Budget Back to Finance Committee

McHenry County Board Chairman Joe Gottemoller has apparently decided not to put next year’s levy ordinance on the Board Agenda without a positive vote from the Finance and Audit Committee.

As you can read exclusively here, the vote was 3-3 yesterday.

Valley Hi Cash on hand 2006-13

This bar chart is a couple of years out of date. The amount in the bank is now over $40 million. Of that, County officials can only point to a nursing home use of $16-17 million. That’s includes $11 million, the total expenditures for a twelve-month period.  No one has made a good argument that the tens of millions more is not pure surplus.

Since tie votes fail, the resolution setting next year’s taxes did not get out of committee.

Gottemoller could have put it on next Tuesday’s Board Agenda anyway, but he apparently decided to try again.

The hand-up was the Crystal Laker Jim Heisler left before the vote was taken.

Chuck Wheeler and Mary McCann weere

Chuck Wheeler and Mary McCann hotly debated whether the Valley Hi tax take should be reduced.  Jim Heisler sat between them at the Finance Committee.

For about two hours before that, Finance Committee members debated a motion by newly-elected member Chuck Wheeler regarding whether the Valley Hi Nursing Home tax request should be reduced from $3 million to $2,250,000.

Valley Hi has a constantly increasing balance in the bank.

When County Board member Mike Walkup brought up the subject at the meeting, asking that the levy be cut to $1 to $1.5 million, he said that when he started serving on the Valley Hi Operating Board, there was $35 million in the bank.

Now, he poijnted out, the amount exceeds $40 million.

The vote on a Wheeler motion to cut the tax take of County government by three-quarters of a million dollars was defeated 4-1 with Heisler, Mary McCann, Mike Skala and Larry Smith voting, “No.”

Wheeler, Yvonne Barnes and Nick Provenzano voted to cut taxes.

The next motion was to approve the levy resolution with the $3 million Valley Hi tax take intact.

Without Heisler’s vote, the motion filed on a tie vote.

Now, a Finance Committee meeting has been called for October 20, 2015 at 5:30 PM.

That’s before the County Board meets at 7.

At 6 the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office will attend a Committee of the Whole meeting. Purchasing will be discussed, I have been told, but nothing is on the County web site.

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Find the reason for this re-run here:

More detailed information on the meeting:


Comments

Budget Back to Finance Committee — 3 Comments

  1. Nice try Chuck, Nick and Yvonne.

    Not much you can do with these western county Democrats.

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