Jim Dey: Many questions, few answers about Champaign County Board's plans
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Proposals to abolish two elected Champaign County offices and increase the sales tax have raised all kinds of questions about what the county board plans to do Thursday.
The first is pretty basic: What's this all about?
Neither Urbana Mayor Diane Marlin nor Champaign Mayor Deb Feinen knew a thing about any of it before reading a guest commentary on the issue by county Auditor George Danos in Sunday's News-Gazette.
"I was surprised to see it," said Marlin, who said county board leaders need to be more "transparent" about big proposals.
"The only thing I know about it is what I read in the newspaper," Feinen said. "I don't know enough about it to have an opinion."
In addition to questions about the specifics of the proposal and what the board has in mind for the revenue raised, there was another big question that was answered Tuesday afternoon.
Can the county ask voters if they wish to abolish the auditor's and coroner's offices while at the same time asking them to choose Democratic and Republican nominees for election to those offices in November?
State's Attorney Julia Rietz said the answer, based on a 1972 opinion from the Illinois Attorney General's Office, is yes.
She said if voters eliminate the offices in March, whoever is nominated in the party primaries will be "out of luck" in the November election.
Meanwhile, Danos, who let the cat out of the bag in his Sunday commentary, ratcheted up his rhetoric against those he charged with wanting to eliminate his office and raise taxes.
"The effort to eliminate the elected auditor is a power grab by the director of administration in cahoots with the board finance chair," he said, referring to Michelle Jett, an aide to County Executive Steve Summers, and board member Stephanie Fortado, respectively.
He said the sales-tax proposal was organized by the "Gang of Four" — Summers, Jett, Fortado and board Chair Kyle Patterson.
The board is scheduled to vote Thursday on placing a referendum on the March primary ballot asking voters if they wish to abolish the offices of coroner and auditor.
Also scheduled is a vote on whether to ask voters in the November general election if they will support a quarter-cent sales-tax increase that would generate an additional $7 million a year.
Danos said board members want to use that revenue for what so far have been "undisclosed purposes."
Both are important policy questions, but proponents, perhaps for tactical reasons, have not presented the issue for public debate.
Danos contends the county doesn't need the additional revenue. He said Tuesday he is hopeful the proposals either will be withdrawn or defeated.
"I expect the board resolution to be defeated with support from both parties," Danos said.
The question of eliminating county elected offices has come up from time to time. But there has been little appetite among board members to do so.
One exception was the recorder of deeds, a low-profile office that operated largely out of the public eye.
Voters approved merging the office with the county clerk, so it's still overseen by an elected official — Aaron Ammons.
In the event that the coroner and/or auditor would be abolished as elective offices, the county would still need to employ people to fulfill their roles.
The auditor's office has traditionally acted as a watchdog over county spending, the best example being Democratic Auditor Laurel Prussing keeping her eye on expenditures by Republican board members who were then in the majority.
Danos and others have argued the same kind of oversight will not be provided by an appointed auditor who is hired and fired by the board.
