My View

By Nick Reiher

Will County residents, a number of county officials believe, nay, hope, you don’t pay attention to facts.

As we can see by what goes on nationally, with all media they disagree with denounced as fake, this is not a local issue.

Case in point: weeks of inane stalemate over the 2025-26 budget culminating in a three hours of rhetoric that my late colleague Bob Merrifield once described as “two goats (fornicating).”

The Will County Board at its November 20 meeting approved a budget that, for the first time in my nearly 40 years of covering them on and off, is underfunded, with a $2.8 million gap.

Now, with a proposed $791 million budget proposed by Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant at the August board meeting, you would think board members would have in the following weeks been able to come up with a compromise better than depending on budget reserves – which are funded more than necessary by statute – for not increasing the amount of property tax revenue used toward the budget, otherwise known as the levy.

Bertino-Tarrant’s proposed budget included raising the levy by 2 percent. Even with that, she said, the county’s portion of the property tax bill will drop from 0.5129 per $100 of equalized assessed valuation on a home, to 0.4884 percent.

That wasn’t good enough for the 11 Republicans, and one Democrat, on the 22-member board. They wanted more cuts.

That’s great. That’s what the time between the budget proposal and the approval is for – going through the budget with tweezers, backed by staff from the county’s Finance Department, who already met with department heads on needs for the coming year, sorting out what they could to achieve what Bertino-Tarrant hoped would be a balanced budget with as little effect on taxpayers as possible.

Over the years, I have sat through many of those budget meetings. Often, board members not on the committee would be there to listen or to ask questions. The room was full for those meetings, as department heads attended in case there were questions on their line items.

While there were several board members not on the committee in the audience at the first special budget meeting on September 16, there were five members – Democrat and Republican – absent.

Budget Director ReShawn Howard went through several funds, including tort immunity and corporate fund levies.

At the conclusion, the minutes show, Republican Caucus Leader Jim Richmond, R-Mokena, “thanked the committee and Ms. Howard for coming in at 2% (levy increase). …”

The congenial mood had changed by the time of the regular Finance Committee meeting on October 7. Republicans at the meeting said they are hearing from many residents that their property taxes are too high and may force them to sell their homes.

County Board Member Dave Oxley, “explained that all the costs for the taxpayers are increasing. He explained that our taxes go to solar farms, and our electric bills keep rising. He stated that they need to tell the departments to cut their budget by a certain percentage and go from there. Leader Richmond agreed with these statements.”

Richmond also suggested delving deeper into the budgets and running them more efficiently as a business would, the minutes show. He told Finance Chair Sherry Newquist, D-Steger, he would bring some ideas forward.

The committee voted 4-3 to move the 2 percent levy to the full board for a vote at the October 16 meeting. Not an approval of the levy, mind you, just for legal posting purposes, noting they would not be asking for enough additional property tax funds to require a special hearing.

The full board at that meeting voted to lower the levy request to 0 percent. The Republican caucus, along with County Board Member Destinee Ortiz, D-Romeoville, voted for that.

Board Speaker Joe Van Duyne, D-Wilmington, said board members, especially those who voted for the decreased levy, should come forward with proposed cuts. Thus, began a debate over whose job it was to cut and how – County Executive, County Board or department heads.

A debate that continued to the November 20 County Board meeting, when Ortiz once again crossed over to vote with the Republicans on the underfunded budget.

I asked her about this several hours after that board meeting. She again said Will County residents cannot afford higher taxes, and is convinced there still is a lot of fat in the budget. She even proposed during one of the special budget meetings $22 million in possible cuts, although she admitted many of them were not “realistic.”

One she pointed out in our discussion was for $175,000 for professional training for the Finance Department, “and they have only two employees!”

That did sound a bit high, so I asked Michael Theodore, spokesman for Bertino-Tarrant, about that. He responded thusly:

“First and foremost, if Member Ortiz believes this line item is unnecessary or too high, she and the Republican Caucus can motion to reduce it as part of a proposal to reduce the budget. The County Board has the mandated authority for appropriations. They have been avoiding the use of that authority and have instead deferred to the County Executive, who has already proposed a budget with $24 million in reductions already identified. That’s the core issue of where we are today.

“Second, it demonstrates how many board members have not taken the time to learn about the county government that they seek to cut and a lack of seriousness about this process.

“The Will County Finance Department has 11 employees in their budget (10 filled, one vacancy) who oversee, reconcile, and implement a $791 Million county budget. That line item is related to a county-wide training on the new finance system that the county transitioned to.

“As the county does not employ professional training staff, it was decided to hire outside professionals. This new system will increase efficiencies across all departments if they are properly trained to implement it. I also want to note that this line item is carryover funds from this year’s budget … meaning that it would not be part of the levy.”

Bertino-Tarrant issued a memo regarding the underfunded budget following the meeting. I asked Van Duyne and Richmond to comment. Richmond has yet to respond; Van Duyne declined, saying he still was too upset to do so.

Board Member Mark Revis, R-Plainfield, issued a press release on November 21 on behalf of the Republican caucus stating their reasoning. It said, in part:

“This vote is about respecting hardworking taxpayers and showing that County government can live within its means. We’re proud to work across the aisle when it comes to doing what’s right for the residents of Will County.”

I’m not blaming one side of the aisle or the other for this fecal production. This is on all of us who believe that posturing without promoting solutions is acceptable. That all we need to hear is “property tax hike” to spur outrage, without finding out if there actually is one, or the reasons for it.

This is unacceptable. Meetings where there are problems offered for every solution. Almost … every … time.

Mr. Richmond, you are correct. The county should be run more like a business. Don’t be surprised if, after people learn the facts for themselves, they decided to fire some of you.

Nick Reiher is editor of Farmers Weekly Review.