Kane County development director outlines FY2027 budget with 5% general-fund cut and continued revenue gains

Mark Van Kerkhoff, Kane County director of development, told the committee the department’s proposed fiscal 2027 budget includes a roughly 5% reduction to the general fund — about $60,000 — achieved primarily through a reorganization that reduced headcount by three positions and set an approved complement of 24 staff.

Van Kerkhoff said the department remains revenue positive, with permit fees and other program revenues covering more than its costs. "It's kind of like court light," he said of the county's administrative adjudication program, explaining that the monthly hearings let constituents resolve violations without hiring an attorney. He said permit and program revenues — including building and zoning fees and the KEEP energy-efficiency loan program — generally produce between $500,000 and $1,000,000 and that recent permit fee increases are expected to push net revenues to a bit above $1,000,000 in the coming year.

Why it matters: The development department now houses several formerly separate programs (including federally funded programs transferred in 2025 from the Office of Community Reinvestment), so budget choices affect a broad set of activities: building and zoning, property code enforcement, countywide planning, farmland protection, economic development and administration of grant programs such as CDBG and HOME.

Details and context: Van Kerkhoff briefed the committee on the department's special funds and recent grant activity. He said the department manages the economic development fund (seeded in part with riverboat funds), a blighted-structures fund, a farm-land protection fund and other special accounts. The department is administering a three-year, $750,000 federal grant for historic preservation out of those funds. He also said the department ran about $7,000,000 in ARPA-funded projects across five projects and currently has roughly $1,500,000 in pending grants and $2,100,000 in HUD allocations for HOME and CDBG.

Committee members pressed staff on the timing and revenue effects of fee increases and the end of ARPA-funded work. Van Kerkhoff said staff have not yet completed a before-and-after comparison of permit-fee revenues but expect clearer data in a few months; he added that ARPA funds supported externally administered programs and reimbursements and therefore should not reduce internal operational capacity.

What wasn't decided: The committee received the presentation and placed the reports on file by unanimous consent later in the meeting. No final committee vote on the FY2027 budget was recorded at this meeting.

Next steps: Staff said they will provide more detailed data on permit-fee revenue as it becomes available and will continue to brief the appropriate committees on related program updates.