Kane County seeking a 'stick' to enforce budget compliance

Kane County Board members are willing to go to court if that's what it takes to find out how they can keep elected department heads accountable for blowing their budgets.

The board's Executive Committee asked Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti to investigate the possibility of getting a judicial ruling on the county's ability to simply not pay the bills of departments that run over budget. The ruling could bring an end to a political tug-of-war over money between the county board and elected department heads. The county board sets the budgets for elected departments, such as the sheriff's office and the circuit court clerk. However, the elected department heads have full control over their offices, including the hiring and firing of most of the personnel. Salary costs are almost always the reason a department runs over budget.

"I think the (county board) committees are trying to tell the elected officials, 'No, you can't spend the money,' " board member Cathy Hurlbut said. "The problem is that those elected officials spend the money anyway, either in anticipation that they'll get some sort of additional funding in the future or that when it just comes down to it we'll break down and pay it anyway. We'll tell our officials not to do it, but there's no stick."

The reason there is no "stick," or enforcement mechanism is because the county is stuck between two conflicting laws, explained County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay. One law says the county can't legally spend money for something that has not been budgeted. But another law says the county must cover the costs of its payroll no matter what, McConnaughay said.

"That's the ultimate trick bag, and that's what you're caught in every year," McConnaughay said. "What happened last year? All the discussion that took place all year long about bringing budgets in line with the available revenue were for nothing."

Right now, that trick bag carries a price tag of about $1.8 million. That amount reflects the fact that the sheriff's office, the circuit court clerk, the judiciary and Barsanti's State's Attorney's Office are all trending over budget so far. About $1 million of that comes from the sheriff's office. And half of that is thanks to an arbitration ruling this week about money owed to jail employees. Another nearly $600,000 chunk comes from new hires brought onto the payroll by Circuit Court Clerk Deb Seyller without the county board's permission. Seyller has defended those hires as necessary to staff courtrooms to keep the judicial system flowing. The judicial system itself is trending over budget because the costs of hiring interpreters and securing psychiatric evaluations has exceeded expectations by about $200,000. Barsanti's budget is over by about $17,000 thanks mainly to costs of repairing copy machines and paying court reporters.

Barsanti told the county board he can provide some thoughts about getting a judicial ruling on the county board's enforcement options by Monday. Barsanti must also decide if he has a conflict of interest in representing the county in any such legal proceedings since his office is one of those that is over budget.