The Will County Board voted Thursday to use just over $2.77 million from its cash reserves to balance its budget for its 2026 fiscal year that started Monday.
The board voted 20-0 Thursday to reconcile its budget during a nearly two-hour special meeting after an unbalanced budget was approved two weeks ago.
While all board members present agreed to use cash reserves to close the gap, some members said they did so reluctantly because there was no other choice.
Last month, the board’s Republican Caucus along with Democrat Destinee Ortiz, of Romeoville, approved no tax levy increase in a 12-10 vote. However, the budget on the agenda included a 1.75% levy. The two conflicting votes created the shortfall of nearly $2.8 million.
According to the county’s supervisor of assessment’s office, the owner of a home valued at about $250,000 would have paid an extra $7 to the county with the 1.75% levy.
“The County Board shouldn’t be looting its cash reserves as a matter of practice to fill funding holes created by lazy and reckless financial planning,” Speaker Joe VanDuyne, a Wilmington Democrat said. “It’s bad accounting. It’s bad government. It’s bad business.”
VanDuyne said the budget that was passed allowed for spending based on the 1.75% increase in the tax levy, but when the board cut the levy to zero on the county board floor, it did so without considering the spending cuts necessary to balance the budget.
“The narrow majority that approved the budget did half the job and then walked away,” VanDuyne said.
Finance Committee Chair Sherry Newquist, a Steger Democrat, agreed.
“I don’t believe it’s proper practice,” she said. “I don’t believe it’s a good idea to use reserves to fill operational holes. However, we do need a balanced budget and I believe this is the only way forward for us at this point.
Newquist said she held special finance committees in the last few months where department heads presented their needs and board members could ask budget questions. She said they were “poorly attended.”
Several board members disagreed on whose responsibility it was to find cuts to the budget. Some members said the board does not know the day-to-day expenses required of each office while others said it is the board members’ duty to find cuts from the county executive’s draft budget proposal that is released each August.
Other board members said the cash reserves on hand were more than the policy requires, so using the reserves made sense.
The approved resolution noted the county has about $94.8 million in cash reserves, which is about a $22 million surplus.
“That’s tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money that we’re holding onto,” board member Frankie Pretzel, a New Lenox Republican, said. “It would be super irresponsible for us to go back (to taxpayers) for more.”
Board member Dan Butler, a Frankfort Republican, said addressing the budget gap with cash reserves is one of the “most responsible actions this body can take.”
Karen Hennessy, the director of the county’s finance department, said using cash reserves for an identifiable, planned one-time use is considered a good business practice, but it is not a good plan to cover operational expenses. She said the county is lucky to have an excess in reserves, so this action should not harm the county. But she cautioned that it’s not a practice that should be done regularly.
The county built up its reserves largely due to $50 million in federal grant funds as part of an economic stimulus bill passed by Congress during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That is the only reason we have excess,” Hennessy said. “We’ve been using it over the last few years. It’s not going to continue because we’re not going to have an influx like that again.”
The reserves act like a checking account and pays for employee payroll, vendors and other expenditures since revenue, such as property taxes, comes in only during certain times of the year.
“By choosing to tap into reserves to fill a deficit they created, the County Board is acknowledging the reality that there are no easy cuts to be found in this budget,” County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant said. “While this action will fill the shortfall, it would be reckless to rely on reserves to maintain county services in the future. I truly hope that this impulsive approach to budgeting doesn’t become a habit, as it would put our long-term financial security at stake.”
Bertino-Tarrant said she was concerned that relying on reserves to fill budget holes will put the county’s bond rating at risk.
Jim Richmond, the board’s Republican Leader from Mokena, said the budget contains spending that will improve the county and its infrastructure that would be considered positive investments from a bond perspective.
Ortiz, whose microphone was once cut off after being warned she wasn’t speaking to the topic at hand, at one point shouted her remarks, saying the board wasn’t advised to follow proper procedures last month when approving the budget with a 1.75% tax levy, when it was clear the direction was to hold the line on tax increases.
She said a subsequent memo released by the executive’s office warning employees about a potential government shutdown and seeing if any would be willing to work without pay was designed to “manufacture panic.”
“This shortfall is tiny, is temporary and is easily covered with the reserves, but the real problem is the process,” Ortiz said.
Sherry Williams, the board’s Democratic Leader from Crest Hill, said the board can be better and more responsible.
The county’s portion of the tax bill is about 6%. Williams said the savings is not going to be noticed much on residents’ bills and that the board has a responsibility to both save taxpayer money and provide services.
“One other thing that the public expects us to do, they expect us to stop this clown show,” Williams said. “We are their representatives and they expect us to represent and to do it professionally. … We can do better.”
Michelle Mullins is a freelance reporter.
