Kane County to slash sheriff budget, threatens deeper cuts
Kane County Sheriff Don Kramer was “put on notice” Wednesday morning as a county board committee moved to slash $225,000 from his budget. The measure comes in response to Kramer's decision to push U.S. Marshal detainees out of the county jail so officers could operate with a safer staffing ratio.
The $225,000 figure is based on losing at least two months of the money the marshals paid the county to house the inmates., finance director Joe Onzick said.
Yes, there are corresponding costs to house the federal inmates. But most of those costs, such as heat, electricity, maintenance and correctional office salaries will remain even without the federal inmates, he said. That's why the $225,000 may be just part of a much larger cut. Board members said they won't hesitate to slash up to $2.5 million out of Kramer's budget. That's how much income the contract was expected to bring to the county this year.
But there is no evidence so far that Kramer will be able to find a new revenue stream or plans to bring back the federal inmates.
“The detainees are with counties who wanted the revenue stream, and now they are deriving the benefit,” said finance committee Chairman John Hoscheit. “There were attempts made first to discuss this with the sheriff to find out what his position was on this. There was no meeting scheduled. That puts us in the position where we are today.”
The full county board will have to address the changes in the sheriff's budget.
Kramer is dealing with the death of his father, former Kane County Sheriff George Kramer. Services are set for this weekend. Lt. Pat Gengler said Kramer is aware of the move to cut his budget, but he won't comment on the pending action until after he is done mourning his father. Board members said they'd been reaching out to Kramer to address the situation even before the death of his father.
Kramer's lone public comments about the issue came about two weeks ago. Kramer said he has liability concerns about the number of inmates at the jail, and he has no obligation to bring in revenue to the county.
Cristina Castro is the board member in charge of the committee Kramer reports to. She said she is hopeful Kramer has a solution to the revenue shortfall. However, cutting the sheriff's budget now is necessary to ensure Kramer understands the gravity of the situation.
“He has every right to operate his facility as he sees fit,” Castro said. “But we have the power of the purse. I welcome a meeting with him. We don't want him to fail. We want to work through this problem and solve it. But it is a gigantic hole that we are in.”