DuPage County Board: Sheriff's information still lacking

DuPage County Board members say Sheriff John Zaruba still isn't fully answering their questions about his department's operations ahead of next week's budget vote.

The board is poised to adopt a $443.8 million budget for the 2016 fiscal year that starts Dec. 1. The budget plan calls for the sheriff's department's annual spending to increase from roughly $40.4 million to about $40.8 million.

But it also would reduce the office's full-time head count by 10 positions to 520 employees and doesn't include money to replace squad cars next year.

On Tuesday, Zaruba told the Daily Herald he wants the county board to keep his department's head count at 530 and doesn't understand the rationale behind any staff reductions.

"I hope I don't have to go through the exercise of trying to figure out who to cut or where to cut," he said.

But while Zaruba was working in his office, county board members attending a judicial and public safety committee meeting in a neighboring building were voicing frustration about the way the sheriff responded to a letter from county board Chairman Dan Cronin.

Cronin last week asked Zaruba to answer a list of questions, including details about the department's Explorer program, an inventory of seized vehicles and the cost of having video cameras in squad cars. On Monday, Zaruba sent Cronin a six-page response along with 258 pages of supporting documents.

But board members said the county's top cop didn't provide everything that was requested.

"We asked for information so we could consider judgment at budget time," board member Gary Grasso said. "Not only don't we get the answers, but the sheriff sends over 200 pages of redacted documents of the very information we're seeking. Redacted documents? To us? To the county board?"

Some of the documents, for example, show expenditures, but not what the money was used for.

James Kruse, the sheriff's administrative bureau chief, said the redactions were necessary to protect the names of undercover agents and confidential informants.

Grasso said he doesn't buy it. "I doubt there was 200 pages of real names," he said.

County board member Paul Fichtner said there were instances where the sheriff's answers were "incomplete."

For example, Fichtner said the sheriff didn't provide copies of the policies and procedures for the Explorer program, which educates 14- to 20-year-olds about law enforcement.

Zaruba said donations and fundraising pay for the program, and candidates apply through the Three Fires Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Still, Fichtner said Explorers participate in ride-alongs and are taught by deputies. So officials want to identify the liability and risk management costs associated with the program.

"Because we (the county) ultimately are responsible if something goes wrong," he said.

Officials also said Zaruba could have made a better case for why he wants DuPage to spend more than $1.1 million to replace aging video cameras in squad cars with a new integrated recording system that would include body cameras for every deputy, whether assigned to patrol, jail or courthouse duty.

Cronin said Zaruba didn't fully answer questions related to the use of video cameras in squad cars.

"I don't think he knows," Cronin said. "He doesn't have the data. He doesn't know the experience."

Zaruba said his office did the best it could to answer Cronin's questions in the time it was given.

"We were as thorough as we could be," he said. "We answered the questions truthfully and lawfully."

Zaruba said he hasn't had face-to-face discussions with Cronin and 17 of the 18 county board members in recent months because they haven't invited him to meet. He said board member Pete DiCianni has been the only board member to come to his office.

But board member Jim Zay said the sheriff should have come to the administration building to meet with the county board.

"If the 10 (positions) are important, he'd be here," Zay said. "But I don't see him here. He doesn't come here and talk to us."

In the meantime, Cronin said, county officials will "make do" with the information Zaruba provided to craft a final version of the budget.

"It's not about me versus the sheriff," Cronin said. "It's about the county board ... that's been charged with a responsibility to be informed and to help fashion a budget that will give us the best public safety program - the most cost-effective program - we can.

"I'm pretty sure we're going to fall short," Cronin said. "But it's not because of a lack of effort on our part."