Across-the-board cuts hurting Kane County

The Kane County Board passed the "austerity" budget for 2018 reducing the operating budget by 3.6 percent. Why did the county board do an across-the-board cut? It's politically easy, simple to sell the public, but diverts attention from the county board's incompetence.

Look at what happened since that budget was passed. In December, Joe McMahon, Kane County state's attorney announces felony crime is up by 8.8 percent in 2017. Additional pressure from the county board to cut cost will affect public safety. Will there be enough prosecutors to handle the workload?

On Feb. 15 at the judicial/public safety committee meeting, Sheriff Kramer states the county jail's population is now near capacity during the week. At times the jail population is above capacity, causing the sheriff to ship prisoners to other county jails. How does this save us money?

Chief Judge Susan Clancy Boles' only non-mandated expense was electronic monitoring (ankle bracelets) that would fulfill the 3.6 percent cut to her budget. She did not support eliminating the GPS tracking system, but 14 county board members only saw the $800,000 price tag and voted to defund the GPS system not once but twice. The second vote did not fund the GPS Monitoring for a full year but would have given some time to find other solutions. Non-violent offenders can't be assigned to home confinement by wearing an ankle bracelet. The more serious offenders are domestic abusers. Victims who have an order of protection against their abusers are no longer safe. Are the victims not worthy of protection?

Across-the-board cuts to our budget rarely produce savings. Public safety should not be subject to stop and go policymaking by the county board.

Janice Bennett

Elgin