Louis Kosiba’s comments at Thursday night’s McHenry County Board meeting, he said that he had met with a local State Senator who was “very interested in working through a legislative solution.”
Since State Senator Pam Althoff’s district covers most of McHenry County I reached out to her to see if she were the one mentioned and, if so, what she had in mind.
Here is what she emailed me:
Meeting with them week of march 28…
better direction on accountability ..
right now it is an opinion of your 1000 hours….
no documentation is required….
stay tuned
I say we use the Citizens Empowerment Act and dissolve the whole county board.
99.99% of the problems found in McHenry County are a direct result of this governing body.
I say we flush ’em.
Poor Anna May Miller, a full time $96,000 a year administrative job for Algonquin Township and $21,000 for a county board job may have a hard time justifying either her pension on the county board or her full time salary for the township?
@Cindy
Just out of curiosity do you say that about all the Dems that are down at Springfield as well?
But just a refresher the County has a AAA Bond Rating what is the States?
Now don’t get me wrong the County needs to fix some things no doubt and the Valley Hi thing has gotten way out of hand.
But look at the Board turn over the past 3 election cycles or 6 yrs.
Valley Hi was handed to a lot of County Board members.
What needs more attention is the School Boards!
That is where the tax bill is and when you have people getting no monetary value for there time maybe we get what we pay for?
I know in my district 200 got a 3.5% raise I think the next 3 yrs and a 3.25-4% raise the next 2 yrs depending on the CPI!
That is crazy.
Plus you have a school teacher that is on the board.
Woodstock needs a over haul to the board.
Anyone know of someone that can step up?
Hopefully or Woodstock will keep going down down down!
Sen. Althoff shows leadership in stepping up to the plate to seek a solution for this issue.
Thank you, Senator.
Look Live, it’s a start.
The Citizens Empowerment Act is only for local.
You use the power you do have.
Why dissolve the county board?
Then what?
Go to what we had before we had a county Board or at least cut the number in half.
They are all self serving and if you missed last meeting listen to first 90 minutes and then you will be live me.
Go to what we had before we had a county Board or at least cut the number in half.
They are all self serving and if you missed last meeting listen to first 90 minutes and then you will believe me.
Isn’t it Illinois State law that an employer is legally obligated to track the hours worked for each employee (both exempt and non-exempt)?
See: 56 Ill.Admin. Code §300.630(a)
And, in this case, isn’t the employer the County of McHenry?
And, aren’t the people responsible for establishing and maintaining the policies/procedures for McHenry County to ensure compliance with labor laws, the elected Trustees of McHenry County?
If the Trustees are operating the County in compliance with State law regarding record keeping for employees, shouldn’t the County have the appropriate records on hand to support the individual Trustees’ claims of IMRF Pension eligibility?
If the County is not in compliance with State law regarding tracking the hours worked by employees (including Trustees), I find it odd that the main beneficiaries of the lack of those records to be the same ones that had the legal duty to ensure that the County tracked those hours in the first place.
Occam: Big difference between labor law and pension participation requirements.
Conservative Voter: Had the County been following “labor law”, we wouldn’t have the current outstanding issue of whether certain Trustees have met minimum “pension participation requirements”.
I agree with Cindy.
It’s obvious that McHenry County government has become too big, too bloated, and too unaccountable to the people.
Time to break it up into more manageable pieces, and the Citizens Empowerment Act is the way to go.
And do it BEFORE we get what is coming at us: Jack Franks as McHenry County Board Chairman…
@Stand, If you go to half then the pay is raised as full time i.e. Dupage County with benefits etc..
So no real benefit there.
Plus you lose representation for committees.
The county board set up now has representation on all committees.
So now I ask what should they be paid since everyone wants people to work for free.
School Boards work for free and look what you get.
And I believe what you had before was Supervisors of Townships running the County Board.
No conflict there right!
And I just saw on another post that the County has a AAA bond rating.
Cut the number in half and I believe it won’t be five years before the salaries are doubled “because of all the extra work.”
Not cut the number, Cal.
Delete!
Totally gone.
Don’t forget the wonderful obelisks they gave us.
Cindy delete, then who’d maintain county roads, the Twh’s that everybody wants to delete?
Municipalities are cheaper to run ya think, or have the fine cheap state handle all the county and township roads?
I say hack down to 20,000 residents per board member, about 16 now with the possibility that will increase with population growth if ever.
Pay the 16 board members per meeting with a max of about 24k a year if they attend all the meetings, no bennies at all.
Andrew Gasser would say that’s about right.
While the pension issue needs to be resolved, Pam is in a election year, taking union $$$$$, so for her to jump on with Jack, the union, and Dave, is that surprising?
Since no one ran against her in the primary the people in her district are saying: it was OK for her to get legislation passed to allow MCCD to raise it’s levy/taxes higher than in the past right?
Seems if we are talking of cutting gov, maybe the State gov should be the first to go.
You just proved my poimt, Nob.
You just said they already take care of the county roads, what part of that needs to be redone by a bloated self-serving taxing body?
I’m not for deleting the townships.
We have no power to delete the state government, Nob.
Start thinking smart.
You need to start local then work your way through Washington!
I’ve spent my career following local governments, and in my opinion the size of the County board is NOT the problem.
As a voter, I have to keep track SEVEN elementary school board members, SEVEN high school board members, SEVEN village trustees, SEVEN park district members, and so on and so on and so on.
I only have to watch FOUR county board members.
Further, unlike a school district, the County has numerous and varied functions, from roads to mental health to a nursing home.
And it has the biggest budget of any local government.
To keep an eye on all it does, the County Boards NEEDS lots of members for all its committees.
Now, that’s not to say there aren’t things that could improve.
One of the biggest problems is that the committee assignments go to cheerleaders.
Who wants to be the liaison to the Conservation Board?
Ooh, ooh!
I do!
I do!
I LOVE the Conservation District!
Who wants to be the liaison to Valley Hi Nursing Home?
Ooh, ooh!
I do!
I do!
I LOVE Valley Hi so much, I let them levy $40 million in taxes they didn’t need!
We need to get people in these positions who watch out for the taxpayers:
The second biggest problem is the County bureaucracy, which sets the agenda and prepares the board packets.
What is the result?
Horrendously long agendas over loaded with ministerial trivia so that board members are kept so busy they never get to the meat.
And board packets that
(a) can run to hundreds of pages, yet
(b) STILL leave out critical information and
(c) are slanted for the action the staff wants.
No corporate board would put up with it.
The Board should set the agenda with input from the staff, not the other way around.
And the staff should provide the board members with summarized, objective information on the key issues so that board members can make independent, informed decisions.
This, of course, is the fault of the board.
They could demand better.
Or they could cure the problem in a heartbeat by changing the County Administrator’s incentives by giving him a contract that paid him a bonus for SAVING MONEY.
Imagine that!
Oh, I will make one more comment:
We KNOW why the old board didn’t fix the problems at the County: they didn’t have the votes.
With a little luck, we’ll have a NEW majority on the County Board after November, and things will get fixed.
If not, there may need to be more changes to the County Board in 2018.
Thank the Lord for your comment Steve!
The ignorance displayed by that series of comments just before yours (other than Cal’s) is overwhelming!
No wonder people are flocking to the polls for Bernie and Trump!
The “Dumbing Down” has achieved its goals!!
Another perfect argument for deleting the board, Steve.
Government has no business running nursing homes or mental health anything.
GET OUT!
Cautious voter, it seems you are the dumbed down one here.
Cindy, I questioned who’d maintain the roads now maintained by the county, your answer is?
I like the Wis model more than IL’s, where the County maintains the state roads, even some of the interstates.
Some of the county roads should be maintained by the Municipalities and Twh’s like Cary Alg Rd.
CL maintains most of 14 within it’s boundaries as IDOT isn’t good enough, drive threw Cary and FRG and you’ll see the difference.
Cary and FRG should maintain 14 within their boundaries also.
We can effect the State and IDOT, not as easy for sure, but with a good plan, positive things could happen.
Cutting IDOT down, realigning McDOT, Municipalities, and Twh’s would benefit us all in the long run, IMO!
Oh, maintain is different than rebuild/resurface.
My wife says that she finds Route 14 the worst shoveled state road on her trips on snowy days.
Ya the State Rd’s are the worst, been getting worst as time has passed.
With a wider 14 west of CL expect more or really less of the same.
After 31 was widen over the years, the driver has way to much to get done in a timely manner, Cary and FRG have suffered since.
The Nob”
We already HAVE townships, cities and villages that do that.
Does anyone even know what the actual function of county government is?
County boards are just the administrative arm of the state government.
I say get rid of them.
They are not needed.
No Cindy they don’t maintain county roads.
I’d go the other way and get rid of most of state gov first.
Nob, that’s precisely what this would do.
You would be getting rid of an arm of the state government.
Don’t you understand that?
But that arm isn’t really part of the states financial problems.
I’d cut the arm off a Fed gov first, our state gov, bleeding would be greater.
IDOT road crews, would be my first target to change or eliminate.
Take your pick, fine with me.