Panel presents belt-tightening suggestions to Kane committee
Kane County Board members will have a new approach to keeping the budget under control this year. A budget advisory panel of Treasurer David Rickert, Finance Director Cheryl Pattelli and Auditor Bill Keck will develop a series of financial recommendations for the county. The first suggestion will address department heads asking for more money in the middle of the year.
The panel has a list of 13 recommendations. County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay, however, pulled the recommendations from public consideration Wednesday. She plans to meet with the panel in private to flush out details on the recommendations before presenting them to the full board.
One additional recommendation already moved forward Wednesday.
“All three of us agree that the contingency fund should only be used for emergency expenses and/or revenue shortfalls,” Pattelli said. “Supplemental requests should not even be considered prior to June 1. Those requests should be limited to emergency situations only for unforeseen expenses.”
The board has faced a recurring problem the past few years of cutting budgets for departments only to find department heads return shortly after the new budget year starts and ask for more money. Typically those requests involve needing cash just to meet payroll.
With the panel's suggestion, supplemental requests involving payroll and known costs for service contracts wouldn't be considered for additional funds.
Finance Committee member Cathy Hurlbut said the idea is great, but the problem still remains: The board's lack of power to enforce the budget for elected department heads. Those officials control the full operation of their departments, including expenses, and can't be fired by the county board.
Finance Committee Chairman Jim Mitchell said the new policy idea is a good starting point for addressing the problem.
“It offers a criteria for the requests; it offers a date, and it also has the flexibility if there is an emergency to do something,” Mitchell said.
McConnaughay told the committee she'd like it to develop a detailed criteria for not just when someone can ask for more money but also how they should ask.
“What do you want to see when they come forward?” McConnaughay asked. “What is the justification? It helps if someone coming forward to ask for a supplement knows the information they are going to be expected to provide. It also creates fairness so that everyone is held to the same standard for such a request.”
McConnaughay's statement seemed to relate to the board's budget battles with Circuit Court Clerk Deb Seyller. Various committees asked Seyller for more information several times. Seyller brought back more information but the committees repeatedly told her it lacked the detail they needed.