Housekeeping Item Yields Comments on Budget, Term Limits

By Bob Balgemann, REPORTER

 Boone County’s new budget will be available for public inspection on or before Nov. 14. Final action on its adoption for the 2016-17 fiscal year has been scheduled for a special County Board meeting on Nov. 29. Deadline for adoption is Dec. 1, start of the new fiscal year. All of that is routine, but it usually happens earlier than November. County Administrator Ken Terrinoni said the laying over of the budget was later because its creation was “very complicated and challenging.” Before the voice vote, which was 11-0 for approval, Board member Brad Stark read a statement into the record of the Oct. 19 meeting. He said the words came to him following a recent special meeting of the Finance, Salaries, and Taxation Committee, of which he is a member. There are a few Board members, he began, who think the answer to the County’s ongoing financial problems is to raise taxes through the referendum process. That’s one option, but he said it doesn’t address the County’s real problem, which is spending. Most of the general public is at fault in this regard, he said. Residents want parks and schools, museums, public transit, conservation areas, animal shelters and bike paths. And the list goes on and on.

Residents come to meetings and say that their cause is superior and should be approved, he continued. “Career politicians sit, listen, and act as though they care because they want to be elected in the next election cycle,” he said. “What is sad is that the populace and elected officials have lost sight of wants and needs.” Contrast that with the people who come to meetings and oppose anything that would bring in revenue or more people to our County, Stark said. He remembered one meeting in which a woman lamented how terrible the National Sewing Machine Company had been for Belvidere. Yet those same people want their causes funded. In addition, the District III Board member said, elected officials and department heads want their budgets to be fully funded. “There is a way to escape that cycle”, he said, “and that is term limits.” “If they [candidates] have been in office for more than 12 years, we need to vote them out,” he said. “If we do this, perhaps we can right the sinking ship.” He concluded by adding, “The problem is we should have started this 40 years ago.”

Board Chairman Bob Walberg offered his take on what has become a recurring problem for Boone County. He’s been on the board for eight years and said in his first year the Board under spent its new budget by about $800,000. The same thing happened the next year, and there has been a downward spiral in spending ever since. “Revenues have not performed,” he said. “We’ve got to have a balanced budget. It we don’t have it, we can’t spend it.” He patted County employees on the back by saying no other County around has departments that are as frugal as those in Boone. “We are a role model for budgets,” he said. “But, we need direct, immediate revenue sources.” Another part of the problem, he said, is residents spending their paychecks on Randall Road in McHenry County or on State Street in Winnebago County. Nearby Machesney Park has all those stores along the Illinois 173 corridor “and an entirely different budget than ours,” he said.

Boone County Board Member

Boone County Board Member

He concluded with, “We have to work on creating more revenue.”