Housing woes shrink McHenry County spending

The ongoing downturn in the housing market is hurting more than just your property values.

With housing-related revenues in decline, McHenry County officials said Thursday they will have about $1 million less in discretionary spending next year, a shortfall likely to eliminate several proposed initiatives -- including a special court program for first-time offenders and a campaign against leaf burning.

"There is less money available, and this blip in housing is main reason," said Ralph Sarbaugh, the county's finance director. "It's better to be conservative (with revenue projections) and be pleasantly surprised than be liberal and heavily disappointed."

For now, the disappointment rests with several county departments that were seeking a little more than $6 million through a supplemental budget process that funds discretionary spending. Instead, the county board expects to allocate almost $2.1 million to those requests in 2008, nearly $1 million less than last year, according to a tentative plan unveiled Thursday.

Among the programs likely to fall by the wayside is a first-offender court proposed by the office of McHenry County State's Attorney Lou Bianchi. The court, modeled after a similar program in Kane County, would allow non-violent, first-time criminals to participate in counseling and community service in order to avoid a criminal conviction.

The program, First Assistant State's Attorney Thomas Carroll said, would help people who make one mistake in an otherwise law-abiding life while at the same time reducing the expense of putting those cases through the regular court system. The state's attorney's office was seeking $57,655 to hire a lawyer and operate the program.

"We've looked at this, seen how it's worked in Kane County and think it would be beneficial to citizens here economically and otherwise," Carroll said.

Among the dozens of other funding requests likely to go unanswered in the 2008 budget is funding for nine new employees in the county's information technology department, $250,000 for fencing around the McHenry County sheriff's shooting range and $300,000 for a new evidence storage facility for the sheriff.

The sheriff's office, however, was among the chief beneficiaries of a tentative supplementary budget. The department receives about $769,000 under the plan, more than a third of its total.

Much of that money --about $531,000 -- would buy the department 12 new squad cars and two new vans. Both purchases, Undersheriff Gene Lowery said, are part of a routine update of the department's vehicle fleet.

The budget was not a total bust for information technology, either. Although the department will not receive nine of the new employees it requested, it will receive three others at a cost of about $193,000.

The supplemental budget plan is expected to go before the county board's finance and audit review committee later this month and then be approved by the full board in November as part of the 2008 budget.