McHenry County taxpayers can expect virtually no increase in the county share of their property-tax bills next year.
One day after the McHenry County Board cut more than $3 million out of its next budget, which takes effect Dec. 1, the board’s Finance Committee announced that next year’s property-tax levy would increase taxes on a house valued at $150,000 by 61 cents.
County taxes make up about 10 percent of a person’s property-tax bill.
“Taxpayers should be happy the county has kept a lid on this,” said Finance Committee Chairman John Colomer of McHenry in announcing the levy.
The county’s property-tax levy will increase by about $2 million, to $30.1 million. Homeowners will see a negligible increase because of property taxes collected from newly constructed homes and businesses, according to Kathy Reinertsen, county finance director.
The county’s new spending discipline also plays a role in the tiny increase in the size of the tax bite, she said. Over the past three years, county spending has outstripped revenues by more than $9 million. About $3 million of this year’s budget is funded from cash reserves.
But those reserves are nearly gone, and rather than borrow money to operate next year, the County Board cut spending in the coming budget by more than $3 million, to about $34.7 million.
County officials estimated that about 30 of the county’s 1,100 employees will lose their jobs as a result of the cuts. Spending on a variety of projects and certain equipment and supplies were delayed to keep the size of the budget down.
Although the county is trying to get away from spending more money than it takes in, the next budget will use $675,000 to be carried over from the current budget.
“You’re using $675,000, but you used $3 million (in cash reserves) last year, so you can take solace in that,” County Administrator Bill Barron told Finance Committee members.
He cautioned though that, “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
Underscoring that comment were other actions the Finance Committee recommended, including using $250,000 from the current budget’s cash balance to cover health insurance costs for county employees. The county’s current budget includes $4.5 million for its self-insured health insurance program. A higher-than-expected level of insurance claims also required the county to boost the size of the insurance fund, Reinertsen said.
Last year the county budgeted $4.4 million for health insurance and had to add $750,000 to cover claims costs.
Several weeks ago the County Board decided to begin reducing the county’s share of health insurance costs by requiring employees to pay higher deductibles and premiums for many coverage options. Those changes will take effect with the new budget Dec. 1.
In the following year, the county plans to control claims costs further by adding managed care services to its insurance program.
The Finance Committee also recommended adding $75,000 to the court services budget to cover overruns in juvenile detention costs. The county has no juvenile detention facility and must pay other counties to use their facilities.
Phil Ulmer, court services director, said the money would be added to the $275,200 budgeted for juvenile detention.
“This is one of those costs that is really just a guess,” Ulmer said. “You just can’t tell what kind of cases will come before the court and what the dispositions will be. Two years ago, we came in $70,000 under budget.”
He said the county’s population growth and increases in juvenile crime generally could mean higher juvenile detention costs.
On Tuesday the county had six juveniles at a McLean County facility at a cost to the county of $92 a day for each youngster. Nine juveniles were at a Kane County facility at a cost of $150 a day for each youngster.
