State owes Kane County millions

It wasn’t too long ago that late reimbursements from the state played a major role in Kane County laying off half its health department workers and privatizing programs. A new report shows waiting for checks to come in the mail from the state has now become a way of life for Kane County.

The state is now a $3.2 million deadbeat in the county’s balance sheet.

The largest outstanding bill is four months’ worth of the county’s share of the income tax. That alone amounts to $1.6 million of what the state owes the county.

The second largest chunk is the reimbursement for probation officer salaries. The state is even further behind in those payments. It owes Kane County six months worth of checks totaling about $1.08 million.

The stalled reimbursement of probation salaries and income tax receipts has become enough of an ongoing problem that even the county’s latest outside, independent audit cited the situation as a potential major problem.

“The state of Illinois has not maintained a commitment to a reliable schedule of payments to the county due to the state’s financial crisis,” the audit reads. “Careful consideration must be given to the timing of receipts to ensure the county will have adequate funding to meet its obligations.”

County officials said they’ve been able to monitor state reimbursement patterns and factor it into the county’s budget and the timing of its own bill payments so far.

The good news is the county is finding a bit more financial wiggle room this year because sales tax revenue is up. Two months of collections show a 5.48 percent improvement compared to this same time last year. That’s even higher than what was predicted by county officials in designing this year’s budget.