An unfortunate, expensive squabble
It’s a dilemma as old as county government and one that’s plagued Kane County for years, drawing both interest and resources from the core matter of providing services to the people at a reasonable cost.
It’s a battle in which there is never a winner — and the taxpayer is always the loser.
Back during the days when Ken Ramsey rode herd over the sheriff’s department at Kane County, he’d get his hackles up at budget time. He’d remind the county board that his was a statutorily elected office and he had freedom to spend money as he deemed appropriate to ensure the safety of county residents. Yet, it was the county board’s role to set his budget.
This is standard operating procedure throughout the suburbs. But where thoughtful political work on behalf of Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle, for instance, led to concessions this year by the elected officeholders, it’s not been so easy in Kane.
Ramsey’s successor, Pat Perez, has gone toe-to-toe with the Kane board during much leaner budget times, too. But now Kane County faces a much more costly and antagonistic response from a different office holder.
Circuit Court Clerk Deb Seyller disagreed last year with the county board over her budget and staffing requirements.
She had hired new people and replaced others who had left, despite a countywide hiring freeze, and she did so without consulting the county board. She repeatedly asked for an additional $560,000 to run the office at what she deemed a minimum level to fulfill mandates.
The board countered that she didn’t provide justification for the hires. In September, she sued. Since then, the two sides have failed to come to any sort of agreement.
Chief Judge F. Keith Brown is overseeing the haggling between Seyller’s lawyers and the county board’s lawyers — both sides, you guessed it, are being funded by county taxpayers.
According to a story by staff writer James Fuller that ran Sunday, case filings indicate Judge Brown already has approved bills amounting to $377,000 in lawyers’ fees — so far.
While we rarely like to see lawyers win at the expense of taxpayers and we condemn Seyller’s begging forgiveness rather than permission in the first place, perhaps a legal challenge was needed to determine once and for all whose authority extends where.
We wish this could have been resolved sooner and at a much lower cost. Enough is enough. We hope that the wheels of justice gain traction in this case in a hurry. And that when all is said and done, both sides accept the decision.
An appeal would only reignite the money bonfire.