By:  Diane Benjamin

Remember when I wrote about the County Board raising your property taxes?  http://blnnews.com/2016/03/10/zero-transparency-mclean-county/

Before the vote another vote was taken that would have mandated using some of the reserves instead of raising taxes.  The comments by some Board members to protect their “savings account” show how little respect they have for taxpayers.  If you didn’t listen to the meeting when I first posted it, your view of your elected Board Member may change when you do listen.

So how much do they have in reserves?  We won’t know for months.  The fiscal year ended 12/31/2015 and financial statement usually take 6 months to be issued.

The County Auditor has been doing quarterly reports however.  See the bottom of this page:  http://www.mcleancountyil.gov/index.aspx?NID=561

Why is the 4th quarter never done?  I guess citizens are supposed to read the financial statements instead of getting a nice recap.

Anyway, the 3rd Quarter statement below shows total uncommitted cash of $50,724,383.

Matt Sorensen(R) cast the deciding vote to NOT use the reserves.  Martin(R), Caisley(R), Finch(R), Gordon(D), Buchanan(R), Harris(D), Robustelli(D), Segobiano(D), and Rankin(D) thought you needed to pay more too.  (Think voting for a party really matters?)

It will be interesting to see how many departments went on spending sprees to use up their budget and therefore some of the reserves.  Too bad it takes MONTHS to get information.  (click to enlarge)

Note the Total budget to date is $83,768,004.  Why do they need more than $50 Million in reserves?