DuPage sheriff a no-show as county works on budget issues
Just one day after being called out by DuPage County officials for impeding the annual budget process, Sheriff John Zaruba was a no-show Tuesday as the spending plan passed through the county board's finance committee.
If approved in its current form, the county's $443.8 million proposed budget would increase the sheriff department's annual spending from roughly $40.4 million to about $40.8 million.
But the department isn't slated to get as much as Zaruba sought. The board rejected his request to buy body cameras for his deputies and also balked at buying replacement squad cars in fiscal 2016, which begins Dec. 1.
In addition, the county is looking to reduce the authorized full-time head count at the sheriff's office by 10 positions to 520 employees - although officials say that reduction is much smaller than it appears.
The board is expected to vote on the final version of the budget at its last meeting in November.
Zaruba's only input on the budget talks came in a strongly worded Sept. 18 letter to county board Chairman Dan Cronin that said the proposed spending plan "will not only reduce my ability to perform my statutory duties, it will dilute my ability to perform any critical supportive public safety function."
During Tuesday morning's county board meeting, Cronin said public safety is a very important issue, but he will not tolerate "waste."
"We know the average head count at the sheriff's office has been 521, so we're reducing that head count to 520," Cronin said. "We're asking for a head count reduction of one and in a multimillion-dollar budget, Lord knows a competent manager should be able to find the wherewithal to reduce that head count."
Cronin criticized Zaruba in an article that appeared in Monday's Daily Herald, complaining that the sheriff has refused to communicate about the budget since his September letter.
"If he doesn't like our budget, come in here like a responsible adult and let's talk about it," Cronin said. "Maybe there are trade-offs and things we can do."
On Tuesday, county board member Robert Larson compared the call for Zaruba to decrease his head count by one to what's going on at the national level.
"Our nation is currently at war, but the budgets for national security, the Marine Corps, the Army, Navy, Air Force are being cut as we speak because we have a budget crisis nationally," Larson said. "Those are not sacrosanct, so surely our local budgets are not sacrosanct."
Board member Paul Fichtner suggested the sheriff would have a much healthier budget if he were open to trying a new program that does not rely on union deputies.
"Just to be clear, nobody's picking on the sheriff, but with the budget situation the way it is, we have to focus on any department that has inefficient, outdated and expensive programs." he said. "Every single time, in this budget process, that a countywide elected official has an issue, they would come and talk to us. We've had many instances of that. (But) we get a single letter from the sheriff and I think it's totally inappropriate."
Board member Jim Zay said he was a longtime defender of Zaruba but can no longer be his advocate.
"If these things are important to the sheriff of DuPage County, he needs to engage us. He needs to engage the county board chairman and talk about this. We can't be his advocates and do his work for him. He's the chief law enforcement officer. Tell us why you want to do this," Zay said. "I call the sheriff and the sheriff won't call me back. I get a chief calling me back. When I call the sheriff, I want to talk to the sheriff."
Other board members, including John Curran, criticized Zaruba for never attending meetings and instead sending his "quality law enforcement officials," "representatives" and "negotiators."
"Instead of sending people over who have no power to move or compromise, the sheriff needs to empower them with the actual authority to compromise with this board or walk over here himself," Curran said.
Sheriff's department Chief Al Angus was at the meeting but did not speak and declined to comment afterward. He did, however, email a statement he said could be attributed to Zaruba.
"We do the best we can with the tools provided to us by the county board. My job is to protect the public. I have been, and will continue to do that job," the statement reads. "I am proud of the past accomplishments made by my office and look forward to future successes."