Kane board, sheriff reach accord on raises

The Kane County Board and Sheriff Pat Perez managed to find a way Wednesday to pay for increased wages for some sheriff's department workers that alleviated both sides' concerns about being on the hook for the entire amount.

The raises are due to an arbitrator's ruling mandating raises, made after the board had already approved the county's 2012 budget.

At issue was the extra $183,000 it will cost for the 113 sworn and civilian public safety and corrections workers covered by the labor agreement. Their raises took effect Dec. 1, and should show up in their Dec. 23 paychecks.

The board's finance committee refused in November to go along with Perez' request that the money come out of the county board's portion of the budget, not his. Perez said there wasn't money in his budget for the raises, and said he would not pay them.

State's Attorney Joe McMahon explained Wednesday that the sheriff and the county board are co-employers of this group of employees, and as such both could be held civilly and criminally liable if the raises aren't paid. In November, the union's attorney said he would file an unfair labor practices action with the state if the raises weren't paid.

Perez' budget officer discovered that for the 2011 fiscal year, health care costs for the sheriff's department came in $121,000 under budget. That overage had been shifted to the contingency fund for the county's general fund.

And the estimated health care costs for the 2012 fiscal year are now expected to be $129,000 less than what was expected when the 2012 budget was approved.

So under the plan the board approved at Wednesday's special meeting, the $129,000 will be shifted to the salaries line of the budget, and $55,000 will be transferred out of the contingency fund.

“To me it is a good compromise,” Finance Committee Chairman Jim Mitchell said.

In November, Mitchell said Perez should pay the raises, and come up with a contingency plan in case the board didn't give him more money. In making the 2012 budget, the finance committee had agreed that department heads and elected officials would have to fund raises out of whatever was budgeted, instead of coming to the board for supplements.

“Thank you for working together without any bloodletting. This could have been very, very ugly,” Perez told the board.

Left undecided was who is going to pay for the anticipated $424,962 increase the arbitrator's ruling will cost in fiscal year 2013. County board member Jesse Vazquez asked about that. “The liability is still there,” Vazquez said.

“I don't think we are attempting to solve that problem today. That is a problem that some of you are going to have to solve,” Kane County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay said.