Study payment could jeopardize county’s referendum promise
The latest version of the 2011-2012 Kane County Forest Preserve District budget poses an immediate challenge to commissioners’ promises to use referendum proceeds only to acquire more open space.
The budget viewed by commissioners Thursday came with an immediate addendum to add $30,000 of expenses to it. The money would be used to conduct a study of how accessible district facilities are to people with disabilities. The study is part of meeting the district’s insurance requirements.
The problem is the district doesn’t have that much extra cash in operating funds to pay for the study. And staff does not want to use the district’s savings, creating a deficit. Instead, staff wants to use money from the district’s capital funds, which is the account money from the recently successful $30 million tax increase referendum will filter into.
“We’ve committed that the construction and development funds are for land acquisition,” District President John Hoscheit said. “I want to make sure we carry that out. I would recommend against putting it in the budget from capital dollars.”
Not doing so would mean the district would either have to cut from someplace else in the budget to accommodate the cost of the study or find new funds to pay for it.
The budget already eliminates one potential new moneymaker. A controversial provision to create a $40 dog walking permit fee is no longer in the budget. The new employees the permit fees would’ve paid to add to the staff are also out of the budget.
That still leaves the problem of the study. Staff told commissioners there is existing money in the fund that referendum dollars flow into from old grants and previous levies. In theory, that could pay for the study without violating the promise of the referendum. However, all that money is co-mingled so there’d be no way to say specifically that money from the referendum wasn’t used for the study.
Commissioners hope to sort out that issue before taking a final vote on the new budget.