Government and Finance Committee meeting on June 16, focusing on a short list of “critical infrastructure” projects and some near‑term energy‑saving options.
The idea, Trepton said, is to replace one‑off emergency repairs with a plan that ties engineering work, costs and energy savings together across multiple buildings. He stressed that Schneider has not started full design work yet and wants direction from the county before investing time in solutions the county may not be prepared to fund.
“Where we would like to get to as quickly as is practicable is over to this conceptual engineering and design phase,” Trepton said. “What we don’t want to do is spend our time designing solutions for $10 million worth of scope if that’s not what the county wants us to do and if that’s not what’s in your budget.”
By early fall, Lockyer told the committee she wants plus‑or‑minus‑20‑percent pricing in hand so those projects can be slotted into the county’s 2025 capital and operating budgets.
“I would say to this committee by October,” Lockyer said. “The General Government Committee in early October would be the home committee for all of the Schneider stuff, then we can approve it in November when the board adopts the budget.”
Eggen said the long‑term price tag will be significant but argued that the alternative is more emergency spending and less control.
“Things are not cheap, and in the end, to actually do everything probably 100 percent, you are going to spend that $10 million,” Eggen said. “We need a game plan so we are not just reacting to the next boiler or chiller that quits on us.”
Taken together, those steps mean the Schneider audit has moved from an idea born out of repeated mechanical failures to a structured process that will likely shape the county’s building and energy decisions for the next decade. The immediate choice in front of supervisors is how aggressively to move on sheriff’s office and courthouse equipment and how quickly to add controls, lighting and other energy‑saving projects without overburdening taxpayers.
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