Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the County Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County finance committee weighs $222,000 joint-dispatch request and use of public-safety tax for salaries
Summary
Iroquois County finance committee discussed funding a $222,000 joint-dispatch request for FY26 and whether public-safety tax revenues should be used to pay telecommunicator salaries, with board members differing on the county's prior public promises and budget trade-offs.
Iroquois County finance committee members spent a large portion of their Sept. 3 meeting debating how to fund a $222,000 request for joint dispatch operations and whether public-safety tax revenue can be tapped for telecommunicator salaries. A staff member told the committee that "Eric has requested 222,000 and some change from the general fund. We only have budgeted a 132 [thousand]," and committee members said they had to find a way to close that gap before finalizing the FY26 budget.
The discussion mattered because the requested amount would significantly exceed the line the county had already budgeted, prompting questions about transfers from other funds and whether the county should use public-safety tax revenue to cover the difference.
Committee members pressed for options and trade-offs. One board member asked whether the county should split the cost between the general fund and the public-safety-tax fund; another suggested using capital-improvement reserves or investing funds to build cushion before transfers.
The most contested point was whether the public-safety tax could be used for salaries. A long-serving board member said that when the tax was sold to voters "we said it would not be used for salaries," noting the tax had been presented to the public as funding equipment and safety-related items. Other committee members said the county has, in prior years, used the fund to supplement dispatch salaries and that the county typically reconciles any year-end overage when payroll or operations exceed projected revenues.
Finance staff also told the committee the joint-dispatch fund appeared to be in the negative $28,000 in accounting software at the moment and reminded members that the county has historically absorbed year-end overages for the dispatch operation.
No final budget action was taken at the meeting. Committee members directed staff to continue working with the finance director to identify transfers and to present revised figures for next month's meeting; the committee said it wanted the FY26 draft budget placed on public display next month before forwarding to the full board.
The committee also noted other lingering budget items that must be resolved before adoption: contract-negotiation costs, final ETSB (joint dispatch) numbers, health-insurance renewals and the county capital-improvement transfers.
The committee chair said staff and finance would return with updated numbers and options, and the matter was left open for further review next month.
