Budget task force planned in McHenry Co.

A new budget task force in McHenry County would streamline budget planning and potentially avoid last-minute questions and dissent within the county board, officials said.

Members of the finance and audit committee this week endorsed the idea of creating a task force composed of all the committee chairmen, said Scott Breeden, who heads the finance committee.

“In the past we got to November, the month before the new fiscal year, and a lot of people on the board had questions that I thought should be answered months and months before,” Breeden said. “There are three or four major issues that affect the budget like the (tax) levy and raises, and we want to address them by May.”

On Nov. 15, the board narrowly avoided a budgetary nightmare when an initiative to block a property tax levy increase failed to go through after a tied vote.

“There are some important issues that we really ended up debating too late in the process for a variety of reasons,” County Administrator Peter Austin said. “If this approach can force consensus on some of those topics earlier, that would be beneficial.”

A proposed first meeting would take place Feb. 10 to discuss the county’s financial model, review capital projects budget, discuss goals for reserve funds, and examine the county’s debt and debt financing. Monthly meetings through May would tackle topics such as wages, benefits, pensions, supplemental budget requests and the tax levy.

Austin said the proposed task force will be discussed by the board as part of its strategic planning meeting later this month. All county board members would be welcome to attend task force meetings, he said.

Board member Tina Hill said this wouldn’t be about micromanaging departments, but instead allowing committee chairmen to have more input during the planning process. Hill is vice chairman of the finance committee, and chairman of the planning and development committee.

“As committee chairman, I didn’t know what all the other departments wanted. Only the administration got that big picture view,” she said. “I’m looking forward to starting the new process early.”