In a wide-ranging discussion on the Just A Coupla Guys podcast last week, Kane County Finance Chairman Dale Berman talked about the county’s need for more competitive salaries for county employees, refurbishment of county facilities, the impact of the controversial SAFE-T Act, the likelihood of a tax increase and negotiations with the Kane County Cougars.
He also stated flatly that the plan announced by Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain whereby Kane County would provide jail facilities to Kendall County, thereby allowing Kendall County to shutter its own jail, was “dead.”
Here are some excerpts from that conversation. The full podcast can be heard below or via the Fox Valley Magazine website, or via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.
On Spending
Requirements have gone up for a number of reasons within the county. We haven’t had an increase in taxes for 10 years. [Editors note: While property tax increases have been limited to covering new construction costs, county revenue has grown organically every year recently. For instance in 2021, revenue increased roughly $11 million, and is projected to increase by twice that this year.] It’s been a problem. We compare ourselves to other counties, especially DuPage and Lake. They’re more like us than than Will, Dekalb, McHenry and Kendall. Our people are vastly underpaid compared to them. We have difficulty retaining people. We have difficulty hiring people. If you look at some of our excess funds that we have every year, it is because we weren’t able to hire the people that we needed to fill the open slots.
One of the things that we’re trying to come up with is equal pay for our employees. We’ve gone through a couple studies and we’re going to do that over a three year period. It’s not something where we’re gonna give everybody a huge raise or whatever, but we’re trying to equalize their pay over a three year period.
We do have some severe problems, though, with facilities. We’re housing how many different locations in the county? Some we own. Some we lease. We haven’t put any money into refurbishment. If things go on with the SAFE-T Act, where we’ll need to hire seven more attorneys, if we hire them where are we going to have courts for them?
On Taxes
[Editor’s Note: Shortly after this interview, certain members of the Kane County Board came out publicly demanding that the county budget be put forth to the public prior to the November election, along with a decision regarding any increase in property taxes. According to a report by James Fuller of the Daily Herald Media Group, County Board Chair Corinne Pierog “has asked for volunteers to form a smaller committee to bring forward a draft budget for the board to vote on. The membership of that committee will influence how soon a vote occurs. Pierog also called on the board to find up to $8 million in spending cuts to help close the budget gap.”]
Well, we were looking at a referendum for a sales tax increase. There’s only a few things that you can increase sales tax for, and one of them is public safety, one of them is health. And so with the new SAFE-T Act, it’s going to increase our budget quite a bit. So that was one of the ways we thought we could come up with revenue to cover that. That could come about next year. We’ll review everything after the election and see what our needs are.
We have the ability in the collar counties to increase property tax every year without going to referendum. We can go up to the cost of living increase or 5%, whichever is less. And most every taxing district takes advantage of that. I took advantage of that as mayor of North Aurora and most other communities do also. But it’s a very small tax. We just went through an evaluation of that in the last couple weeks. If we do that, and this year with the cost of living as high as it is, we can go up to 5% and a 5% increase in that property tax for a home of $600,000 would be approximately $30 a year, or as I referred to it, two martinis. And for someone with a $300,000 home, which there are still a few of those in the community, it would only be a $7 increase.
On the Kane County Cougars Northwestern Medicine Stadium Lease
Well, there’s two different groups. We’ve got a county board and we have a Forest Preserve board, and I serve as finance chairman for both of those groups. What’s going on? The Cougars have had their financial problems these last years because of COVID. They haven’t had the attendance. As a matter of fact, in 2019 they didn’t have any games at all. And of course, they’re no longer part of a major league. So they don’t have that kind of draw. They don’t have as many games as they used to have. We did not get any revenue for 2019. From that standpoint, we don’t know what the future is going to be.
We’re interested in anything, anything and everything. We’re openminded to whatever can come of that. We’ve got good staff and they’re working diligently with them, and we are certainly are going to do the best we can to come up with what’s best for the county.
