Restoring electronic monitoring in Kane County will cost more
Kane County officials charged with restoring electronic monitoring of potentially dangerous pretrial defendants all agreed what the program should look like Tuesday.
It would look almost exactly like it did before the county board chopped the program while setting the 2018 budget. One difference: It's going to cost more.
Court services Executive Director Lisa Aust teamed with sheriff's staff to craft a less-expensive version of the program. But the court administration, Chief Judge Susan Clancy Boles and county board members on the task force shot it down.
The cheaper ($514,000) plan eliminated two staff members who would cover the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift of the 24-hour monitoring program. Sheriff Don Kramer agreed to have his officers take over their duties, such as responding to alerts indicating someone removed a monitoring device. But those violations would not be a priority, Deputy Chief Pat Gengler said.
"If we're at a fatal car crash, the violation is going to have to wait," Gengler said.
That opens a window to mayhem during the very hours people on monitoring tend to get into trouble, Aust said.
"That model leaves holes," she said. "They could be out doing anything. It comes down to what is the risk the county is comfortable with assuming."
Boles and court administrator Doug Naughton said judges won't sign off on a program with such a large hole. County board members on the task force agreed.
"Not covering the most important period of the day isn't reasonable," said board member Bill Lenert.
That puts the annual cost of restoring the old program at $720,000. The county board cut that cost to help balance the 2018 budget. Bringing it back will now cost the county more than if the program had never gone away.
State grants funded about $120,000 of the cost before the county's budget cut. Cutting the program meant losing the grant money. Now, Kane County is at the bottom of the waiting list behind the other 101 counties in the state seeking the same grant funds.
The decision puts the burden of finding funding for the monitoring program on the county board.
Raising the court security fee charged in civil and criminal cases is one suggestion on the table. Court officials and Kramer believe the higher that fee is, the less likely people needing to use (or forced to use) the court system will pay it.
Another idea is to take a chunk of the RTA sales tax money the county receives. That cash funds a variety of maintenance and capital projects overseen by the Kane County Division of Transportation. It's not yet clear how reassigning transportation funding might affect county roadwork and projects.