Kane County Board District 2 hopefuls talk about budget

The race to represent District 2 on the Kane County Board has a former longtime North Aurora leader challenged by a Batavia-area resident.

Incumbent Democrat Dale Berman, 90, is running for a second term on the county board. He was a North Aurora village trustee for 14 years. He also was the village president twice, including a 12-year stint from 2009 to 2021. In addition, he served on the Fox Valley Park District board.

“I think I’ve got an advantage from this experience,” he said, including serving on some regional committees.

Berman, who also serves as chairman of the board’s finance and budget committee, supports instituting a .75-cent county sales tax, with the money to be used to pay for public safety costs. Supporters say that will help reduce the gap between income and expenses. Voters will decide the matter in a referendum in April.

Ellen Nottke, the 70-year-old Republican challenger, opposes the tax.

Berman said he is proud of presenting balanced budgets for the last four years. But he acknowledges it has been done by using reserves. He said during his time on the board, the county has not taken the inflationary increase it could have in its property tax levy, which results in less money than the county could have had.

“Our problem is we don’t have the revenue,” Berman said. The county’s biggest expense is labor, he said. “If you cut people, you cut out services.”

“We don’t balance the budget. We just rob the piggy bank,” Nottke said.

She believes the budget could be trimmed, including eliminating spending on services offered by other private agencies.

She cited as an example a proposal by the sheriff to have a drug rehabilitation center at the jail and his plan to operate a halfway house in Aurora for detainees with substance abuse issues.

“I understand addiction,” Nottke said, saying she knows two people who died of it. But she said it’s not the sheriff’s job to offer drug rehab and that there are other treatment opportunities in the county.

We’re stepping on the toes of (outside) agencies that are struggling,” Nottke said.

She criticized a plan the finance committee approved to transfer $6 million in RTA sales tax out of the transportation division budget and use it for other county expenses. That plan was struck down by the county board’s executive committee.

District 2 represents part of North Aurora, Aurora, Batavia and unincorporated areas near Elburn and Sugar Grove.