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Kane County wants to crack down on staffers' credit cards

Every month, government-issued credit cards in the possession of 84 Kane County employees have the potential to add $768,000 in new, somewhat unscrutinized debt for local taxpayers. County officials said Wednesday that's too many cards, too many people and too much of an opening for financial mayhem.

Auditor Terry Hunt and finance director Joe Onzick suggested a three-fisted approach to addressing a problem first brought to light when Hunt froze payment for about $5,000 worth of promotional items for the coroner's office.

Coroner Rob Russell then used his county credit card to make good on the outstanding bill. Russell relied on a letter from the state's attorney's office saying the bills should be paid as justification. Some county board members believe Russell's credit card use violated the board's authority to review such expenses.

Hunt and Onzick suggested eliminating half the credit cards in circulation. They also want to limit the maximum monthly combined bill for all the credit cards to no more than $75,000.

And they want to introduce spending limits for any single transaction for all of the cards. Only a handful have such limits now.

Russell, for instance, has three cards for his office with a combined monthly transaction limit of $55,000. The county card in Russell's own wallet has no single transaction limit and the highest monthly limit, at $25,000, of all the cards used by elected officials.

Russell will have a chance to defend his need for a card and the highest limit. The county board's finance committee will solicit opinions on the appropriate number of cards and their spending limits from him and all the elected department heads before making any changes.

An early suggestion is limiting the cards to no more than $5,000 in charges each month. That's half the spending limit Kane County State's Attorney Joe McMahon has on his county credit card. And it's 25 percent of what Sheriff Don Kramer can charge each month.

County board Chairman Chris Lauzen believes big reductions in the cards and their limits are warranted. He doesn't have a county credit card.

"If we don't learn from what we experience, we pay a price," Lauzen said. "Is it practical to say that our target is going to be a 90 percent reduction in the monthly spending limit? The answer is yes. And can we limit the number of cards? When you take a look at who has the cards, yes, we can do that, too."

Of the 84 cards in the county's name, only seven of those are in elected officials' hands.

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