Conservation District Budget – Part 6 Cost per Day

Based on the courthouse talk that McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks wants to cut the McHenry County Conservation District Budget by 5%. McHenry County Blog is sharing the MCCD Board’s budget presentation to the County Board.

The County Board has no ability to modify line items in the MCCD budget.

It can only vote to approve or disapprove the budget presented.

Today we look at the budget in terms of cost per day per household.

FN1. Source: Estimated 2015 Property Tax Bill for City of Woodstock resident with assessed value of $175,530 derived from actual 2015 Woodstock Property Tax Bill.


Comments

Conservation District Budget – Part 6 Cost per Day — 6 Comments

  1. The “average household” in the district is for whatever reason represented by a Woodstock resident with an EAV of $175,530 who apparently is paying $62.05 in annual property taxes to the Conservation District which is derived from 2015 property tax bills.

    $0.17 x 365 = $62.05.

    +++++++++

    The next Conservation District Board meeting is May 31, 2017.

    The minutes taken at the April 20, 2017 Conservation District Board meeting will hopefully be approved at the May 31st meeting.

    The time and location has not yet been released to the public, but the board meetings are typically at 6PM at the Conservation District’s Brookdale Administrative Office sat 18410 US Highway 14, Woodstock.

    +++++++++

    The Conservation District does not videotape board meetings and thus does not post a copy of the videotaped board meetings on their website.

    ——–

    The Conservation District does not post board agenda packets.

    A Board Agenda Packet is posted prior to the meeting and is one giant pdf that contains all the documents to be discussed at the meeting.

    Board agenda packets benefit the board, administration, and public, because all documents to be discussed at the meeting are located in one consolidated document.

    Without a board agenda packet, it is easy for select power brokers in the administration and / or board to keep the public in the dark about documents being discussed at board meetings.

    +++++++++

    There is no known taxpayer watchdog for the McHenry County Conservation District.

    +++++++++

    A watchdog wannabe can educate themselves by:

    – Read this blog

    – Look at the government unit’s website (in this case, the Conservation District website)

    – attend board meetings

    – read the board agenda packet prior to the meeting

    – review the videotape of the board meeting after the meeting

    – review the board minutes when they are posted (which is typically after they are placed in the board agenda packet for approval at the next board meeting).

    – Review bond documents on the EMMA MSRB website

    – Review tax documents on the County Clerk and Illinois Department of Revenue (IDOR) websites

    – Submit Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documents

    – Identify all union locals in the government unit.

    – Obtain collective bargaining agreements for those union locals (the Better Government Association has a collective bargaining database with many of the agreements

    – Submit a FOIA request to the government unit to obtain the collective bargaining agreement change documents for those collective bargaining agreements.

    The collective bargaining agreement change document has for instance underline text for additions and stricken text for deletions, to identify changes from the previous agreement.

    – Research the government unit on the Illinois Comptroller Data Warehouse website.

    – Identify the pension funds in which the employer participates in the audited financial statement or Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR).

    – FOIA lifetime annual pensionable income data for employees from the pension fund (which in this case is IMRF).

    – FOIA lifetime annual pension data for retirees from the pension fund.

    – Research salary and pension data on Open the Books and the Better Government Association databases

    – Read the Edgar County Watchdog website to learn how governments in Illinois have tricked taxpayers (learn what to watch for and how to address the issue)

    – that’s a good start. There are many other resources.

  2. This historic investigation by our sunshine blogger will not be complete until we get the cost per second of conservation of public lands. Tic, tock, tic, tock…

  3. The following is a quote from the current (glossy) publication mailed to me by the Conservation District.

    “The Conservation District’s has had a long-standing intergovernmental agreement
    with the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department to provide mutual aid and joint law
    enforcement procedures and assistance. This agreement authorizes both Conservation
    District Officers and Sheriff’s Deputies the ability to exercise jointly their powers,
    privileges and authority to enforce the laws of the State, ordinances, rules and regulations.”

    This begs the question: Why do we need TWO management groups? One for identical duties performed by the Sheriff’s employees and the other performed by MCCD employees?

    Why does the Sheriff not simply take over the people involved in the Police Dept. at MCCD?

    Could we then not get rid of the fancy motorbikes at MCCD?

    Would it not lower the property tax burden?

  4. Why does MCCD own tillable farm land?

    Here is their Mission statement: “The McHenry County Conservation District
    exists to preserve, restore and manage natural areas and open spaces for their
    intrinsic value and for the benefits to present and future generations.”

  5. Everyone remember the financial crisis of 2007-2010 , when credit was locked up, real estate prices crashed, and it looked like the end of the world as we knew it in terms of financial institutions?

    Here are prices of land purchases by MCCD during 2008&2009.

    (YEAR)……ACREAGE……PRICE……PRICE PAID PER ACRE……
    (2008.) 150. $2342279 $15615
    192. $2,561,854. $13342
    35. $853825. $24705
    90. $623073. $6898
    74. $737010. $10000
    35. $855822. $24237
    15. $330585. $22397
    6. $119625. $21457
    161. $1,571,860. $9774
    95. $614640. $6500
    106. $2,722,175. $25793
    280. $3,470,623. $12375
    30. $447885. $15000
    47. $683310. $14376
    106. $2,838,031. $26688
    33. $848583. $25714
    128. $2,223,399. $17431
    53. $634625. $11974
    (2009) 8. $124000. $15500
    25. $395000. $15800
    5. $113500. $25000
    100. $2,000,000. $20000
    32. $1,327,305. $41847
    45. $1,000,000. $22123
    201. $2,600,000. $12986
    55. $1,072,880. $19422
    4. $60000. $150000
    1. $150000. $168,539
    7. $162600. $25015
    14. $361250. $25000

    ( price per acre is correct, discrepancies are due to rounding of acreage numbers).

  6. The County Board should vote against their budget until they eliminate the Police force and sell to the private sector all tillable land!

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