Kane County owed $66 million but said to be unlikely to collect most of it

The $10 million Kane County taxpayers paid to upgrade the file management system for the local courts has not yet reaped the dividends officials thought they'd get through easier collection of unpaid fines and fees.

As a result, circuit court clerk Tom Hartwell said the county is unlikely to collect most of the $66 million it's owed in old debt.

The county began the process to buy and integrate a new court case management system eight years ago. It was at that time various officials in the local courts complained the old system required a lot of record keeping by hand. That caused errors and delays that stretched so long even orders of protection couldn't get through the system as quickly as needed.

County officials decided to go with a new system similar to what neighboring counties had in place.

The transition hasn't always been smooth. Hartwell recently told county board committees that Tyler Technologies, the company that created the custom system for the county, promised an updated version to address some shortcomings in July. It still hasn't come through.

"Right now, we've got $1 million in collections, cases we've reviewed already, waiting to go through the system so we can get them to (the collection agency)," Hartwell said.

That's only a fraction of the $66 million in outstanding fines and fees the county is owed.

Part of the problem is that even with the new system, there are so many levels of state and local governments that get a cut of those fines and fees that Hartwell's staff still has to check every case by hand to make sure nothing goes wrong, he said.

For example, court clerks must check to make sure there are no outstanding warrants tied to the case. And they have to ensure all counts in the indictment or complaint have been resolved.

"The reasons we are behind is because of our system," Hartwell said. "We're still waiting on the upgrade. And because of the complexities of the laws of the state of Illinois. We are doing the best we can. However, when you see there's $1 million out there, ready, in collectible fines and fees, you have to understand our share is probably $20,000. To collect that, what am I going to spend?"

"You're saying, 'I'm only going to get $20,000, so why bother?'" county board member Theresa Barreiro asked.

"No," Hartwell responded. "We have to decide if we are going to collect dollars across the county on a daily basis, or are we going to collect this (old) money. It's not to say we are ignoring the collection."

Board members expressed frustration about the lack of progress on the old debt. They noted the collection rate on newer debt is closer to 5 percent. They told Hartwell to focus on the newer debt and still try to chip away at the rest of the $66 million.