Kane County looking at temporary mass layoffs, eliminating coroner

A day after the Kane County Board talked about prioritizing every service the county provides, elected officials specifically charged with finding cost savings came up with some radical ideas.

Special Budget Task Force member Jim Mitchell pitched a plan to circumvent input from the county's unions and some elected department heads when it comes to a layoff.

Mitchell's plan would lay off employees based on union contracts, regardless of seniority.

Mitchell recognized such a tactic couldn't be implemented for jail and sheriff's office employees. But Mitchell's fellow task force members quickly began to envision shutting down the entire county via a temporary layoff between Christmas and New Year's Day.

Other possibilities include shutting down the courthouse for one Friday, several Fridays or every Friday, resulting in an unpaid day off for courthouse employees whenever the closures occur.

Mitchell also suggested reducing the transportation and public health budgets and making those departments come to the county board for each project or service it would have to cut as a result.

Transportation and public health services are not mandated functions for a county. The county board could then decide if it wants to fund those projects or health services with reserve funds.

"We have to find the money somewhere where it's not a mandate," Mitchell said. "You as a board have to decide, 'Do you want to use that discretionary money to give prenatal care to a pregnant teenager?' I don't know."

Those ideas got the ball rolling and soon other ideas popped up, such as not having an elected coroner's office and reducing the number of county board members. Kane County has even more elected board members than Cook County.

State's Attorney John Barsanti said he liked the ideas and thought all of them should be researched to determine their legality and potential cost savings. The civil division of his office will take the next 30 days to draft opinions on the ideas.

In the meantime, Barsanti said, he would like to have a serious conversation about how much money the county has in reserves to address budget problems.

Barsanti called the $16.5 million of general fund reserves and the $500,000 of RTA tax reserves the "800-pound gorilla" of the budget discussions.

"You know that money we're saving for a rainy day?" Barsanti said. "It's raining. What is a contingency fund for?"