Budget, home rule key issues for county board District 2
Four people are seeking two seats representing District 2 of the DuPage County Board, which serves all or parts of Clarendon Hills, Downers Grove, Elmhurst, Glen Ellyn, Hinsdale, Lisle, Lombard, Oak Brook, Oakbrook Terrace, Villa Park, Westmont and Woodridge. The candidates are Laura Fitzpatrick, Anna Marie Manzo, Patrick O'Shea and Brien Sheahan. The Daily Herald asked candidates questions about their views on local issues. Following are their responses. Some have been edited to meet the requested maximum of 150 words.
Q. Why are you running for this office, whether for re-election or election the first time? Is there a particular issue that motivates you, and if so, what is that? What will be your main priority in office?
Fitzpatrick. The DuPage County Board finds itself in a peculiar financial position. At present, decisions are being made to cut positions in the areas of law enforcement, the court system, health and human services and every other area of county government.
The new budget contemplates closing the DuPage Convalescent Center and DuPage Historical Museum and any number of other services to the residents of the county. What's most disturbing is that every decision needs to get to crisis prevention to cause board reaction.
A more preventive approach to keep decisions that affect safety and vital services from being made at the 11th hour must be pursued. While there is plenty of intellectual ability on the board, the cooperation level is sorely lacking. My main priority will be to inspire dialog and cooperation on the board and illustrate what affect bad decision making will have on people we are elected to serve.
Manzo. I would like to represent the residents and taxpayers of DuPage County, in particular the 2nd District.
Due to a lack of financial planning, DuPage County has fallen on hard times, and I am opposed to some of the solutions that are being discussed. I will bring a new voice and fresh perspective to the board and work to put DuPage County back on the right track.
I chose to live in DuPage County because it is a great and safe place to raise a family. Home rule is the particular issue that motivates me. I support DuPage County remaining "non-home rule," which will allow voters a stronger voice in our government.
O'Shea. As an incumbent, I feel there are many new challenges to the operation of good government, as well as some old problems. Some of the many challenges involve finding a new and novel approach to streamlining the budget, with budget reviews three times per year to ensure that elected officials and departments of the county are meeting the budget guidelines.
We need to streamline and bring the operation of the county jail into the 21st century. This will not only save millions of dollars, but will generate 4 to 5 million dollars in rental income from the INS and the federal government for prisoner beds. This will generate millions of dollars the public will not have to pay.
We need to maintain the health system and provide medical help to the indigent through Access DuPage. Additionally, we need to ensure that the Convalescent Home remains the "jewel of DuPage."
Sheahan. This past spring I proposed and won approval of a requirement that DuPage engage in long-term financial planning; a first in county government.
I am running for re-election because the county board desperately needs strong, thoughtful, independent representation. Over the past five years on the board, I have fought for sound financial management, increased transparency and accountability, creative solutions to storm water and environmental challenges and strong, effective law enforcement.
In my next term, I will fight to ensure that keeping neighborhoods safe is our highest priority. The county needs to redouble its efforts to arrest and prosecute Internet predators. I will strenuously oppose Cook County-style home rule for DuPage County and continue to insist that county government live within its means.
Q. If you are an incumbent, describe your main contributions. Tell us of important initiatives you've led. If you are not an incumbent, tell us what contributions you would make.
Fitzpatrick. I am in the somewhat unique position to be able to spend a lot more time than most board members on county board business.
My schedule would allow me to do a lot of very important research on issues and problems. This board makes a lot of important decisions that affect other county agencies. The input of those agencies is important and should be carefully considered when looking at their budgets and concerns.
If you don't have the time or flexibility to seek those answers, you don't have enough information to cast a vote that could cause more harm and more expense than what you're trying to save.
Every board or organization I have served on has had members that are willing to perform due diligence for the entire body. I would commit to my colleagues that I would devote the required effort to perform this role.
Manzo. As a member of the DuPage County Board, I will bring a new voice and fresh ideas to the table. I will support a comprehensive ethics ordinance that will include limiting the amount of contributions made to DuPage County elected officials from county vendors, employees, and those seeking to do business with the county.
I consider my problem solving skills to be one of my main strengths. In my current position, the majority of my time is dedicated to problem solving and consensus building. I believe this will serve me well as a DuPage County Board member.
If elected, I will place great emphasis on financial planning. The reason the county is currently experiencing a serious financial crisis stems from a lack of foresight and the failure to plan ahead. The county board must not look year to year, but should consider the long-term implications of their actions.
O'Shea. My contributions include:
• Producing eight straight years of cutting the budget.
• Creating a balanced budget each year.
• Reduced the cost of county government to the lowest in the country.
• Initiated millions of dollars for in road improvements every year.
• Initiated major flood relief programs, saving tax payers millions of dollars.
• Help create the county's ethics laws, which are the toughest in Illinois.
• Helped to upgrade drinking water standards.
• Totally reorganized the Animal Care and Control Department.
• Constructed "dog friendly parks" and new bike trails.
• Expanded the courthouse, crime lab and county jail.
• Preserved 20 percent of Du Page's land as open space.
• Founding member of the county's Sperling Award.
• Chairman of Judicial and Public Safety Committee for 8 years.
• Finance chairman.
Sheahan. Over the past five years I have been one of the leading independent voices on the county board for taxpayers, and common sense management of county services.
I led a successful effort to give the county board a greater role in budgetary oversight and planning, including a requirement that the county plan a five-year budget.
At great political risk, I have been an outspoken advocate for better fiscal management and increased transparency. I ask tough questions about county operations. I led the effort to put county board agenda, minutes and supporting documentation on the Internet for the first time.
I have led efforts to provide a critical and necessary check and balance on executive power.
I led the fight to prevent backdoor efforts to impose home rule on DuPage County residents without their approval by referendum.
Q. What is the primary function of the county board?
Fitzpatrick. The primary function of the county board is to provide oversight, direction and planning to every department and service that operates within the county. Beyond function, the board is charged with the financial stewardship and public trust of over a million taxpayers.
Manzo. The primary function of the board is to set policy and be a responsible steward of our tax dollars. As a member of the DuPage County board, I will properly represent the taxpayers and residents of my district.
O'Shea. Years ago, county board members were referred to as auditors. Today, the board acts in a legislative manner, passing laws and ordinances, providing needed services to the entire county, including its homeless, indigent and aged residents. One of the important functions includes providing public safety and prosecution of those who may break the law.
In addition, the board approves large public works projects, sets the policy of the county regarding various issues and provides a balanced budget, which it has the duty of auditing and revising from time to time to ensure its efficiency and savings to the tax payers.
Sheahan. The primary function of the county board is to act as the policy making legislative role in county government. To provide a check and balance on executive power.
This role includes approval of the county budget, oversight of county operations, policy making for county government and sitting as a city counsel for unincorporated areas within the county.
The primary function of county government in Illinois, outside of Cook County, is to provide for law enforcement, including the court system, state's attorney, public defender, sheriff, county jail and probation.
Other important functions include regional functions such as transportation, storm water management and planning.
Q. The county is considering enacting a fee for storm water services. If you support this, explain why. If you don't support this, explain why not?
Fitzpatrick. I think the consensus on the board already is the heavy impact of costs this fee would subject schools and churches to: anywhere from $2,000 to $7,000. That would take great programs away from these already financially strapped facilities.
I do not object to holding private developers to code for water detention and have them pay a fee for variances when necessary. Our municipalities have been very proactive in the areas of flood control. Lombard even offers grants to help citizens rectify neighborhood issues. Storm water control is a daily issue for town management.
Manzo. I do not support a fee for storm water services because the public is already over-taxed. This new fee will hurt taxpayers, businesses and nonprofit organizations. Government is always looking for new taxes and fees to charge taxpayers. The public has grown weary of this unimaginative and overused practice.
O'Shea. The county's storm water management is an important element of our quality of life, as well as our ability to attract and retain businesses.
That was evidenced last August when our region experienced severe storms with devastating flood damage and DuPage County avoided widespread flooding. This is a vital program and it needs to be funded.
In general, I am more inclined toward a user fee rather than a broad based tax to fund specific needs such as this. But in this case, many schools and churches would be affected and perhaps not have the ability to pay. If the referendum passes, we will be able to fund this program without placing an additional burden on churches, schools and other not-for profits.
Sheahan: I do not support the so-called storm water utility fee because it would be a substantial and unprecedented new tax on property, including property owned by churches and other nonprofits, municipal buildings, park districts, school districts, commercial buildings and, of course, residential properties. This new tax would unfairly target property owned by groups that have not heretofore budgeted for or paid property taxes.
Q. There has been some discussion of cutting the salary of DuPage County Board members. They now earn $48,620 annually. Should this pay be reduced or not? Should board members continue to get mileage reimbursement, pensions, committee chairmanship stipends and health benefits, or not? Please explain your positions.
Fitzpatrick. I don't currently serve on the county board, so it's hard to quantify whether taxpayers are getting their money's worth in regard to each member.
If a member serving is devoting 30 hours a week to county business and effectively performing their role, that salary may be a very modest investment. If members are attending meetings and doing little else, the taxpayer is being taken to the cleaners.
The accountability is up to both the individual members and the residents who have elected them.
I am not opposed to revisiting this issue on the board level when it comes up. It's difficult to answer this question prior to serving on the board. I've already stated that my commitment would be as strong or stronger than any other member. In the case that any county employees would face salary cuts, this board should lead the way by taking the same reduction.
Manzo. I believe that it is important for public officials to lead by example. If cuts need to be made in order to balance the budget, I believe it should start at the top with the board.
In tough times, it is important that we all take on a portion of the burden. If elected to the DuPage County Board, I will work tirelessly to ensure the needs of my constituents are being met and the best interests of the taxpayers are being served.
I have always given 110 percent to everything I have done and this will be no different.
O'Shea. As finance chairman, I have had the opportunity to preside over more budget hearings and revenue and cost efficiency discussions than at any time in our county's history.
If it were demonstrated that genuine savings could be realized by a salary reduction, I would consider it. But I think in some ways this is a nice sound bite and a bit of a distraction. The county has a revenue problem -- not a spending problem.
The county has cut consistently over several years and is considered to be one of the most cost-effective governments in the nation. But the county has grown and changed. It is a mature, urbanized county. The growth in sales and income tax revenue is simply not enough to sustain the functions of government, much less the programs desired and outlined in the strategic plan.
If the referendum fails, the board members must shoulder some of the impact.
Sheahan. During my two terms as a county board member I have personally given back to the county over $15,000 in salary and other benefits, including travel reimbursements.
This past year I turned down a $3,000 bonus to chair a committee because it simply was not the right thing to do, especially at a time when the county was laying off nurses at the Convalescent Center and cutting services. I have felt it was important to lead by example.
As a county board member, I have consistently voted against raises for elected officials, including for county board members, and support a reduction in pay for county board members and the chairman of the county board.
Q. Should the county government have home rule? If yes, why? If no, why not?
Fitzpatrick. I honestly don't know at this time. I need to continue to look at this. In the Village of Lombard, public officials and staff have lamented the lack of home rule for years. The voters took it away from them a long time ago.
For the taxpayers, home rule is an expression of confidence in the enduring good faith of the boards and officials who govern them. The ability to tax the citizens can be a tool or a weapon; it's the taxpayers that decide.
My view on the county level is a bit different because of the uncompetitive position DuPage is in with Cook County in the Illinois State Legislature. The influence of Cook County as the lone home rule county in the state means we stand much further back in line when it comes to getting our fair share of money back from the state.
Manzo. I do not support DuPage County government having home rule. Home rule will enable county officials to impose new and higher taxes without the approval of DuPage County residents.
There is little the public can do after new taxes are imposed. Even if the elected officials responsible for the new taxes are voted out of office, the taxpayers are still burdened with the higher taxes.
Though I personally oppose DuPage County government having home rule, I would support a referendum on this issue. It is the people of DuPage who should decide this issue, and not the elected officials.
O'Shea. DuPage County is close to a million people and larger than seven states. We are burdened with state and federal mandates, particularly as it concerns public health, and yet we have no way to implement revenue enhancement measures that would help us meet those unfunded mandates.
We are prohibited from imposing various regulations, including zoning issues and regulating pornography, etc. Home rule allows local government to address local issues.
As evidenced with the cigarette tax, we have to beg Springfield for permission to govern ourselves. The current make-up of Springfield almost makes it as if Cook County is controlling our destiny. Many fear it is just an excuse to tax and spend.
But the DuPage County Board has an exemplary record of fiscal discipline. Home rule may give us a more efficient, autonomous and self-directed form of government, however, this should most probably be left up to the voters.
Sheahan. I do not support Cook County-style home rule for DuPage County. All anyone in DuPage County has to do is look east for an example of how home rule works for county government.
Cook County is the only home rule county in Illinois. Home rule will result in an inevitable and dramatic explosion in the size and cost of county government.
Incredibly, despite the county's significant and predictable financial problems, the chairman of the board has publicly called for the expansion of county programs with the refrain that county government can be trusted.
I would ask voters to consider a simple question: Given the county's track record of fiscal management, would you give it dramatically new and greater power to tax and regulate? My empathic answer is no.
Q. How should the county fund its operations in the future? What do you think of increasing the county sales tax to fund operations? What do you think of creating a county vehicle sticker tax to fund operations?
Fitzpatrick. It takes far more than 150 words to answer this. The county needs to overhaul its entire approach to the budget process. When it gets as far out of hand as it has with this budget, it's not irrational to revisit the entire process.
Recently, the county board voted to put a quarter cent sales tax increase referendum on the ballot. I would have voted in favor of that choice given the horrific alternatives of not generating more revenue. If we're choosing to cut law enforcement, prosecutors, the convalescent center and every other service (many of them vital), my best instincts tell me that the savings achieved would not make up for the added costs the cuts would create.
Not just dollars. What about the bad guys who aren't prosecuted and continue to victimize citizens? What about the streets that don't get patrolled by the Sheriff's police because of a personnel shortage? Where do the people in the convalescent center go? Do we send them somewhere else and deprive them of dignity and decency? The monetary cost is only one piece of the puzzle.
The vehicle sticker tax concerns me as a disproportional tax that could be costly and inefficient to administer. If that is the case, it isn't a reliable revenue stream and could be excessive on many families. At present, we do not have a public transit operation to use as an incentive to avoid higher taxes of this kind on motorists. We should look at other solutions.
Public Private partnerships, looking to not-for-profits and universities to offer services, leveraging our resources to get a bigger bang out of a buck. I think we need to look at the bigger picture and use creative problem solving, looking always for new ways to deliver essential services.
We can also look at our facilities to see if we can lease empty space for events or local groups. I'd like to see cultural events held at the county grounds, with fees charged for attendees and artists as well. Those type of events are part of the quality of life improvements in DuPage County.
Manzo. I strongly OPPOSE a sales tax increase and also OPPOSE the imposition of a county vehicle sticker tax to fund operations. I believe that government should do a few things and do them well. DuPage County government should focus on our core mission, which is providing for the safety of our residents. This is consistent with my belief in smaller government, lower taxes and personal responsibility.
O'Shea. I felt the vehicle sticker put too much of a burden on families. There were also vast unknowns concerning administration and how much revenue would actually be realized.
Whether the referendum passes or not, the county always needs to look for continued efficiencies. The key word in business and in government these days is partnership. We need to expand our partnerships, just as we did through Access DuPage, to leverage more private resources.
We need to work intergovernmentally with the municipalities, with other units of government such as the Forest Preserve District, with other county governments and with the city to share resources and increase productivity and efficiency.
As chairman of the Judicial & Public Safety Committee, I saw first-hand how our mutual aid agreements assist law enforcement and fire and emergency services through the sharing of manpower and resources. This model needs to be expanded to more programs and disciplines.
The public safety sales tax, the referendum on the February ballot, is preferable to a vehicle sticker. A sales tax distributes the tax burden as widely as possible, with most of 30 to 40 percent of it paid by non-county residents.
Sheahan. After years of spending and borrowing beyond its means, the first step to resolving the county's financial problems is better fiscal management and fiscal discipline.
I support hiring an experienced professional, non-partisan county administrator to assist in this effort. I also supported the resolution to put the question of an increased sales tax for public safety on the ballot in order to give voters a chance to decide for themselves whether to raise taxes.
A new tax on every car licensed in DuPage County is regressive and administratively difficult to collect. The county's own estimates are that 40 percent of people would ignore it and enforcement would be nearly impossible. It is a very poor idea that I do not support.