Kane County human services panel approves two new workforce-development positions funded by DCEO grant

The Kane County Human Services Committee on Wednesday approved two resolutions to add staff to the county's workforce development operations, members said, citing the need to meet corrective-action expectations from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) and to speed reimbursements to partner providers.

Adam Schauer, director of workforce development, told the committee the first resolution would create a training program specialist to bolster onboarding, partner training and compliance reviews. "We contract out with numerous partners in the community to provide programming," Schauer said, and one staff member could not handle the onboarding and compliance workload. Schauer said the position will report to the manager of compliance and performance and is intended to "enhance our oversight, our training capabilities, onboarding capabilities, and enhance our internal reviews." Schauer said the role is fully funded by a DCEO grant that typically operates on a two-year cycle.

County human-resources staff said they had graded the position as a "265," which establishes the salary range under the county's compensation policy; the jobs and finance committees will also review the need and the availability of funding. Schauer acknowledged the hiring risk for grant-funded roles, saying staff are informed that their positions depend on continuing grant dollars and that unemployment protections apply if funding ends.

The second resolution creates a senior staff accountant to support the county's fiscal-agent responsibilities for programs across Kane, Kendall and DeKalb counties. Schauer said the county acts as fiscal agent for multiple programs and must accelerate reimbursements to community partners, some of which cannot wait months for payment. "This is addressing one of those major issues that we are looking to fix," he said, describing the need to improve timeliness after DCEO cited fiscal processes in a corrective-action plan.

Both resolutions were moved and seconded, then approved by roll-call vote. Recorded votes were read into the record and the chair announced that the motions passed.

Next steps: the newly authorized positions will proceed through the jobs committee for classification and the finance committee for funding confirmation, and county staff said they will provide an updated org chart to committee members in advance of the jobs-committee review.