2 Kane County departments request more funds

A Kane County Board committee received budget increase requests Friday that, if approved, would nearly wipe out the county's $1.2 million contingency fund.

The Judicial and Public Safety Committee heard requests from the county jail and circuit court clerk's office. Jail officials asked for more than $587,000. The money would cover contractual salary costs the county knew about during the budgeting process but did not allocate for, said Cmdr. Pat Keaty, who runs the jail. That contract is being renegotiated and may eventually result in the need for even more money.

"With the money that we were given in the budget, we were destined to fail," Keaty said. "The budget that was appropriated to us is nowhere near the budget we requested that we thought was necessary to run the jail."

The jail's operations were recently reviewed by an outside financial consultant who agreed additional money is necessary. With that in mind, the committee approved the request and sent it to the Finance Committee for debate.

For Circuit Court Clerk Deb Seyller, the process wasn't as smooth.

Seyller has mostly stopped her regular monthly reports to the county board since a budget fight last year caused her to consider a lawsuit.

She requested about $577,000 to cover personnel salaries and benefits. Seyller requested more staff last year, but the county board rejected it. Seyller hired 13 more people anyway, but the county board never gave her the money to pay the new hires. Seyller said even with the new hires, there are days when there aren't enough people to answer the phones.

"Right now the office is staffed at a minimum level to provide all the mandated services that we've got," Seyller said.

Committee Chairman Mike Kenyon grilled Seyller about the new hires. He wanted to know everything from their roles to their average salary (about $44,000).

The committee suggested Seyller could benefit from help by an outside consultant. Seyller said she'd agree to that if the county would agree to have a third party examine the county board's budget.

"I think that you guys have a lot that you can benefit by," Seyller said of the idea. "I already know the things in my office. But I think you guys have a lot to learn."

The committee put Seyller's request on hold pending further review of hiring a third-party to review the budgets.

After the meeting, Kenyon said the committee's approach to Seyller versus the jail request was about accountability.

"Everybody else comes and asks when they need to hire somebody," Kenyon said. "This is the first time she's been here since October. We need to know how many people does it really take to run that office. The theory of the financial consultant was to help with that. But she doesn't really want that help. As for us, we already have somebody. Her name is (County Finance Director) Cheryl Pattelli."