Kane County poised to cut health dept. jobs

The Kane County Board meets Tuesday for a vote transferring health department services to the private sector, a possible move based in large part on disdain for the state's budget practices.

Board members met Monday to hear several perspectives on Illinois' budget deficit and the potential disaster that awaits if the state continues paying its debts to the county late or not at all.

"The state is essentially our partner," said County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay. "All 102 counties across the state of Illinois provide social services for residents that are mandated by the state and are supposed to be paid for by the state. It's becoming increasingly difficult for the state of Illinois to pay its end of the bargain."

The Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, a bipartisan agency created by the state to analyze its finances, provided a detailed look at the state budget.

The big picture showed a budget hole of nearly $13 billion. Half of that is one-time debt carried over from last year. The other half was termed a "structural deficit" that needs either more cuts or more revenue to balance out.

Dan Long, executive director of the commission, said the state has a "huge cash flow problem" caused by weak job growth, a slow recovery from the recession and the costs of short-term borrowing to fund public employee pensions.

Human services and education funding eat up the bulk of the state's cash, which is why entities such as the Kane County Health Department and local schools are seeing increasing funding delays, Long said.

"When we're going to make cuts, these are the two areas that we're going to have to make it to," he said.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees representative Hank Scheff said there's no doubt the state's budget problems are dire, but argued that shifting health department programs to the private sector puts 6,000 mothers and children in an even worse predicament.

Many of the agencies the county wants to shift programs to also rely on state money, Scheff said, but they have no path to getting expedited payments for state debts. The county has such a path, but has chosen not to take advantage of it.

"The reality is that the entire state human services structure would start collapsing if everybody decided, you know what, we can't do this any more," Scheff said. AFSCME represents the 62 health department employees who would lose their jobs if the county approves the shift.

But board members indicated they had no interest in applying for expedited funds because they do not trust the state.

"When you spend more than you make, you're destined for failure," said County Board Member Mark Davoust. "Now we're being told we can be first in line to collect money from someone who doesn't have it. Stop spending more than you make and we can solve some of these problems."