McHenry County Board candidates talk cutting spending, managing surplus
Four Republicans are vying for two McHenry County Board District 1 seats in the March 15 primary.
Incumbents Yvonne Barnes and Anna May Miller face challengers Terence Ferenc and Tom Wilbeck for the 2-year seats.
The candidates cited improving infrastructure, reducing the property tax burden, increasing transparency and spending surplus money wisely as goals.
"My main thrust is to stop this tax madness in McHenry County," said Wilbeck, 65, of Barrington Hills, a retired financial services executive.
Wilbeck said the county needs to make fiscally responsible cuts and look into sharing resources with other agencies. "Nonessential services can be shared with other counties," he added.
He proposes reducing spending by 5 percent across the board to start.
Miller, 62, of Cary supports a more precise approach to cutting the budget.
"With a scalpel there are ways we can look at absolutely everything," she said, adding every county department identified cuts for this year's roughly $232 million budget.
She advocates looking for ways to attract businesses to reduce residents' property tax burden and developing public-private partnerships for providing certain services.
Barnes, 55, of Cary, who chairs the county's finance and audit committee, would like to reduce the amount the county pays in consultant fees and look for cost savings rather than just making cuts.
"We don't need to do niceties. We need to focus on necessities," she said.
Expenses such as purchasing a $1.5 million financial software package may seem excessive but ultimately will save the county money by streamlining processes, Barnes said.
She also favors a longer-term capital improvement plan than what the county has now, which looks out only five years.
Ferenc, a Navy veteran, homebuilder and sales consultant from Fox River Grove, said county government is bloated and officials could reduce spending across the board anywhere between 5 and 10 percent.
"And then the agencies decide where they want to make the cuts," he said. "Cutting taxes means you have to reduce spending. I see a lot of redundancies, and I also see communications issues between agencies. People don't realize that costs a lot of money."
He said there is a need for more transparency and reducing duplication of efforts among agencies.
Candidates differed on how to use a $41 million surplus from the county's Valley Hi Nursing Home in Woodstock.
Miller supports developing a capital program to address building maintenance needs at the nursing home.
With private nursing home service providers moving away from taking Medicaid patients, the county needs to be in a position to step up and take that responsibility, she added.
The nursing home - established through a voter-backed referendum - operates on a roughly $11 million annual budget and last year had a $600,000 deficit.
Barnes said a surplus is necessary to keep the nursing home operating since the state is more than five months behind on reimbursements. "It would be extremely irresponsible to zero those revenues out," she added.
This year, the county did not levy any taxes for the nursing home. If it continues down that path, the county may lose the ability to collect those funds again, Barnes said.
Officials said the surplus cannot be transferred into the general fund, but rebating it might be an option.
Wilbeck and Ferenc said officials should find a way to give that money back to the taxpayers.
The district includes portions of Algonquin, Barrington Hills, Cary, Huntley and Fox River Grove.
Kerri Barber of Cary is the only Democrat running for one of two 2-year District 1 seats. Early voting is Feb. 29 through March 14.