Leaks in Illinois | Shelby County – Actions Have Consequences

Understanding the facts about county government would be a good starting point.

While the County Code outlines the powers and duties of the State’s Attorney, the State’s Attorney’s Office is not a county office but rather an office of the executive branch of the state government. The County Board has no control over that office when it comes to employment, contrary to some of the comments circulating on social media. A county board’s powers for that office are budgetary, as they approve the presented budget. The county board does not have the power to vote on the employment powers of an executive branch of state government.

Separation agreement

The former State’s Attorney hired an assistant with a verbal agreement that the employment would be through November 30, 2024. While we believe that a written agreement is always a better mechanism than a verbal agreement, we must keep in mind that officials Previous ones exercised the same freedom of verbal communication. agreements and benefits issued that cost taxpayers. The same select few who expressed outrage now remained silent when someone else was in office.

It is important to understand the triggers when a State Attorney resigns. After the resignation, any assistant who was working for that position will have his appointment cut. In this case, the SA resigned for two reasons: continuous harassment by a few select citizens and the other for personal business reasons. While many locals are excited about his resignation, they have not understood the consequences of that resignation.

With their assistant on family medical leave, they would be laid off following the SA’s resignation. Considering that the law prohibits termination while on FML, the employee would have a claim against the county for termination and the resulting cost to the county would be much greater than that resulting from signing a waiver of claims as part of the dismissal agreement.

A comparison would be similar to the union grievance recently settled by Shelby County Sheriff Brian McReynolds. Certain members received funds that we understand would never have happened if they had gone to arbitration because the actual records showed that they were not owed anything as alleged. Why resolve those claims? Because the SA, an expert in labor law, was leaving. This avoided the expense for the future SA of having to hire an employment law expert to handle the matter, just as the former SA Kroncke did. That cost would far exceed that of the agreement. It really comes down to a cost-benefit analysis, not a conspiracy to defraud taxpayers as some have implied.

While some have suggested that this was an orchestrated event, coordinated by the county board for the purpose of watching the new SA and seeing that it has very little money left in its budget to hire an ASA, nothing could be further from the truth. TRUE. .

While the actual budget figures reflect that there is enough money in SA’s new budget to hire an assistant, we have no reason to believe that the board would not do what is necessary to ensure that the State Attorney’s Office has what it needs to operate.

The sky is not falling

The law It’s pretty clear when it comes to budgets and what you can and can’t do, but you have to read it first. According to the law, in part, “After the approval of the county budget, Transfers of assignments can be made without a board vote..

Looking at the budget for SA OfficeIt is clear that there are funds available in the line item for an ASA and if that is not enough, there are other lines that can be drawn from, so there is no need to call a special meeting, which also creates additional expenses for taxpayers .

If an actual budget amendment is needed, the newly appointed SA can make the request and we suggest including the requested amount. The county board may then address the matter at a regular meeting. Doing this at a regular meeting avoids the cost of mandatory publication in the local newspaper for special meetings.