Illinois county accused of violating budget public notification requirement

[December 13, 2024]  By Catrina Barker | The Center Square contributor

(The Center Square) – Former Illinois Attorney General candidate Thomas Devore is accusing the Bond County Board of violating state law after the board approved a new budget for fiscal year 2025.

Devore said the board did not provide a copy of the proposed budget to the public at a public meeting at least 15 days prior to the date they voted on it, which he said violates state law.

"I have no desire to sue the county board in my own county for this reason, but there are taxpayers asking me if that’s a possibility if they don’t do this right. We don’t want to do that because we want citizens to have a chance to express themselves,” said Devore.

Illinois law requires counties provide the budget to the public at a public meeting at least 15 days prior to final action. Notices pertaining to the meeting and the proposed budget shall be posted on the county’s website, if it maintains one.

The budget has a deficit of over $423,000 in the general fund. Devore explained that the county only has $300,000 in the bank so the county could be insolvent soon.

"They passed a budget that is over $423,000 in the hole and their budget last year was in the hole. Their fiscal year is from Dec. 1 to Nov. 30 … their budget last [fiscal] year was over $423,000 in the hole, and they barely paid their bills out of their savings account. It's a bad policy but they did it. This year, the problem is they only have $300,000 left [in their savings account],” said Devore.

Devore said he’s asked Bond County Board Chairman Chris Timmermann, who voted against the budget, to consult the state’s attorney on how to “reset” the vote and give taxpayers more time to “digest” the budget and to raise concerns.

Devore is predicting mass layoffs and department closures for the county.

Thomas DeVore
Greg Bishop / The Center Square

"What’s going to happen is that sometime this year, the general fund isn’t going to have any money and when it doesn’t have any money, they can’t write checks to pay anybody,” said Devore. “You’re going to have to lay off people in droves and shut down entire departments. Instead of dealing with it now, they just passed this deficit budget again and when they run out of money this year, it’s going to cause catastrophic problems.”

The Center Square reached out to Timmerman and other county board members and did not receive an immediate reply.

According to Devore, the board had a draft of the budget in early November, but did not officially propose that budget to the public. The early-November draft budget had about a $500,000 deficit. The adopted budget was presented and passed on the same day.

Devore said he suspects the deficit isn’t because the county increased expenditures, but rather it’s because the county has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from fees and fines that were generated from a now-eliminated interstate safety effort.

"For the last 15 years, interstate safety has been a big part of the sheriff department’s efforts. They’ve done a lot of good keeping down accidents and things on the interstate, and that as a result would generate certain receipts from fines,” DeVore said. “A couple of years ago, the sheriff just eliminated that completely and said, ‘I’m not going to enforce safety on the interstate anymore,’ and the county ended up losing nearly $700,000 of receipts that had been generated from that safety effort and it put the county in a position to where they now don’t have enough receipts to cover their expenses.”

Approving the budget were board members Bernard Myers, Jacob Rayle and Wes Pourchot. Jeff Rehkemper was absent.