In their final meeting before the end of the county fiscal year, DuPage County Board members will vote Tuesday on a record annual budget amid a climate of economic uncertainty.
Despite expectations of sagging sales tax and flat property tax revenues, the county’s fiscal 2003 budget adds up to $674.7 million, or $22 million more than in the current year.
County Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom said the record budget is pumped up with revenues from construction bonds for continuing projects. Government jobs are going unfilled and new programs remain on the shelf, Schillerstrom said.
“It’s a tight year,” Schillerstrom said. “Just as others have to tighten their belts, so does the county government.”
County officials are highlighting that, despite the bigger budget, the property tax levy countywide will decline, although by only $55,000, for the eighth straight year.
Less advertised is the county’s plan to dip into its cash balance to fund $7.7 million in projects.
That balance has eroded to about $26 million from a high of nearly $60 million after spending on a series of one-time projects, including building a $12 million county youth home, fixing $11 million worth of infrastructure and paying $6 million in early retirement for county employees, said County Administrator Donald Zeilenga.
But Schillerstrom said that the use of cash reserves in next year’s budget will only be for projects already budgeted and that the cash reserve should grow slightly over the year.
Board member Roger Kotecki (R-Carol Stream) disagreed.
“We basically spent these reserves when the economy was good so that we don’t have it now,” he said.
According to a report from the auditor’s office, spending outstripped revenue for the county’s corporate fund for four years leading up to 2001. A more recent auditor’s report states that the fund’s expenditures exceeded revenues by $1.7 million for the first nine months of 2002. The corporate fund covers most routine county expenditures.
But George Kouba, the county’s chief financial officer, said that when the current fiscal year ends, on Saturday, he expects the fund to have broken even. The fund is replenished through taxes and fees.
Little public dissent has come from board members since Schillerstrom released a draft budget this fall. Foremost among concerns has been finding a way to balance a slim 2 percent salary increase for the county’s 2,700 employees with the increased health insurance premiums they now must pay.
Board members and Schillerstrom hammered out a deal that will provide a 3 percent raise for workers earning less than $50,000 per year, which they said would cover the insurance rate increase.
But board member Edward Merkel (R-Elmhurst) cited one pitfall to the plan at Monday’s Finance Committee meeting, noting that people narrowly missing the cutoff could in fact end up with less.
“You’re treating people who are marginally above $50,000 a little bit unfairly,” he said.
