McHenry County Blog

You really won’t know it until you get your tax bill, but the McHenry County Board decided to sweep the table of as much of our money as its members could take when they passed this year’s budget. See

Who Voted to Raise Your County Budget?

I’ve been meaning to write this commentary since I heard that the County Board’s Finance Committee had decided it couldn’t cut the budget for the coming year because it was too far along.

The best one word reaction I can come up with that I feel free to put in McHenry County Blog is “Balderdash!”

Now, what background might give me the expertise to make that conclusion?

My first job out of the University of Michigan’s Institute of Public Administration was with the United States Budget Bureau. (Now, it’s called the Office of Management and Budget.)

My budget was that of the largest independent agency in the national government, the Small Business Administration.

It didn’t have many line items.

So, I met with the SBA officials, its Economist, its Budget Officer (who, when I told him I was returning to McHenry County to run for County Treasurer in early 1966, opened his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a six-pack of Goldwater) and others trying to figure out what was going and what was needed.

My Section Chief was Sam Lawrence.

It took me three times to get it right.

The first time I met with him, I presented numbers which he said were too high.

I went back and re-evaluated my suggestions.

The second time I got the same reaction.

I was recommending too high a budget.

The third time got him exasperated.

“Cal,” he said, “You just don’t understand.”

Then, he pointed to the bottom line and wrote a number.

“I don’t care what the numbers above that line are, but I want that number on the bottom!”

He was clearing exasperated that this new Management Intern hadn’t caught on quicker.

Before I was hired, he asked my Senior Budget Examiner Roger Adkins, who had advanced to a Division Chief handing the country’s transportation budget when I last saw him in 1972, whether he could work with “a Goldwater Republican.”

My 1965 resume made clear that I was a Republican, but it was my father who had the “AUH20″ bumper sticker. My mother and I were for Governor Bill Scranton in 1964.

Roger, a genial guy who always seemed to be smiling, told Lawrence he could work with anybody.

So, what’s the relevance to the McHenry County Board’s budget making process?

If the County Board didn’t want to raise our taxes, it could have have asked for (levied) less than the maximum allowed by the Property Tax Cap (PTELL to those who don’t use the common name).

The County Board members could have cut their levy 1.47783%.

And told the Finance Committee to cut the budget the same proportion.

In short, the Board members could have followed Sam Lawrence’s example.

They could have told the Finance Committee and the administrators who follow their direction that they didn’t really care where the cuts came from, just to do it.

And, as I did 46 1/2 years ago, they would have done it.

It does not take a year=long process to do that.

So, what does the process announced without criticism that I have seen on the front page of the Northwest Herald and more recently in the TribLocal do?

It provided “cover” for those who voted against cutting back the tax take to last year’s level.

Who gets protection?

Those voting against cutting the budget are below.  (The vote was 11-11 and because of the way the motion was made a tie vote defeated it.)

• Bob Bless (D1)
• Scott Breeden (D2)
• Mary Donner (D3)
• Jim Heisler (D2)
• John Jung (D5)
• Donna Kurtz (D2)
• Mary McCann (D6)
• Peter Merkel (D4)
• Marc Muneratto (D1)
• Kathy Schmidt (D3)
• Ken Koehler (D2)

Those on the ballot for re-election are in bold face type.  All who voted to cut the budget are on the ballot.

See also

No Financial Diet for McHenry County Next Year + The Tax Levy Game

= = = = =
Tomorrow, a legislative suggestion to fix one concern of tax district officials.

When I worked at the United States Budget Bureau in 1965-66 right after grad school in public administration at the University of Michigan, there was a period just before the budget went to the printer that employees worked very long hours.

Apparently my successors still do.

Fox News reports that over half now want to join a union. I guess they want to be paid overtime.

I wonder if they will be willing to be paid undertime for the days right after the budget goes to bed when they have nothing to do.

My senior budget examiner Roger Adkins told me to go through the files.

Now, that was interesting.

No, I mean it.

I found a memo that recommended the 1964 Democratic Party’s Small Business Platform.

Apparently, a Civil Service employee had done Democratic Party work.

That stuck me as improper.

In an orientation session, new employees were told that President Lyndon Johnson was the first President who had used the Budget Bureau throughout the year.

That, of course, made sense because of the budget examiners’ connections with their agencies. Mine was the Small Business Administration.

And, when this 23-year old called his contacts at the SBA, they never knew whether if was the new guy asking a question or whether he (that is, his boss) had been asked to inquire on behalf of a White House staffer.

Very heady stuff.

There was also the perk of having an office next to the White House.

When I went to visit in 1972, I walked up the steps of the Old War Department Building and found the budget folks had been displaced by an expanding White House staff.

 

They were then located a block away n a high rise behind Blair House. Security was by rent-a-cop, rather that Federal employees.

There was one other perks..

One day, President Johnson needed a Greek chorus for some visiting dignitary.
So we got to spend part of our lunch hour in the Rose Garden.

Sometimes I wonder what my life’s course would have been had I not come back to run for McHenry County Treasurer when my father, who had almost beaten the McHenry County Board Chairman for the GOP nomination for the newly-created post of County Auditor, told me he wasn’t going to run for County Treasurer and I might be interested. (I flew home, met the announced candidates, Harvard Police Chief Gene Brewer and Hartland Township Supervisor Ray Murphy, who also served on the McHenry County Board by virtual of being a township supervisor, and decided I was as competent as they.)

Mr. Lawrence, the man who interviewed me, knew that I was a Republican. He asked Roger if he could work with a Goldwater Republican and Roger, being quite a jovial fellow whom I believe could have worked with anyone, said he could..

I’m pretty sure that I was the only out-in-the-open Republican in the building. Every once in a while another staffer would approach me in the hall and confess that he or she was a Republican, too. One. A girl a bit older than I, took me to a party attended by economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Standing by the sink, he looked perfectly ordinary.. I’m pretty sure that was the one next to the Russia Embassy.

Then there was the SBA Budget Officer Hoadley. (Probably spelling his name wrong.) After he heard that I was going to run for McHenry County Treasurer, he pulled open his bottom drawer one day and showed me a six-pack of Goldwater, a drink marketed by some company during the 1964 election.

When Nixon came into office in 1968, I figure there would have been some upward mobility.

But, back to the reason for this article.

The Budget Bureau is now called the Office of Management and Budget. (So much for tradition.)

And over half of its members no longer consider themselves professionals.

They want union protection from onerous working conditions, it seems. This “a highly educated and professional group,” as union spokesman Peter Winch describes them want more appreciation.

Doesn’t everyone?

Most could probably get an agency job paying more money, as I was offered by the SBA, but I guess they love their workaholic jobs too much to leave.

Think the employees of the Illinois Office of Management and Budget will follow suit?

I have always been ever so careful when I put together a political pamphlet or mailing. It has to be accurate. I advise other candidates to do the same.

Attending “X” college is not the same as graduating. Seems obvious, but the temptation to inflate ones resume is there.

I worked in the Executive Office of the President when Lyndon Johnson was president. I wasn’t in the White House and, then, the White House staff had not expanded to fill the old Executive Office Building next door.

I think I saw him once when Budget Bureau employees were encourage to go to Rose Garden to provide a crowd for some visiting dignitary.

My employer was the U.S. Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget), which was located in the old War Department building to the right of the White House. It looks like a wedding cake.

It was a heady experience. Johnson was the first president to really use the Budget Bureau year-round. When I asked a question of my agency, the Small Business Administration, its officials didn’t know if it was coming from the “Skinner kid” or the White House.

After we submitted the budget in January of 1966, I discovered there was nothing to do the next Monday.  I decided to clean out the files. I was more than a little surprised to find a memo on what should be in the Small Business plank of the 1964 Democratic Party Platform.

(When I went back to visit in 1972, I found the budget folks had been banished to a high rise on the street behind Blair House across Pennsylvania Avenue. Rent-a-Cop security.)

Since I was running as a Republican for McHenry County Treasurer in 1966, I wasn’t tempted to inflate my management intern entry-level Civil Service job. Surely I didn’t want people to think I was a political appointee for Democrat Johnson.

In fact, Sam Lawrence, my section chief, asked Roger Adkins, who was to be my senior budget officer, if he could work for a Goldwater Republican. That my mother and I had supported Bill Scranton in 1964 before the GOP convention, while my father supported Goldwater apparently hadn’t reached Lawrence’s ears.

Adkins, a good-humored guy who rose to be at least a division chief, had no problems. He could work with anyone.

Word got around that I was a self-identified Republican. The only one in the agency, I believe.

Several people admitted on the Q.T. that they were, too.

Sometimes I wonder what jobs I would have held had I stayed on until Richard Nixon took office.

One girl (first name of Peggy, I think), a couple of years older than my 22 years with Republican leanings, I think, even took me to a party attended by economist Kenneth Galbraith who held forth next to the apartment’s kitchen sink in a building that I am remembering was next to the Soviet Embassy. She was well connected.

When I ran for county treasurer, you can bet I wrote about my Budget Bureau job.

That, plus my having completed the course work (but not yet having been awarded a Masters’ degree in Public Administration from the University of Michigan) and being an Eagle Scout were pretty much my only credentials.

Except for my youth.

“You’re too young to be corrupt,”

And, this was before Democrat Secretary of State Paul Powell scandal.  But after the theft of $6 million by Republican Auditor of Public Acc0unts by Orville Hodge.

I heard more than once before the June 13th primary election which I won by 72 votes with a 277 vote spread among three candidates.

In the pamphlet I probably included that I was the budget examiner for the largest independent agency in the Federal government.  The SBA had a $500 million budget at the time.  It kept its loan records on note cards. The agency couldn’t even tell me its loss ratio. Just incredible.

Eventually, after he heard that I was going to run for county treasurer, the SBA budget officer (Willard Hoadley, I think) showed me what he kept in the bottom drawer of his government-issue metal desk.

It was a six-pack of Goldwater, a soft drink produced for the campaign. I even had a date with SBA economist Paddy Freucht’s daughter. I think her name was Michelle, because we heard the Beatles song on her car radio. After I had decided to come back and run for treasurer, the SBA tried to hire me away from the Budget Bureau.

Oh, well. Enough of memory lane.

Back to inflation of political credentials tomorrow.