Kane County chairman candidates: New coroner or new budget?

Resolving three years of financial battles between the Kane County Board and Coroner Rob Russell is a simple matter to both Republican candidates for county board chairman.

For incumbent Chris Lauzen, the answer is a new coroner. For his challenger, Ken Shepro, the solution is a new and equitable budget.

Lauzen is endorsing Russell's GOP opponent, Dr. Bob Tiballi, in what is a rematch of a primary contest three years ago. In an endorsement interview with the Daily Herald editorial board, Lauzen said he is campaigning against Russell because he has no other choice. Numerous attempts to create a positive relationship with the coroner by himself and several board members have mostly failed.

"If somebody is not on the program, generally, and does not keep their commitments, generally, you've got to replace them," Lauzen said.

Lauzen pointed to an agreement Russell signed that provided for a 15 percent increase in the coroner's budget followed by three years of frozen expenses.

"Very soon after that happened he was already breaking his word," Lauzen said. "We need a new coroner. There's no way you can either persuade or cajole or push, because the internal control statutes give him all the power."

Lauzen and the board has also had budget battles with Sheriff Don Kramer. Indeed, the sheriff's office finished in the red this year while Russell finished in the black.

The difference, Lauzen said, is Kramer's authentic approach to working with the board and addressing the budget hole.

"It wasn't like, 'You're a jerk, and it's personal, and it's political,'" Lauzen said. "(Kramer) was quiet until he had a solution. He came out, and we all worked together.

"With the coroner, he goes out and says one thing to (the board), and treats them fairly respectfully, but then you have your press conference and call them part-timers, and they don't know what they're doing, and it's all politics. Where's the integrity?"

For Shepro, integrity would start with giving the coroner enough money to fulfill the legal requirements of the office.

Shepro had an inside view of the coroner's finances as a paid financial consultant for Russell.

Before that, he served as the attorney for the county board during former Chairman Karen McConnaughay's tenure.

The financial problems with the coroner go back before Russell, Shepro said. Chuck West was Russell's predecessor. West faced a fatal illness and a felony indictment during his final months in office.

Those problems resulted in a record low number of autopsies and a budget set artificially low to contain his activities, Shepro said.

Russell inherited the same budget. It wasn't enough money to perform all the autopsies the law requires, Shepro said. The board gave Russell a little bit more money for autopsies for 2016.

But the real answer, Shepro said, is recognizing the number of deaths that need autopsies will always be a fluid number.

"The idea that the coroner is out picking up bodies just so he can do autopsies on them and run up his budget is ridiculous," Shepro said. "The reality is we have the oldest and worst facility of all the collar counties. And the number of death investigations per employee in the coroner's office is 50 percent to double what the caseloads are for any surrounding coroner's office."

Electing a different coroner isn't going to change what the law requires when it comes to autopsies, Shepro said.

But Lauzen said having a coroner with a medical background will make a difference in terms of making an expert, informed call on whether an autopsy is necessary. Not setting any cap on spending in the coroner's office invites other county departments to do the same, Lauzen said.

"The idea that you're going to have someone decide to spend the money, and then everybody else is going to pay for it, well, that's like let's go out to dinner, and we'll send somebody else the bill," Lauzen said. "That's nuts. The person who has the authority to make the autopsy decisions should have the responsibility for the budgeting."

Lauzen pointed to spending on promotional items for the coroner's office and the former $65,000-a-year compliance officer/grant writer position as other evidence of wasteful costs.

"That fella got zero in two years on the job," Lauzen said. "And it cost us $130,000."

Shepro said the truly wasteful spending in terms of the coroner's personnel stems from Lauzen's refusal to bring a long-pending union contract to a vote.

That's resulted in coroner's employees continuing to get both a per diem and overtime pay.

"They must be paid this double dip until the contract is ratified," Shepro said. "So why don't we have that done? The contract was negotiated by the state's attorney's office and the county's hand-picked legal counsel. Both recommended that it should be adopted."

The primary election is March 15.