Kane Co. ends year in the red

The phrases "budget overages" and "revenue is of major concern" are never good words in any government report, but they weren't unexpected in Kane County.

Numbers in certain county accounts painted a dark canvas as the backdrop to Kane County's fiscal status all year long. The books on the 2008 fiscal year will remain open for several more weeks because of payment collection delays. That said, the financial report given to the county board's finance committee this week let elected officials know even remaining cash in the contingency funds won't cover the budget shortfall.

On the revenue side, sales tax collections is the area of "major concern" that will ripple into the 2009 fiscal year as well.

How bad is it? The county budgeted for sales tax collections totaling $16.1 million. Through September, it collected about $11.8 million. All told, that's about 5.6 percent behind last year's collections over the same time period. If that trend continues, sales tax collections will fall below even fiscal year 2005 totals, coming up nearly $2 million short.

The damage is compounded by interest income on the county's savings coming in at half of what it expected to receive. Income tax revenue is following the trend of job losses and coming up nearly 11 percent below last year's total.

The main culprits behind the "budget overages" are the county clerk's office and the new jail.

The clerk is more than $1 million over budget. Half of that is because of the special election to fill Dennis Hastert's seat when he retired early from Congress, The other half is from salary, printing and voting equipment purchases that weren't in the budget.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment in the budget is an area that was supposed to be a new strength. The cost of housing inmates outside the county is nearly triple what it was supposed to be with the new jail coming online. The county spent about $2.6 million more than it planned to move adult and juvenile inmates outside of Kane County. Likewise, the hiring of more corrections officers to staff the new jail put the Merit Commission slightly over budget.

The books remain open until Feb. 28. The county will get a more thorough report on its budget performance shortly after that.