Kane County Clerk issues budget challenge

Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham believes there may be a way to solve all $3.8 million of the county's budget shortfall by spending $100.

In the wake of the call for all county departments to slash 5.5 percent from their budgets to avoid a deficit, Cunningham has found himself trying to trim about another $116,000 from his budget. Rather than cutting employees, he's decided to pay them more instead. The employee who comes up with the best way to solve the budget problem will receive $100. Cunningham said he offered the challenge to his employees, and later extended it to all county employees, in hopes of getting them directly involved in finding a solution that may save their own jobs.

"The way it looks right now is that we're saying the employees are to blame for the overages, but they're not," Cunningham said of pending layoffs and unpaid furloughs. "Their salaries are not the cause of the overages. That's management's problem."

Overages in Cunningham's department, in part because of a special election, was one of the main reasons the county finished in the red last year. Cunningham said, in truth, the county should have started planning for tough budget times as soon a revenues began to slow a couple years ago.

"All of this is very reactionary now," Cunningham said. "The economy changed and all of us weren't diligent enough to prepare for it. I'm not sure you've gotten the proper leadership from us, and I'm saying all of us because now is not the time to be blaming anybody."

Cunningham said he already has received some good ideas from employees, including one plan that may reap $500,000 for the county and another that suggests holidays (such as Good Friday) be unpaid, rather than adding furloughs during time when employees should be working. The deadline for Cunningham's contest is April 17.