Kane Co. board facing another supplemental budget request

Kane County's judicial system came forward with a request for a $276,000 budget supplement Friday that may trigger a precedent to unleash hundreds of thousands of additional taxpayer dollars.

Court Administrator Doug Naughton told the Kane County Board's Judicial and Public Safety Committee he needs the cash infusion just to meet payroll for the rest of the year. That's part of the same explanation Kane County Circuit Court Clerk Deb Seyller repeatedly gave for her supplemental budget request for $555,000. Multiple rejections of that request sparked a lawsuit between Seyller and the county board earlier this week.

Naughton, like Seyller, told the committee his request shouldn't be a surprise.

"The issue on salaries is that line item that has been underfunded the last three or four fiscal years," Naughton said. A total of $113,000 out of the $276,000 request is for salaries. The rest of the request is to pay for psychiatric evaluations, court transcripts and foreign language interpreters.

The committee, showing some confusion over the request, then asked repeated questions about whether or not the 38 staff members who will be paid with the $113,000 are new employees or if the money was to pay for raises. The answer to both questions was "no."

There are 38 county employees in the judiciary staff. They have not had raises since the 2008 fiscal year. No raises are budgeted for the current year or fiscal year 2011.

"So there's no new people?" asked county board member Mark Davoust in disbelief. "We just underfunded the current number of people by this much?"

"That's correct," Naughton replied. "If you recall when we had our budget hearings last year, we told you what our bottom line was going to be. I told you last October I was going over budget with those numbers."

Committee members indicated they did not recall being told that in October 2009. That said, they voted to recommend the supplemental budget request specifically because it doesn't involve covering costs for new employees. The county board's Finance Committee will now review the request. Board members considering voting against the request will likely keep a close eye on the lawsuit with Seyller. As it stands, Seyller will also be unable to meet her payroll at some point before the end of the year. Sheriff Pat Perez may also keep tabs on the judiciary's supplemental budget request. Perez has pointed out several times that the county board has repeatedly failed to budget for the expense of housing prisoners outside the county when the new county jail is full despite it being a known cost every year.