Kane chairman: What is sheriff's, court services spending getting taxpayers?

With only about a month remaining to address the $5.1 million projected deficit for 2019, Kane County Board Chairman Chris Lauzen fired a double-barreled attack at the sheriff's and court services departments Wednesday.

The departments have a multiyear track record of rising expenses and falling revenues, fueling questions about what local residents really get for their tax dollars, Lauzen said.

An employee strike and dismantling of the electronic monitoring system for potentially violent people awaiting trial kept the court services budget in the spotlight most of this year. The resolutions of both those issues either have or will fuel more spending for 2019.

Employees in the department got raises after the strike, though much smaller increases than they attempted to leverage. And board members, after voting to dismantle the monitoring program for 2018, have decided to try to revive the program for 2019.

Reviving the plan would cost $720,000. A state grant paid for $120,000 of that cost. But dismantling the program meant losing the grant. That cost is just part of a $3 million decrease in grants and reimbursements experienced since 2015, according to a chart Lauzen shared.

Sheriff Don Kramer has also seen his department's costs rise and revenues fall in recent years. The problem is even worse because increased taxpayer costs have not resulted in better services, Lauzen argued.

"We have increased spending in the sheriff's office by nearly $5 million in recent years," he said. "And we still had the debacle with the school officer for Kaneland, and you're still hearing about rapes and sexual assaults. Do members of the public feel safer for that additional spending? No."

Kramer was not immediately available for comment Wednesday. Lauzen is not supporting Kramer's re-election bid.

Finance committee Chairman John Hoscheit said the spending increase requests by the sheriff, court services and several other departments mean it's time for tough choices.

"We're either going to say 'no' to more spending, or we're going to say, because we have to give more money to someone else, we're going to have to get rid of something else," Hoscheit said. "No one has been willing to support that so far."

Hoscheit said he also wants to find a way to work with judges and the public defender to ensure people aren't getting free legal services on the backs of taxpayers if they don't deserve it.

"If we're providing people free legal service to people who can actually afford to pay for it, we should address that," Hoscheit said. "We should have some system in place to evaluate their ability to pay. That includes some kind of exit interview, because someone may not be able to afford a lawyer today, but six months from now they may have a job and assets. We need to look at that."